One day while going down the YouTube and Google rabbithole (probably started with a search or link or article about songwriting or music marketing or something), I stumbled onto a post by someone who was a strong advocate for Wordpress, and smashing Bandzoogle into the dirt. I won't feed into their negativity by linking to them...
But it got me thinking. And then coincidentally, recently someone starting up a new band asked me what I'd recommend about setting up a band website. As a person who has tried several platforms for various reasons and businesses (PHP, Drupal, Wordpress, Myspace, Google Checkout, Bandzoogle...) I do feel like I have a worthwhile answer for anybody asking the question about what to do about making yourself a band website.
When Cougar Magnum dissolved (not just for having a stupid band name) and I went solo with the bedroom-recorded self-produced pile of demos released as "First Kisses," I did try Wordpress for almost 2 years. And just the thought of going back to it makes me cringe. I do know that as far as build-a-site platforms go, WP is by far one of the easiest. For a musician/band, it was "at least 80%" more of a pain in the butt than Bandzoogle which I currently use to this day. When we reformed in 2010 as Windsor Oaks Band, we moved virtually all the posts, pictures, videos, everything over to Bandzoogle in a matter of a couple hours. With WordPress, every single little square and window and widget on your site is its own app, which you have to download and install and configure independently. Bandzoogle is basically an instant-WYSIWYG. (What you see is what you get.)
Sure, WP is free and open source, but then you have to keep an eye on your domain name, and worry about hosting, SSL Certificates (security), and developers updating their widgets (which can cause your stuff to break on your site with no notice until you get the old "something's wrong with your site" email from a random stranger who may have been interested in your band but now is turned off because your site wouldn't load correctly or was (a bunch of lorem ipsum) and now you look like a bunch of amateurs).
In my experience of talking to other musicians and web-guys, the people that love WordPress--and for good reason, some WP sites are totally badass and blow anything Bandzoogle could offer out of the water--consistently underestimate how much actual techy-cody-backend-system-awareness it takes to make a WP site work. For someone well-versed in the language and know-how of HTML, Java, Flash, XML and stuff, yes, WordPress is child's play. But trying to be a successful musician is a way different mindset than wanting to be awesome at building websites.
The tipping point: email marketing. While Bandzoogle's email marketing system is not perfect and could use some tweaks, it's still included its your monthly payment. And now that our list is nearing 3,000 subscribers, that would be an additional $20-$50 per month to factor in to with the hosting and domain and everything else you gotta pay for to maintain a "free" Wordpress site. I've been in this a long time, and tried other platforms in addition to WP. And for the $240 per year it has cost us to have a virtually flawless and absolutely professional looking site, Bandzoogle just makes since for us. Although there is no Autoresponder feature, the ability to spam-less-ly send literally thousands of emails at once is a very valuable thing. AND ONE MORE THING. If you're coming from a pre-existing email client like Constant Contact, iContact, AWeber (another potential nightmare for someone that wants to spend more time writing songs than dealing with computer screens), or even ReverbNation...Bandzoogle does not make your contacts jump through any additional hoops, quarantine them, or make them click a link in their email box to be a part of the list. And that last thing I would like to talk about a little more: most email clients make a new user click an email in their box to confirm their presence on your list. Since performing musicians get most of their mailing list subscribers at live gigs on paper and input them later (sometimes weeks later, if you have a regular job or are on tour or something) that extra "confirm" hoop can really put a damper on the numbers that actually end up as a subscriber.
Why the email list is more important than Facebook and Twitter combined: well, that deserves its own post in the future. But for now do some research and check out Dave Rose's book "All I Know About the Music Business I Learned from My Cousin Rick" or John Oszajca's Music Marketing Manifesto and let them convince you about why you and your bandmates should set some kind of goal every single gig you play for number of emails grabbed from the room you just played. Say 3. From now on, make it a band rule that you only get your "free" beer after you collect 3 email addresses. If you have 3 people in your band that's 9 emails per gig. If one of you is an overachiever, that's 10 emails per gig. At only 1 gig per week that's like 500 emails a year. After 4 years of being a band that's 2000+ emails, which is beginning to look like a successful business's email list. And hopefully after performing for 4 years you are tight enough and your songs are getting good enough that your music actually moves people and your list will grow organically.
+Why Email is more important than Facebook and Twitter
+How to get people to sign up on your mailing list
Anyway, I want to reiterate that I don't hate WordPress. In fact, I think it's probably a more superior invention and all-in-all a completely different animal than Bandzoogle. But for an aspiring musician who has to keep their eye on the big picture (cost vs. time vs. expectations vs. results), I would undoubtedly recommend Bandzoogle. And in all fairness I want to say that I'm currently exploring Google's blogger (hence these posts) / free site options and their capabilities so that I can switch to MailChimp or something and spend the "about-$20 per month" to get an Autoresponder system for my email list. I will let you know how that goes. My biggest fear, which I haven't investigated yet, is the possibility of the "confirm" hoop if and when I switch over.
But it got me thinking. And then coincidentally, recently someone starting up a new band asked me what I'd recommend about setting up a band website. As a person who has tried several platforms for various reasons and businesses (PHP, Drupal, Wordpress, Myspace, Google Checkout, Bandzoogle...) I do feel like I have a worthwhile answer for anybody asking the question about what to do about making yourself a band website.
When Cougar Magnum dissolved (not just for having a stupid band name) and I went solo with the bedroom-recorded self-produced pile of demos released as "First Kisses," I did try Wordpress for almost 2 years. And just the thought of going back to it makes me cringe. I do know that as far as build-a-site platforms go, WP is by far one of the easiest. For a musician/band, it was "at least 80%" more of a pain in the butt than Bandzoogle which I currently use to this day. When we reformed in 2010 as Windsor Oaks Band, we moved virtually all the posts, pictures, videos, everything over to Bandzoogle in a matter of a couple hours. With WordPress, every single little square and window and widget on your site is its own app, which you have to download and install and configure independently. Bandzoogle is basically an instant-WYSIWYG. (What you see is what you get.)
Sure, WP is free and open source, but then you have to keep an eye on your domain name, and worry about hosting, SSL Certificates (security), and developers updating their widgets (which can cause your stuff to break on your site with no notice until you get the old "something's wrong with your site" email from a random stranger who may have been interested in your band but now is turned off because your site wouldn't load correctly or was (a bunch of lorem ipsum) and now you look like a bunch of amateurs).
In my experience of talking to other musicians and web-guys, the people that love WordPress--and for good reason, some WP sites are totally badass and blow anything Bandzoogle could offer out of the water--consistently underestimate how much actual techy-cody-backend-system-
The tipping point: email marketing. While Bandzoogle's email marketing system is not perfect and could use some tweaks, it's still included its your monthly payment. And now that our list is nearing 3,000 subscribers, that would be an additional $20-$50 per month to factor in to with the hosting and domain and everything else you gotta pay for to maintain a "free" Wordpress site. I've been in this a long time, and tried other platforms in addition to WP. And for the $240 per year it has cost us to have a virtually flawless and absolutely professional looking site, Bandzoogle just makes since for us. Although there is no Autoresponder feature, the ability to spam-less-ly send literally thousands of emails at once is a very valuable thing. AND ONE MORE THING. If you're coming from a pre-existing email client like Constant Contact, iContact, AWeber (another potential nightmare for someone that wants to spend more time writing songs than dealing with computer screens), or even ReverbNation...Bandzoogle does not make your contacts jump through any additional hoops, quarantine them, or make them click a link in their email box to be a part of the list. And that last thing I would like to talk about a little more: most email clients make a new user click an email in their box to confirm their presence on your list. Since performing musicians get most of their mailing list subscribers at live gigs on paper and input them later (sometimes weeks later, if you have a regular job or are on tour or something) that extra "confirm" hoop can really put a damper on the numbers that actually end up as a subscriber.
Why the email list is more important than Facebook and Twitter combined: well, that deserves its own post in the future. But for now do some research and check out Dave Rose's book "All I Know About the Music Business I Learned from My Cousin Rick" or John Oszajca's Music Marketing Manifesto and let them convince you about why you and your bandmates should set some kind of goal every single gig you play for number of emails grabbed from the room you just played. Say 3. From now on, make it a band rule that you only get your "free" beer after you collect 3 email addresses. If you have 3 people in your band that's 9 emails per gig. If one of you is an overachiever, that's 10 emails per gig. At only 1 gig per week that's like 500 emails a year. After 4 years of being a band that's 2000+ emails, which is beginning to look like a successful business's email list. And hopefully after performing for 4 years you are tight enough and your songs are getting good enough that your music actually moves people and your list will grow organically.
+Why Email is more important than Facebook and Twitter
+How to get people to sign up on your mailing list
Anyway, I want to reiterate that I don't hate WordPress. In fact, I think it's probably a more superior invention and all-in-all a completely different animal than Bandzoogle. But for an aspiring musician who has to keep their eye on the big picture (cost vs. time vs. expectations vs. results), I would undoubtedly recommend Bandzoogle. And in all fairness I want to say that I'm currently exploring Google's blogger (hence these posts) / free site options and their capabilities so that I can switch to MailChimp or something and spend the "about-$20 per month" to get an Autoresponder system for my email list. I will let you know how that goes. My biggest fear, which I haven't investigated yet, is the possibility of the "confirm" hoop if and when I switch over.
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