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THE FAME HOUSE STACK

Marketing & E-Commerce
Technology for the New Music Industry
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
01.
Introduction

04.
The Fame House
E-Commerce Stack 12.
Marketing Stack Spotlight:
Social Contesting
06.
Make Commerce
Simpler for Everyone 13.
Marketing Stack Spotlight:
Email Marketing
07.
The Fame House
Marketing Stack 15.
Fame House Stack Case

09. Study: DJ Shadow -

FA M E H O U S E . N E T

The Mountain Will Fall

The Fame House
Album Release
Web Development Stack
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10. 19.
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Marketing Stack Spotlight: Marketing Technology

Analytics Lessons
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INTRODUCTION
By Mike Fiebach, Founder & CEO

IN THE SIX YEARS SINCE I founded Fame House, a

lot has changed. The rapid pace of digital innovation
has transformed how artists build and activate their
audiences, steering the industry away from traditional,
album cycle-driven marketing strategies toward a 365
days a year, omni-channel approach. The emergence,
proliferation, and mass adoption of direct to consumer
tools and social media have enabled this shift.
We are now firmly in the era of the music and technology
industry—where comprehensive digital audience growth,
management, and monetization is king.
In an era where new digital platforms emerge
regularly, the medium itself is often as important as the
message, and the message must speak to a broader
artist-driven storyline that translates across platforms.
To thrive in this new paradigm, artists, labels, and
managers must embrace a technology-agnostic
strategy, combined with an omni-channel digital
branding approach. This may sound like a lot of
jargon, but I believe the substance behind these
buzzwords is the foundation for success in the new
music industry.
What does it mean to be technology-agnostic? It is
a strategy that Fame House has employed since day
one and is something I learned through five years of
working with DJ Shadow; it means that in this era, we TO THRIVE IN THIS NEW
must remain nimble when it comes to tech. There are
new platforms and tools that emerge almost daily, and PARADIGM, ARTISTS, LABELS,
we need to build our businesses to adapt to the ever-
evolving digital landscape. AND MANAGERS MUST EMBRACE
A TECHNOLOGY-AGNOSTIC
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What does it mean to have an omni-channel digital

branding approach? This is also something we have STRATEGY, COMBINED WITH
utilized at Fame House since the early days of our
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company. It means that the artist’s brand itself reaches AN OMNI-CHANNEL DIGITAL
beyond any singular medium. The goal of any company
represented in this digital age should be to build a brand BRANDING APPROACH.
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that transcends the platforms themselves.

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If you implement the cutting edge use of digital tools, the messages they convey through their art would be
while integrating a consistent brand approach across much less powerful if that art were initially exhibited
platforms, you will set yourself up for success to grow, in a museum, rather than on a wall on the street. The
engage, and monetize your audience. innovation can derive from the medium (of course, I
must give credit where credit is due for the “Medium
The medium as a powerful tool is one of the primary is the Message” theory generally). The artists and
reasons tech companies have had so much impact on early adopters who utilize new technology in innovative
the music business; at a certain early-adoption point, ways benefit from using the medium as the message.
they brought something to the table that did not exist
elsewhere. These new tools and platforms become Fame House expands upon the “medium as the
a necessity to an artist’s marketing, branding—and, message” strategy by working with artists and their
increasingly, their monetization portfolio. Simple teams to ensure they properly engage, grow, and
examples of this pattern include Snapchat releasing manage their entire digital presence with a consistent
a disappearing message for the first time, Musical.ly strategy. When an artist has a holistic approach to
innovating with UGC-powered short form video synced brand and voice across their properties, they are in
with music, and even going back to Twitter releasing an optimal position to resonate with their audience
140-character text-based broadcasting, Medium comprehensively. How a single social media tool is
innovating in-stream blog commenting, Instagram utilized is inherently very different from how other
releasing everyday photography tools, and Spotify social media platforms, tools, email lists, websites,
and others enabling on-demand music streaming. An and web stores are leveraged; but the visual and tonal
expansion of this concept is Instagram building upon representation should be consistent across all of
its foundation to release 15-second, then 60-second them. The ultimate leverage artists and digital brands
video; Instagram releasing their version of “stories;” and have over the tech companies is the fact that they
Facebook implementing 360 video and photos. Each (the artists and brands) own and control their voice
medium can have new media-delivery tools to expand on and their brand regardless of the medium; they are
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the initial technological competency, thus broadening its the only representatives who can convey how their
use cases for creators and consumers. brand is communicated within the specific platform
or message mechanism. Without those unique
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Fame House's expertise in how each platform is voices, brands, and their engaged followers, the tech
specifically utilized enables our clients to leverage companies’ platforms would be useless. Fame House
each tool uniquely. This is a strategy that can calls this the “storytelling paradigm”—the profiles
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enable the technology medium itself to become the controlling this paradigm are the artists and
message in certain instances, which can be incredibly brands themselves.
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powerful. I analogize it to Banksy or Shepard Fairey—

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The combination of the medium-as-the-message

strategy and the storytelling paradigm enables artists, Check out our Fame House Music Marketing &
managers, labels, and their marketers to break out of E-commerce Stack on Product Hunt Here
the shell of outdated approaches. This is no longer
about an album cycle—it is about the Artist Cycle. Now, Follow Fame House on Medium for more updates
more than ever, that cycle never stops and is constantly and insights from our team.
evolving. As the Artist Cycle moves forward, the cutting
edge, technology-adaptive businesses that optimize
engagement through the use of technology and branding
will generate ongoing revenue opportunities for direct to
consumer commerce, streaming, and sponsorship.
WE ARE IN THE ERA OF AUDIENCE MONETIZATION
Access to the audience is more direct than ever. We
are in a world where the enablers of the connection to
the audience are mighty tech companies, but because
of that intermediary, the artist and rightsholders
control their voice, brand, and destiny more than
ever. Those who build a technology-agnostic strategy
while prioritizing omni-channel storytelling and brand
marketing are the entities that will succeed in the new
model. I am just happy that Fame House is a key part
of this ride. We believe we are innovating and defining
what it means to be a digital agency focused on
audience monetization in the new music business.
Fame House is sharing some of the lesser known
pieces of our music marketing and e-commerce stack
by releasing this @Product Hunt collection in an
effort to share some of our technology tools beyond
our walls, and to open a dialogue with other marketers
and artists about the tools they are using within this
new paradigm.
If you have experience with any alternatives to these
tools, or if you are a founder with a new tool that you
think is best-in-class, drop me a line:
twitter.com/mfiebach
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THE FAME HOUSE

E-COMMERCE STACK
By Dan Conway, Director, D2C

FAME HOUSE HAS THE in-house capabilities to build,

manage, and evolve an artist’s entire e-commerce
operation, including: store management, store design
and development, product design and production,
warehousing, order logistics, and customer service.
Utilizing our tech-agnostic approach, we’ve built a
commerce stack that is nimble and adaptive to meet the
needs of emerging artists, superstars, and brands alike.

"ONE OF THE PRIMARY BENEFITS

OF SHOPIFY IS ITS OPEN API..."

Throughout the years, we’ve managed artist

commerce on nearly every major platform out there.
In the early Fame House days, TopSpin was a favorite
for its expertise in the music business. We’ve also
used Woocommerce, Drupal Commerce, Bandcamp,
Magento, Miva, Gumroad, Clickly, custom platforms,
and more.
Currently, Shopify is our primary commerce platform
solution for its perfect mix of solid core commerce
functionality coupled with a flexible environment.
We’ve invested in a custom robust technology stack
built on top of Shopify that allows us to customize
themes, layouts, styling, purchase flow, and overall user
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experience to match the aesthetic and goals of each

client. Our custom Shopify stack is built to be nimble
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across the needs of artists, entertainers, and brands

alike, and is so flexible that in some instances we are
able to spin up a store in under 24 hours, if necessary.
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One of the primary benefits of Shopify is its open

API, which has led to an enormous library of pre-built
applications and resources. This gives us the ability to
cater to specific client needs without having to always
build custom solutions each time. Some of our go-to
applications on Shopify are: Sendowl, which powers
digital content delivery; Shipstation, which manages
the communication and logistics of customer orders
with our many warehouses; Jakprints, which gives us
the ability to print apparel on-demand as orders come
in; and Zendesk, which powers our customer service
operation.
While this commerce stack is perfect for our
current needs and business, we are always
researching improvements and emerging
technology solutions. The crossroads of music
and technology is a place filled with a ton of
opportunity, but also complexities. By positioning
ourselves as a tech-agnostic, service-focused
business, we can continue to serve our clients –
building, growing, and monetizing their audiences.
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MAKE COMMERCE
SIMPLER
FOR EVERYONE
A FLEXIBLE E-COMMERCE PLATFORM
By Guest Piece By Tommy Walker, Editor-in-Chief, Shopify

SHOPIFY IS BUILT ON a few core principles, such as

"Get shit done" and "Act like an owner," but the most
important guiding principle we all follow religiously is
"Make commerce simpler for everyone."
It influences every level of what we do, from the admin
that's built for the day to day operations, to the app
store to easily install new functionality for your online
shop, to the content we develop, and even the APIs our
technology partners can use to create even more cool
custom functionality.
Every team at Shopify is dedicated to this vision,
because we don't just see it as a way to make better
software, but as a way to dramatically improve the lives
of the people who use it.
That mission is what gets many of us out of bed in the
morning. We're focused on building the things that help
others build their own thing, and we're constantly blown
away (and humbled) by how our customers use the
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products we build and put their spin on it to push their

own creations out into the world.
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That many of these things weren't possible even just a

few short years ago because the technology got in the
way... it's inspiring... and it's a great thing to be a part of.
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THE FAME HOUSE

MARKETING STACK
By Katonah Rafter, VP, MARKETING

ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL ELEMENTS of our

success is our ability to adapt quickly. Whether
we’re responding to changing trends in the market
or adjusting to shifting client timelines, our ability to
change course mid-stream is arguably among our
strongest assets.
The reality is that plans are almost never executed
as they were originally envisioned—especially in the
digital world. The technology-fueled advent of real-time
culture means marketers need to always be ready to
pivot their strategy on a dime, to act on new trends as
they emerge, and to make quick decisions about where
we invest resources.
To navigate these dynamics successfully, our team
has built up a massive and ever-changing arsenal of
tools—our marketing stack—which we leverage to help
our clients successfully bring their visions to life. When
we need to make a quick call on how to effectively
achieve that end, or how best to shift course when the
performance isn’t meeting our goals, our marketing
stack is our secret weapon.
Time and again, we’ve seen the impact that picking
the right tools can have on an artist’s or a project’s
success. As our CEO, Mike Fiebach, put it, the medium
itself is a part of the story, helping to shape its
meaning for fans and the broader media. But what
works for one artist today may not work for another—
or even the same artist—tomorrow, and it’s our job to When evaluating whether a new tool is worth testing
help them figure out what will. internally or pitching to a client, we look at a few
important criteria:
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We make it our business to stay on top of new and

emerging platforms, and we constantly experiment • Does the experience add value for fans? Are we
with them. From Snapchat to Huzza (now Kickstarter asking them to do something consistent with their
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Live), our clients have always been among the first to existing behavior, or to change it? If the latter, what
use emerging tools to effectively connect with their makes it worth it to them to do so?

audiences.
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• Will it help us reach new fans, or is this a place where

the artist’s existing audience is already active? How will
it help us strengthen the bond between artist and fan? 

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AFTER SIX YEARS, OUR TEAM HAS COLLECTIVELY TESTED HUNDREDS OF
TOOLS. HERE’S A SAMPLING OF OUR CURRENT MARKETING STACK
• CRM / PAID MEDIA / • ANALYTICS
 • LIVESTREAMING
 • SOCIAL, ETC.

DATA COLLECTION + BuzzAngle + Kickstarter Live (f.k.a. Huzza) + Facebook

+ Hive.co 
 + Nielsen + Twitter

+ ExactTarget / Salesforce + Next Big Sound • VR / AR + Snapchat

Marketing Cloud + Google Analytics + Vantage VR
 + Instagram

+ MailChimp + Mixpanel + Tumblr
+ Fanbridge + Flurry • SOCIAL CONTESTING / UGC
 + Medium
+ Litmus + Brand24 + Metablocks
 + Musical.ly / Live.ly

+ Google Analytics / + Simply Measured
 + Lemonade
 + Flipagram

Audience Center + Domo + Hive.co
 + WeHeartIt

+ Funnel.io + SocialRank + Pinterest

• CREATIVE / CONTENT
+ AdStage + Curalate + Linktree
CREATION

+ AdHawk + Publicfast
• MOBILE APPS + FAN CLUBS
 + Giphy

+ SuperPhone + Like2Buy
+ Disciple 
 + Canva

+ Gather
+ Top Fan + AppMoji / MojiKeyboard
 • EVENT MARKETING

+ Vertical Mass
+ Supercoil + Snaps
 + Stanza

+ AdRoll
+ Mobile Roadie + KnowMe
 + Songkick
+ SmartURL
+ Social Ladder + VideoPad
 + Bandsintown
+ Linkfire
+ Membership 2 + Design Pickle
 + CrowdAlbum
+ Bold Commerce + Everyday Slomo + Show.co
+ ThingLink


• Will fans care, or is this something only other The more of the above questions our team can
marketers will find interesting? 
 compellingly answer about a new tool, the more
likely we are to give it a shot. Not every experiment is
• Is there a first-mover advantage for our client? Are successful, but those that are get added to our stack,
they able to use it in an innovative way? Will it garner becoming solutions we’ll go back to time and again for
media coverage to help generate awareness for their future projects.
larger campaign?

As trends have come and gone over the years, we’ve
tested and worked with countless others, from Topspin
THAT BOND FUELS THE ARTIST CYCLE, to Google Wildfire to Radian6 to Woobox. No matter
KEEPING FANS ENGAGED YEAR-ROUND which tools we use, we always seek to create amazing
experiences for fans that strengthen their connection to
TO SUSTAIN A HEALTHY EVERGREEN the music and artist, and to help our clients reach their
BUSINESS. business goals.
Our clients who are most successful in digital have
• Will this tool help the artist tell their story? Does it two things in common: (1) they are open to trying new
add to it, or distract from it? Are we able to tailor the things, and (2) they have a clear vision for their brand
experience and design to our client’s and what they want to achieve. This combination gives
brand?
 us the freedom to experiment without diluting their
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brand, as well as a north star to navigate by when

• What is the specific value for our client? Does it have making quick decisions about where to invest resources.
the potential to actually drive revenue? Will we be able to
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show our client a clear ROI—whether in actual revenue or Everything comes back to the strength of an artist’s
valuable assets, like fan data—after the campaign is over?
 brand—their story—and the emotional connection fans
feel to music and the artist. That bond fuels the Artist
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• Will this tool help our team be more effective, whether Cycle, keeping fans engaged year-round to sustain a
by saving them time or giving them access to new healthy evergreen business. The right mix of tools is
insights or capabilities? 

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essential to initiate and cultivate that bond.

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THE FAME HOUSE

WEB DEVELOPMENT
STACK
By Zaakir Carter, Creative Project Coordinator

STAYING AHEAD OF THE DIGITAL curve is crucial to making

a statement on the web. We live in an age where digital
technology evolves and improves on a weekly basis—where
new possibilities are discovered, workflow is streamlined, and
user experience (UX) becomes more effective.
Our team has stockpiled modern and forward-thinking
technologies that make us more nimble, adaptive, and—
ultimately—disruptive in the verticals we serve.
Some new technologies that we utilize include:
Design Tools – Adobe Creative Suite 2017
(Photoshop & Illustrator)
Prototyping Tools – Sketch, Invision, Webflow
Developer Tools – Wordpress, Zapier, Beanstalk
Staying nimble with our plugins for web development is VISIT HERE
also very important. Here are some of our recent favorites:
Yoast SEO
At Fame House, we build our clients' websites with SEO
best practices in mind. SEO is an ongoing task, so we
implement the Yoast SEO plugins during site builds.
The Yoast SEO plugins give the site administrator a
way to easily optimize their site with one tool while
providing a real time page analysis functionality that
helps the site admin optimize page content, image titles,
meta descriptions, and other important SEO tasks.
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Additionally, the plugins provide tools to optimize videos,

socials, and redirects.
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Bandsintown Plugins VISIT HERE

Bands are always touring and new tour dates are tour dates to the website automatically while managing
constantly being added to their itinerary, which means tour dates through Facebook and setting up custom
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fans need to be updated frequently on new tour dates. links for each event. Also, users will see local events
With the Bandsintown plugins, the site admin can post highlighted to ensure they see the event closest to them.
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MARKETING STACK SPOTLIGHT

ANALYTICS
By Deb Keller, Senior Manager, Accounts

WHEN WE ASSESS opportunities for our clients,

it’s critical that we do so by using any and all data
available to us. We need to think strategically about
each clients’ business objectives within key, data-
driven factors, and ask challenging questions, such as:
Who is our audience?
When analyzing who the fans are, native social
analytics are always a great place to start. From
the more obvious (age, gender and location
demographics), to more in-depth (lifestyle habits
based on purchase behavior and brand affinity), we
seek every level of data we can add to our “audience
snapshot.” Numerous resources exist that pull
similar data, often presented in unique ways for
various needs. Then, there are platforms like Simply
Measured that can aggregate data from several
channels into one, clean dashboard.
With our audience snapshot assessment, we can
better determine how campaigns will look across
channels based on the audience defined for each
objective, or even assess new platform opportunities
based on how well our audience aligns with that of a
new platform.
How does our audience engage?
Beyond understanding how our marketing reaches
and engages on digital, we dig into how fans are
talking about our brands. Platforms like Brand24 on them, and where we might have opportunities
are helpful for hashtag and keyword tracking, to grow or monetize the audience. Flurry similarly
highlighting the volume and context in which fans helps us to analyze metrics for clients with mobile
are conversing about our brands online. Keyword apps. Aggregators are key when handling various
tracking also provides some insight into sentiment, data points in any circumstance where there are
though this often requires a more critical view, as multiple sets of analytics. Next Big Sound is a great
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sentiment is frequently skewed by technological tool for exploring data across streaming and socials
limitations in written emotion interpretation. over time, including the ability to perform top-level
Automated sentiment analysis and sarcasm have competitive analysis.
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rarely worked well together.

With more context around where and how our
Website analytics call for our most notable go-to audience engages, we can better strategize around
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with Google Analytics, further showcasing how we’re what type of content to create, where to distribute
driving traffic to our websites, how fans are engaging it, when to distribute it, what marketing channels
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will drive the highest impact for each initiative, how
to expand our messaging beyond our immediate
audience, and more.
How does our marketing impact sales?
There will always be a variety of business objectives
that we set our digital marketing goals against, the
most typical KPI being sales. Outside of UTM and
conversion tracking that more directly indicate sales
performance, we always want to think critically
about how our digital efforts can indirectly move
the needle. Outside of Nielsen Soundscan POS data,
BuzzAngle helps us to analyze music sales data
across demographics, breaking down sales, streams,
spins, and views, whether daily or historically, and
by market, including retailer breakdowns. With this
data, we can bridge the gap between trends in our
digital marketing with trends in sales, determining
the correlations to continue driving sales objectives.
It’s not enough to brainstorm, develop, and execute
campaigns. It’s not even enough to simply report on
how successful (or not) a campaign performed. By
critically analyzing the data available to us, we can
make informed decisions on content distribution,
campaign strategy, media placement, acquisition
tactics and market opportunities. It almost goes
without saying that, as an agency, we pride ourselves
on our data-driven approach.
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MARKETING STACK SPOTLIGHT

SOCIAL CONTESTING
By Katonah Rafter, VP, Marketing

IN ADDITION TO GREATER audience engagement,

social contesting tools can be utilized to capture fan
data and allow us greater insight into the online habits
of our most dedicated fans. Actually selecting a tool
is no easy task though, given the recent explosion of
apps promising unique experiences, fan acquisition
and much more. However, after several years of
testing, we have been able to cut through the noise
and identify a few key platforms that not only allow us
to create fully customizable contesting apps, but also
capture more valuable data.
Hive.co has long been a preferred partner of Fame
House. In addition to contesting widgets, we can use
the technology to build email for media download
widgets, email/social gated content, and smart links.
For each fan that enters one of these campaigns,
we are able to view their name and email (with
consent to contact), as well as location, interests,
and social handles if they opt in to connect them.
The information is seamlessly aggregated into a be fully vetted against the campaign needs prior
searchable CRM system, allowing us to build highly to facilitating its setup. If it’s not the right fit, we
targeted email campaigns and re-marketing lists for don’t force it—we often work with our own in-house
future advertising. creative team to create bespoke contests that work
for our clients’ needs.
Metablocks has allowed us the ability to build more
robust applications, such as photo/meme generators, Above all, though, you must consider the fan’s
Tweematic applications, and Spotify Sweepstakes. experience. Is the end product something a fan
Depending on the client’s business objective, we will enjoy engaging with? Is it simple for them to
can leverage at least one of their tools to meet our understand the entry mechanism and to easily
marketing goals. complete it? Does it function smoothly on mobile,
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where most traffic from social will come from?

To choose the platform that is right for your specific Regardless of your campaign’s goals, a clunky user
campaign, it’s important to firmly establish the ‘end experience can instantly negate whatever incentive
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goal’ and define what exactly you are looking to you’re offering fans for entry. But if you combine a
achieve. A platform geared towards fan acquisition compelling incentive and clear messaging with an
might lack the capabilities to drive conversation easy to use (and understand) experience, your contest
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and engagement. An application should always or sweepstakes will make an impact.

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MARKETING STACK SPOTLIGHT

EMAIL MARKETING
By Brian Aranda, Senior Manager, Data & Engagement

IN OUR PREVIOUS WHITE PAPER, Owning Your

Audience, Building a Direct-to-Fan Strategy in 2016, we
covered the methods in which we both cultivate and
monetize our owned audience. As email continues to be
a significant sales driver for our clients, offering bespoke
email solutions allows us to be flexible platform to
platform, while upholding best in class email campaigns.
The biggest factors of helping clients find an email
service provider (ESP), are traditionally budget and
business objectives.
The Build
When building our emails, many of our Marketers are
using Brackets as their HTML editor of choice. This
gives us more flexibility than building an email directly
in a platform’s HTML editor. Brackets allows us to
live-preview an email as we build, while saving multiple
versions of the HTML to keep tabs on revisions as they
occur. From here, it is just a simple copy paste into one
of our go-to ESPs below to begin testing.
ExactTarget / Salesforce Marketing Cloud
ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud) is our
preferred ESP here at Fame House. The feature set is
far and away more advanced than other platforms, and
allows us to create complex customer journeys, trigger
sends, and automate list segmentation that would
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otherwise be a very time-intensive process. These

features are especially useful for an artist with a healthy
e-commerce operation. ExactTarget’s advanced feature
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set isn’t always necessary for an artist’s email program,

and the price tag can often be cost prohibitive for
smaller artists.
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FanBridge
FanBridge is also one of our go-to ESPs, as it is built
specifically for content creators. Built-in integrations with
SoundCloud and Spotify allow artists to gate content in
exchange for a subscription or email address, increasing
the value of every single send. There are also out-of-the-
box solutions for integrating tour dates, and to geo-target
fans for those artists that spend a majority of their time on
the road. In terms of pricing, FanBridge is very reasonable,
and is based on number of sends per month.
Full Feature Set
MailChimp
Last but certainly not least is MailChimp. This platform
is sneaky, in that its simplicity often overshadows how
much is actually under the hood. Robust automations,
A/B testing, custom forms, and flexible email templates
are just a few of the options that make MailChimp
a fantastic solution for artists of any size. Though
it is helpful, an advanced knowledge of HTML is not
necessary here, as the drag and drop editor does all the
heavy lifting for you. MailChimp is very easy to scale
with a growing fan base, and has a great free tier for
artists who are just beginning to build their subscribers.
Full Feature Set
Testing
Once our emails are ready to go, we run it through
rigorous testing via Litmus, which ensures that images
are optimized, links are accurate, and most importantly,
emails are rendering accurately across email clients and
devices.
Though these are the three platforms we use most
regularly, there a number of platforms that we have
encountered, including Aweber, Constant Contact, and
many others. Every platform has different nuances and
quirks, but building a solid foundation for sends will ensure
a high deliverability to your list of subscribers, regardless
of platform.
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FAME HOUSE STACK CASE STUDY

DJ SHADOW - THE MOUNTAIN WILL FALL

ALBUM RELEASE
By Nick Rizzuto, Senior Manager, Marketing & Strategy

When DJ Shadow began working on his latest album 1. Tailor direct-to-fan offers and messaging tailored
in July of 2015, he took to Twitter to describe the specifically to the avid DJ Shadow fan base.
challenges of the artistic process. He concluded:
2. Institute a long tail album release campaign
with a wide pre-order window in order to build
up the significance of the release and capitalize on
marketing moments to spread the reach of DJ Shadow’s
audience.
3. Create cohesive branding around the album across
all DJ Shadow channels as well as a central hub for the
One fan pointed out that the last bit would make for a pre-order on TheMountainWillFall.com
compelling album title. As a result, DJ Shadow’s first 4. Amplify key marketing moments that already
full-length in 5 years, The Mountain Will Fall began as a existed around milestones like music videos, late night
conversation between he and his fans. performances, etc.
The Mountain Will Fall was released almost one year later 5. Between these key marketing moments, create new
in June 2016 to great acclaim from both fans and critics. tent poles at key strategic times to sustain momentum
From the success of the lead single “Nobody Speak” with by leveraging creative assets.
Run the Jewels, to Shadow’s new recurring Beats 1 show
#Radioface, to a new BBC Essential Mix, to the worldwide 6. Leverage our marketing stack throughout to grow
The Mountain Will Fall tour, 2016 was perhaps the highest and convert Shadow’s owned audience.
profile year for Shadow in the time that we at Fame House
This strategy, in combination with great new music from
first began working with him in 2006.
Shadow, resulted in a #1 position on the Billboard and
We began the rollout of The Mountain Will Fall on March iTunes Electronic music charts.
29th, 2016 with a cryptic video across Shadow’s
Premium Offers for the Heads
socials that utilized branding elements from the album’s
In the years that we’ve worked alongside Shadow, we
cover and simply stated the name of the album atop
have come to deeply understand the dynamics and
15 seconds of new music from the album’s title track.
behaviors of his fans, who have been among some of
This video directed to TheMountainWillFall.com, where
the most die-hard fans in the music industry since the
fans were prompted to opt-in to exclusive updates
release of Shadow’s classic Endtroducing. We knew that
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throughout the course of the release. From this very first

(like Shadow himself) his fans are fiendish collectors
video, our aim was to establish the significance of the
who gravitate toward high quality, limited edition items.
album while allowing DJ Shadow’s superfans a front row
So, we set out to create multiple unique and premium
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seat to album-related content as it was released.

pre-order items that we knew fans wouldn’t hesitate to
In order to achieve this, we collaborated with Mass Appeal get their hands on.
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Records on a comprehensive digital pre-order and release

marketing strategy with the following approach:
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The first of these items was limited quantity of vivid screenprint the album artwork and the amazing videos from the
posters that leveraged the iconic album art designed by Paul album’s singles (“The Mountain Will Fall,” “The Sideshow,”
Insect, which came signed by Shadow himself. and “Nobody Speak”).

We also collaborated with Ebbets Field for a very limited

run of flannel grounds crew jackets that served as the
ultimate collector’s item for Shadow fans.
These premium items were offered alongside more
standard, less-expensive pre-order albums such as vinyl,
CDs, and posters. All pre-order customers received an These moments each stoked the excitement of existing
instant download of the initial album single, as well as fans and provided them content to share that then
downloads of all other singles from the album as they served as hooks to acquire new potential fans. On the
were released over the next three months. whole, Shadow’s online audience across social, e-mail,
and streaming platforms grew by a total of over 12%
A Long Tail Pre-Order Approach over the course of The Mountain Will Fall campaign.
The team also made the strategic decision to launch We believe that this growth would have been much less
the pre-order (via a splash page on TheMountainWillFall. substantial if we had applied a shorter term pre-order or
com) about three months before the release of the release flight.
album so that fans were given the ability to purchase the
album in conjunction with their first listen of new music. Segmented & Behavioral Email Marketing
This approach resulted in about 40% of overall pre- Throughout the pre-order period, we also heavily
order sales occurring in the first week alone, and 60% leveraged segmenting of Shadow’s email list to
of sales of the premium bundles in this same amount drive specific segments of fans toward conversion.
of time. As mentioned above, we collected email addresses
from the pre-order page on TheMountainWillFall.com
We knew that the excitement from the new song, “The beginning in March and provided these particular
Mountain Will Fall,” would drive super fans to go after subscribers with updates before any other subset of fan
these premium bundles immediately, and we also knew throughout the campaign.
that sales would peak again around the actual release
of the album. The challenge in between the initial launch We then divided the remainder of Shadow’s email list
and release week, however, was to create moments into recent and legacy fans; fans that subscribed prior
using content surrounding the album in order to sustain to ~2011 were provided with messaging throughout
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sales momentum. the campaign that focused on the upcoming release

of The Mountain Will Fall as a milestone within the
Following the initial launch, each new piece of content larger context of Shadow’s career, whereas newer fans
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around the album resulted in an additional spike in sales that had subscribed to his list from recent tours (e.g,
that would not have been possible within a shorter pre- 2014/15’s Renegades of Rhythm tour with Cut Chemist)
order window. To amplify these moments, Fame House received messaging focused more on the new music
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and Mass Appeal collaborated on over 30 pieces of and videos themselves.

micro-content, such as GIFs and videos, derived from
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We also conducted a substantial amount of A/B testing
to convert these different subsets of fans into pre-order
purchasers and tested variables such as which products
(vinyl, CDs, posters, etc.) were mentioned in the subject
line, whether photos, GIFs, or collages of the pre-order
items were more effective, etc. As we approached the
album’s street date, we increased the email frequency
to just about weekly, but leveraged Shopify sales data
to exclude fans that already per-ordered so as not to
over-message or annoy them and to continue to work
to convert the remaining fans to purchasers. As a result
of this approach, each list-wide email blast directly
contributed to the total pre-order sales.
Release Week
Again, we knew from previous pre-orders with Shadow
and across our client base that release week would
Thursday, the day before album release, was marked
naturally be our second largest peak in sales throughout
by the launch of Shadow’s new radio show series on
the entirety of the campaign. We sought to amplify that
Beats 1, entitled #Radioface, which featured longer form
spike as much as possible by deploying a variety of
previews of tracks from The Mountain Will Fall.
conversation-worthy tactics and content each day of
release week.
This week kicked off with a premiere of one of the
album’s standout tracks, “The Sideshow” featuring Ernie
Fresh, on Beats 1 with Zane Lowe on a Monday. We then
followed up this premiere with a packaging reveal video
featuring an astronaut carefully dismantling The Mountain
Will Fall vinyl and CD (produced by Mass Appeal).

Finally, we began album release day with a personal

note written by Shadow to thank his fans, which was
distributed across his social platforms.
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At this point, fans had heard 3-4 singles from the

Next, we conducted the first ever music video premiere
album, so we decided to tease the remaining tracks via
via Facebook Live for Shadow’s video for “The Sideshow,”
an Instagram mosaic (see below), where nine 30-45
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using OBS to broadcast a a pre-recorded video directly

second videos comprised a mosaic that combined to
to Facebook. This resulted in around 60k views on the
display the full The Mountain Will Fall album cover when
video and the highest-engaging social media post of the
viewed from DJ Shadow’s profile. The mosaic resulted
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album campaign.
in 12k+ views of the videos and a heightened level of
anticipation for the full album release among fans.
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From here, our focus turned to marketing around the
world-wide The Mountain Will Fall tour in support of the
album. We leaned heavily on geo-targeted social, email,
and mobile tour marketing to drive fans in specific
regions to purchase tickets for their nearest stop on the
tour. We also continued the release of custom creative
content derived from the album creative assets in the
form of an animated The Mountain Will Fall tour trailer
that garnered over 100k views.
At the end of the day, our content-heavy, long tail release
approach resulted in one of DJ Shadow’s highest
periods of digital audience growth, fan engagement, and
The album release, new videos and content were all direct-to-fan merchandise sales ever.
amplified through Shadow’s sizable owned audience Technology Stack
across his email list, social media channels, and mobile The following platforms / tools were included
app. Between these marketing tactics and the organic throughout the course of the campaign:
impact of all of the press and fan excitement, the release
of The Mountain Will Fall was one of the highest impact • Brand24
days on record in terms of social media impressions and • Genius
website traffic. • GIPHY
• Google Analytics
Post-Release • Linkfire
However, the actual street date of The Mountain Will • OBS (Open Broadcast Software)
Fall only marked the beginning of our work to amplify • Shopify
Shadow’s latest work to new listeners. After the release, • Social Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
we continued to utilize segmented email marketing and • Streaming Platforms: SoundCloud, Bandcamp,
new creative assets across Shadow’s digital channels to Apple Music, Spotify
drive awareness around the album.
The highest impact post-release milestone was the
release of the official video for “Nobody Speak”
featuring Run The Jewels on August 24th, which has
since garnered over 7.5 million views. Leading into the
release of the video, we teased the tone of voice of
the forthcoming video with political campaign posters
featuring Shadow, Killer Mike, and El-P posing with lyrics
from “Nobody Speak.”
The video was first premiered digitally by Funny or Die
on August 24th, and then was later uploaded to DJ
Shadow, Run the Jewels, and Mass Appeal properties.
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It was then quickly spread across the blogosphere and

social media to rave reviews. We also partnered with
Giphy to generate a series of “Nobody Speak” GIFs that
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capitalized on the signature look and feel of the video in

combination with the salacious, tongue-in-cheek lyrics
of Run the Jewels. Lastly, we released a new, exclusive
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12” vinyl of the single in conjunction with the video

release, which featured never-before-heard instrumental
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and a cappella versions of the track.

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MARKETING TECHNOLOGY LESSONS

A FEW THINGS WE’VE

LEARNED
By Katonah Rafter, VP, MARKETING

• Tools that facilitate better ways to capture quality

fan data (e.g. an email address) are among the most
valuable for our team and our clients. These are
solutions our team will come back to again and again.
See our white paper on owned audiences for more.

• Customization is key. Our clients and their fans want
experiences that are tailored to their brand and story,
and if something doesn’t align with our own standards of
polish and professionalism, we do not use it.
• Enterprise-level solutions are almost never the
right fit for our team, or our clients. For the price,
they typically aren’t flexible enough to accommodate
each client’s unique needs, and they rarely live up to
their promises to save our team time. When they do,
they often require significant additional investment
beyond the platform fees and licenses, and dedicated
resources to maintain. There are exceptions, but this
is generally true.

• Premium social publishing tools are not worth the
investment. We’ve yet to find a solution capable of
sustaining feature parity with each platform’s native
publishing tools, and we need to be able to utilize
everything the native platforms have to offer.
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• The devil can be in the details. Tech sales people

are slick, and they can be fast to say their technology
offers something that it may not fully offer. Read
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the terms, and make sure you fully understand what

you’re getting before you sign on the dotted line with a
tech vendor.
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CONTRIBUTORS

THANK
Guest Piece
YOU
By Tommy Walker
Editor-in-Chief,
Shopify
FA M E H O U S E . N E T
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H O U S E
FA M E
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