Smule Artist Program Opens Powerful Marketing Opportunity To Indie Musicians

Smule is a unique mobile-focused company that built its reputation on such apps as I Am T-Pain and Sing! Karaoke. They're also seeing great success with instrument apps. These apps are also participatory and that's opened up powerful marketing opportunities that have already benefited select artists and are now being made available much more widely via the new Smule Artist Program. The program is initially free. Indie label Bright Antenna is Smule's launch partner but you can apply today to participate and you should do it sooner rather than later.

Smule's reported great success in the past including stats that Eliot Van Buskirk once described as "crazy numbers."

Early Promotions Have Been Incredibly Successful

Having built an actual community of app users, Smule now claims 20 million people actively participating in music and apparently ready for new tunes. According to these stats Smule released from their earlier partnerships with artists, the Smule Artist Program (announcement) should allow indie artists to benefit greatly from that participation:

1. OK Go — Established Artist:
1.1 million ad impressions for "Sing With OK Go" promotion
15% click-through-rate for ad vs. <5% for major social media ads
Smule singers created more than 6,000 performances of "Writing's On the Wall"

2. Con Bro Chill — Emerging Artist:
We released our song "Power Happy" with Smule, and we saw our video views spike more than 300,000 in the first 3 months of running the song in Smule's apps. — Connor Martin of Con Bro Chill

3. Todd Carey — Emerging Artist:
300% lift in sales of the single, “Nintendo” +1.2 million plays of "Nintendo" in Magic Piano by Smule
+250,000 clicks sent to Carey's "Nintendo" music video on YouTube
Smule users created +4,500 performances of the song in less than 2 weeks

Arguably doing a promotion with OK Go has promo value for Smule as well but the difference in clickthrough rates on a Smule ad vs social media ads is staggeringly impressive. Actually 15% CTRs on anything at all on the web is staggeringly impressive. Though I think right now social media ads are setting the standard for high response rates.

And the other two acts are certainly not unknown to the world. Nevertheless Smule's highly engaged audience is clearly enthusiastic about engaging with new music as well as established hits to which they already know the lyrics and tune.

Smule Has A Highly Engaged Community Of Users

But though Smule promotions have included ads on the platform, it's the participation factor that's the most powerful element in this mix.

Smule's gone beyond just allowing someone to create an autotuned solo especially with their Sing! Karaoke app. People can sing with others in duets or groups. There's even a feature that allows you to post your part of a duet and leave it open for others. That kind of development takes such apps into a whole new world.

You can check out campaigns from OK Go and Con Bro Chill to get a sense of the possiblities.

Indie label Bright Antenna is Smule's debut partner for the Smule Artist Program. According to today's announcement:

"Through the Artist Program, Flagship will release three songs in Smule’s catalog. The band has also recorded a performance of their single, “Are You Calling,” into Smule’s Sing! Karaoke app. Fans will be able to join Flagship to record a duet with the band."

For now Smule is offering this program for free. I would strongly encourage you to move now because this opportunity is likely to be oversubscribed.

For More Info: Smule Artist Program ~ Apply Here

More:

• How To Get Millions Of People To Download and Use Your Music App
• Will The Next Justin Bieber Be Discovered On Smule's New Social Network?
• Smule Unveils Guitar By Smule & Reveals Millions In Revenue

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.