Foreword

My friend and colleague Tom Hutchison and I knew in the fall of 2005 that the transitioning business model for the music industry required that we add to our curriculum to prepare our students for success after graduation. We were both professors in the largest music business degree program in the U.S. near Nashville at Middle Tennessee State University, and we knew we needed to develop a course that teaches how to effectively incorporate new technologies into music marketing. We had already co-written with Amy Macy a leading textbook called Record Label Marketing, Tom had written three other books, and I had written Artist Management for the Music Business. But we really needed a specific book to offer students in our new course at MTSU as well as a written navigational guide for all students and professionals in the music business. We began offering the course in the fall of 2006, and Tom was able to complete his book manuscript late the next year with the first edition in print in 2008. It was and still is the leading book on the subject. In recent years he became a national expert in online education, winning awards for Outstanding Achievement in Instructional Technology and Distinguished Educator in Distance Learning, as well as developing online curricula for three universities.

Tom Hutchison has a lot of letters after his name and a résumé packed with big-time experience in the music business. He has been a leader in academia as an author, a researcher, and through his work in countless classrooms. Said another way, he has been one of the top experts in the nation on technology and the music business, and he was always my go-to person with my questions about adopting new technologies into my work in both physical and virtual classrooms. In this way, both you and I are lucky because we have Web Marketing for the Music Business as our guide in this new era of music marketing.

This book is important to you because you simply can’t be in the “business” part of the music industry without understanding how to connect music with willing buyers. And frankly, you’ll either be left behind or never get the chance to be commercially successful marketing music unless you keep this book close to you in your work. Tom says in this edition of the book, “… the old-school marketing techniques are giving way to a new type of marketing that incorporates the latest in communication and entertainment technology, and that is keeping up with the rapid pace of innovation. But old habits die hard.” This brief, last sentence goes to the heart of what many elder statesmen of the music business are often heard saying, “I don’t understand it, but we need to hire some people who do.”

Clearly, a key reason this book is a must-have is because one of the primary hiring criteria music business companies seek is people with an understanding or experience using new technology and social media in a music business environment. Businesses that contact me for references for interns or job applicants most often ask whether my former students have training in music business marketing technology and social media. It often is the difference whether a graduate is hired or whether they’re still waiting for a call or an email for an interview. Spending time with this book will give you the advantage many others won’t have.

Finally, let’s put the math to this quickly changing industry and the technologies driving it. SoundScan’s Trudy Lartz said in October 2012 the sale of CDs is down 14% over 2011 and the sale of digital album downloads is up 16% over 2011. SoundScan data continues to describe the years-long decline of physical sales and the rapid increase of digital music. It’s not music that’s on the decline anymore – it’s the way it is delivered to us and then how we consume it. This second edition of Web Marketing for the Music Business represents the last installment for the vision Dr. Thomas Hutchison had in 2005 to teach how these new technologies and social media should be used as key components of successful music marketing. And as these sales data continue to demonstrate the way the music business is changing, this – his final book – becomes even more important to all of us.

Tom died suddenly on Memorial Day this year. And in a way, Web Marketing for the Music Business became a memorial to celebrate his career of teaching and inspiring those thousands of students who came to him with their dreams of careers in the music business. The industry will miss his work on its behalf. And to his friends and colleagues? He’s one of those irreplaceable treasures of this life.

As we use this book as part of Tom’s legacy, I extend my wish to you for success in today’s and tomorrow’s music business.

Paul Allen
Author and professor of music business at MTSU,
Belmont University, and Cumberland University
Author of Artist Management for the Music Business
Nashville, Tennessee 2012