Ecosystem Interview: Nicole Poulos of Sideways Media

Our ecosystem of partners is one of Topspin’s greatest assets. From marketing and web design to fulfillment and distribution, these partnerships offer top-quality services from companies that integrate seamlessly with Topspin’s platform. But who are the mysterious men and women behind these companies? That’s the aim of this new interview series.

From time to time, we’ll ask an Ecosystem Partner to introduce themselves and answer a few questions about their company. Our first installment features Nicole Poulos of Sideways Media.

So Nicole, who are you and what do you do?
I am a vinyl collector, metal head, music blogger (in my non existent spare time), theater nerd, fan, audience member, equal lover of Cole Porter & Trent Reznor, and the founder of the digital marketing and development agency Sideways Media. At Sideways, we work with artists and brands to develop and execute a digital strategy that builds a strong foundation which we can then build upon. We work with clients of all shapes, sizes, and knowledge levels in the digital space. We’ve been working with most of our clients for a long time through multiple tours and record releases, and being part of that growth process is what we enjoy the most, and what we thrive at.

Does Sideways Media specialize in a particular type of artist?

Yes – the good ones! Only kidding. We like to work with artists who have a long-term vision and are willing to work outside of the box to create a campaign that fits them best. Every artist or band is an individual, and that individuality is why fans flock to that particular band or artist.  You build a long lasting career piece-by-piece — not just in music, but any industry. No one goes from assistant to VP overnight. The most important thing for all of our clients is that we must be passionate about the project. How can we get other people to talk about our clients or purchase their product if we don’t believe in them? Being a great PR person is one thing, but passion is really what sells people. We pride ourselves on having a reputation of working with really great artists. When a blogger or writer gets something from us, they always listen because they know it’s something that we love, and although it might not be their thing, they respect our recommendation. Our client list contains everything from arena rock bands and Nashville singer/songwriters to the Electro-rock band that you just danced your ass off to at Spaceland last night.  The thing they all have in common is that we think they are super-special.

How has Topspin helped Sideways Media do better work?

None of the services that Topspin offers are new. What is NEW is having them all under one roof and being able to run data from sources against each other. Data is one thing, but being able to correlate stats from MySpace & Facebook with sales is incredibly valuable. Impressions and numbers are good, but there’s nothing more valuable than being able to calculate a solid ROI from a promotion. Topspin’s tools take the guess-work out of evaluating whether a promotion was successful.  We have been working with the majority of our clients for years, and it’s an incredible feeling to be part of that growth process.  With Topspin, we don’t have to start our marketing efforts for a new tour or record all over again and “find our fans.” We already have our fans under one Topspin roof, and we know what they responded to on the last campaign so we can more effectively structure a a second, third, and so on.

Can you talk a little about some of the projects for which you’ve used Topspin?

No matter what size artist, the strategy is the same: serve the fan base as best we can, create appealing offers, and ensure excellent customer service. For Brooke Fraser‘s campaign she had a large fan base which was spread all over the world, so our main goal was to bring them all into one place. In just under two months, Brooke’s email list has grown over 500% by using Topspin’s widgets. The challenge with working with an international artist like Brooke was contracting a campaign and building offers that would appeal to fans all over the world while still working within Brooke’s current licensing & label deals. With Brooke we oversaw (and still oversee) all the the elements of her “online presence”, from redesigning her website and MySpace to managing her fan list & email marketing, to doing online PR. Brooke’s album titled Flags debuted at #59 on the Billboard charts the week of release, with her website being the second largest retailer next to iTunes. She also just started her tour of the U.S. and Canada in support of Flags, which is about 75% sold out.

With the Stone Foxes, our goal was to acquire new fans through Topspin offers and widgets. The Foxes have a very tech- and design-savvy band member who redesigned their website, and they controlled their own email list. We got several great placements for Topspin widgets, from bloggers to radio stations like KFOG in San Francisco who posted the streaming player of the entire album and the Email-For-Media widget (we gave away the single that KFOG currently had in rotation). We saw about 90% of the Stone Foxes website sales come from fans that were acquired through Topspin offers.

How have you seen the direct-to-fan space grow over the last year?

It’s nice to see that this space has been embraced by labels.  We’ve had some great campaigns that we’ve run in conjunction with an artist’s label. It seems like a few years ago, people thought direct-to-fan was a replacement for the label, which is completely false. Every client we’ve run a direct-to-fan campaign with has had a team of people working to put out their record or launch their tour. This structure is similar to a label. Everyone has their part — we have meetings and conference calls and brainstorming sessions, we just don’t all work in the same building. Labels are trying to get the music into the fans’ hands, and what better way to do this than from the artist themselves? It just makes sense. The data and information Topspin collects is valuable to any artist’s marketing team, whether that’s a group of individuals, management or a label.

How would you compare Topspin with other platforms out there?

Topspin is really ahead of the game when it comes to new features and upgrades. Every time I think, “Wow, I really wish they offered –blank–,” you have it. I also really love the community that Topspin has built through the Green Room, the Knowledgebase, and the Topspin blog. Sharing successful campaigns and seeing all the cool things artists are doing with the platform is really inspiring, and I think it’s the only way we are going to keep moving things forward. A lot of times in the tech world, there is this resistance to share ideas for propriety’s sake, but I think that is selfish and really holds the industry back. I am always happy to share how we executed a campaign. If I only relied on me, myself and I for new ideas and creative promotions, I would be completely drained and my company wouldn’t be as successful. I am lucky to have some amazing people working with me here at Sideways, and to work with artists, managers and labels who are incredibly creative.

Topspin also does a superior job with customer service. In my very first training session at Topspin, I was amazed by how invested the staff was in getting our feedback and opinions on the platform. We had a technical hiccup on one of our campaigns, and Ian (who I can imagine is unbelievably busy) personally called me, the manger, and the label to apologize. Now that is customer service.  My cable company and mobile provider should take notes.

What do you look for in a client, and how has that changed over the last five years?

Instead of looking for something that is “cool” we really want to work with clients who are in this for the long haul and are willing to do things outside of the box. I would rather work with a baby band who wants to be involved in a campaign and understands why direct-to-fan is so important, than a big-name stadium act who doesn’t care. Your fans are your employer – they’re the ones paying your bills. I would want to treat the person who pays for my house and vacations with the utmost respect.

If you could put one single feature on top of our priority list, what would it be?

I would really love a dashboard for multiple artist accounts. I would like to see more marketing tools for social sites (a “Like on Facebook” in exchange for a track). These are the types of promotions we do anyway, but being able to integrate more social media-centric promotions within Topspin and the Rapleaf integration would be really incredible data for us to use.

I’m going to ask you to play favorites. Who is your favorite client and why?  They don’t have to be a Topspin user.

Hahahaha!  Nice try. I feel very lucky to have worked with some really amazing artists, from my favorite local LA bands to artists that I’ve admired for years.

Thanks for answering our questions, Nicole!

To learn more about Sideways Media, visit their website at sideways-media.com and check out their work, or follow them on Twitter at @sidewaysmedia .