Kickstart your next studio project

Image

Fifth Freedom

Conquer Entertainment's Fifth Freedom's Kickstarter page

It never fails that somewhere after the second or third song is written, talk of an EP or LP will spread amongst band members. What is the difference between an EP and an LP? Who cares! We need to get the music out there, man! Does anyone have a studio? Probably not. One band member may have space and a little setup to record him/herself as a solo act, but getting the drums tracked will bother the neighbors, roommates or his/her parents. Who is going to edit it? Well, Bobby said he used some editing software he got off the internet one time. We’ll just use our stage mics and record everything one at a time and it’ll take a little longer, but it can be done. We can do this, right!? Well, yeah…. but don’t you want it to sound great?

As good as home recording equipment is, it can’t fully take the place of an actual studio with a trained sound engineer. And unless you took a bullet while saving the studio owner’s first born from a 5 alarm fire, there isn’t any 5-10 song deal that you pitch that will be free or cheap. However, thanks to Kickstarter, A small promo video is enough to get the ball rolling on a quality studio release instead of the bootleg from the last gig.

All you have to do is start an account with Kickstarter and follow the directions. How much will it cost to get the studio recording? That depends on the amount of people that need to be recorded, how long the songs are, the complexity of the songs and more. $3,000 to $15,000 for low budget studio productions will probably be accurate. That’s why it’s best to practice and get everyone in sync because in the studio, time is money.

With as little as $1, a person can make a pledge towards the campaign. $1 may not seem like much, but it’s one more than you had before, right? The majority of the work you’ll have to do is sending the Kickstarter link out in social media land (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Also recommend to your legion of fans that they post the link on any pictures they take of the band so it can spread further.

The sense of excitement as the total grows is only countered by the worry that time is ticking away and you have not reached your goal yet. Unfortunately, if you do not reach your goal, you don’t get to keep what you’ve raised and try to make do. The money goes back to your supporters and you can try again. Just like when you get ready to hit the stage, give it your all. Marketing is key.

If you do reach your goal, the money is put in an account and you are on your way to making the next #1 hit. One step closer to world domination… or at least an awesome album of music.

Conquer Entertainment’s Hey Guy performs at the Market America Artisan Fair

Hey Guy taking a moment to have fun.

It was a cloudy and cool day for the Market America Artisan fair. Vendors meandered around getting their booths set while chatting with others. Puppies scampered around their pens waiting to lick the next finger that poked through the fencing. But the quiet didn’t last long. Conquer Entertainment’s Hey Guy took the stage and got the day going with lines like “Hey! Corn dogs are two dollars! Let’s start a party!” That was all one vendor needed to break out her hula hoop and enjoy the music. Even Greensboro’s finest firefighters enjoyd the band and let them have some fun with the fire truck. Check out the video and help Hey Guy give to The Patriot Rovers charity by purchasing a song from their Conquer Page! 25% of the sales will go to help The Patriot Rovers train service dogs for disabled veterans.

YouTube Preview Image

New Conquer Audio Player Launched

For some time, Conquer customers, artists and our internal team, where having issues with the audio player on our web site. Of course, having an audio player that works only part of the time is a problem for a site dependent on music as a driver.

Our player was based on running off of a web server at our location in Greensboro. For some reason, the server had a memory leak that crashed the player when too many people were clicking on play icons and requesting it to load. This caused a tremendous amount of frustration, but we’ve finally fixed it, so music fans and artists should no longer have an issue playing sound samples from the Conquer home or artist profile pages.

Conquer Audio Player Screenshot

Today, we launched a brand new audio playback experience. And, I say that, because we didn’t actually launch a “new” player, we used HTML5 technology to trigger launching of an audio player that comes built-in to today’s modern web browsers. Because the player is built-in to the user’s web browser, it is no longer reliant on memory from our server to work. In fact, it doesn’t need anyone’s server to work – it just does.

When you hover over the play icon for any track, the icon will turn orange and a tool-tip with the word “Play” will appear. You can click on the icon, which will launch the new player, as shown below.

Screenshot of Conquer Audio Player Launched on Page

Currently, the player only plays back 30-second sound samples. Users are only able to listen to the 30-second stream and then replay. There is no fast forward, rewind or skipping through the track allowed.

Hey Guy Gives To Charity With MA Cares

Inspiring Men Give to Charities! Conquer Entertainment’s new group, Hey Guy, is graciously giving their time and talents for Market America Cares Foundation and the Patriot Rovers charity.

Brainchild of classically trained, compelling and charismatic singer/songwriter Boris Pelekh, Hey Guy is a rare modern rock act that pairs haunting melodies and fierce stage energy with infectious humor. Masters of yet another balancing act, Hey Guy’s first album – Hey Guy 1– garnered the attention and acclaim of top producers and fellow rockers for its musicality fitting perfectly between emotionally accessible and expertly technical. Among them are Gordon Raphael, mentor and producer of The Strokes and Jimi Haha of Jimmie’s Chicken Shack who says Hey Guy is “one of the coolest bands I’ve played with!”

Hey Guy believes in giving back before getting. Hey Guy launched a NY pilot project – ROCK GOOD – that enlists local musicians to participate in charitable concerts.

This is why Hey Guy will donate 25% of their sales from MA My World, from their own site, and from the day of the artisan fair on Saturday April 28th to Patriot Rovers Charity from April 14, 2012 to May 14, 2012.

Fair Info:

10am to 2pm – Market America Offices – 1302 Pleasant Ridge Rd, Greensboro, NC

Visit MA Cares & Like them, we do!

http://mamyworld.com/heyguy

Embedly Powered

JR Ridinger’s Message To Market America UFO’s & Leaders About Spring CAD Trainings

Hi Market America UFO’s And Leaders:

With 2012 in Full Swing and the our playbook in order, we are heading into our schedule of Spring regional conventions across the country and I will be with you at every one of them.  We have set out to make it even easier for you to engage your Gen-Y prospects (one of the three plays) this Spring,  Market America / Shop.com is bringing Conquer Entertainment to you at Regionals.  Until now the only way you could attend or learn about Conquer was to be at our World Conference or International Convention. Many of you did attend those events and brought your prospects! During these events we were asked the question many times: “When and Where will the next Conquer CAD training be…. or when is Conquer coming to our area?” Well, I have news for you: I am happy to announce that Conquer Entertainment will be hosting CAD Trainings at all 3 spring Regionals and if you do your part we can continue to provide these trainings at our Fall Regionals as well!  There has never been an easier way to engage your Gen-Y prospects than with music. Whether it is to diversify your sponsoring or you are personally looking to leverage the massive fan base of an artist you love; becoming certified with Conquer can open up a world of opportunities and at a Cost of $50 for a 2 day training….WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BECOME CERTIFIED?!…..

Register today at Market America Events.com under Conquer Entertainment (CAD). Seating is limited to the first 50 people so hurry! As you should well know,  in order to follow the University Concept—it is smartest to get two “stars” in each University Major  in each of your two partner organizations…..as it allows you to access people that you never would have interested in the business without that “Major’ or Division of the business. This is the time to do it because Conquer 3.0 will be completed and opening and going live this year and you need to have you CAD’s in place to benefit when it takes off. So why not follow this best practice for success in the MPCP and MA University and get 2 Conquer Majors or Cad in each organization.

“The Difference Between Failure & Success is the Person who succeeded simply did what the person who failed did not or was unwilling to do”  What will you do for your Unfranchise Business!”

“Keep Growing”

JR Ridinger

Sign Up For Spring CAD Trainings Here: CAD Spring Trainings

Embedly Powered

The Song That Made Me Cry “Justice (If You’re 17)”

This past Thursday I received a call from my partner and Conquer Entertainment’s CEO, Amanda Ridinger to set up an afternoon meeting with Wyclef Jean–aka Mr Fugee…aka LEGEND! I was, of course, over the moon excited.  However, being in this industry quickly teaches you that until it happens, don’t get too excited.

We stayed in contact with his camp and and confirmed this was going to happen later in the day. When we arrived, I didn’t exactly know what I was going to walk into, but I will tell you that within 5-minutes of being there, I cried!

Wyclef and his brother, Sedeck Jean, were filming the video for their new song “Justice (If You’re 17)” in honor of Trayvon Martin. I have a 17-year-old son who means the world, the stars and the moon to me as a parent. I worry every second he is out of my sight and not home, safe in his room.

The song started to play:

He could have been the next president, he could have been the next teacher, he could have been the next astronaut. How are you gonna come to a gun fight with no guns to draw?

I immediately thought of my son.  The emotion and intensity of the song really hit home and I started crying; crying for the loss of Trayvon, for the grief his family is going through, and for the joy of seeing this song bring people together and raise awareness of the situation. The first thing Sedeck said to me was, “Hey, hey don’t cry.  Come here, you need a hug.”  That immediately brought a smile to my face.

The rest of the evening everyone’s energy was just amazing! I am so blessed and want to thank Conquer Entertainment and Amanda Ridinger for making it happen. I am looking forward to what the future holds.

Free Song Here: Justice (If Your 17)

Concerned About BV? Don’t Be, Here’s Why…


Conquer CAD’s

We greatly appreciate all of your support and belief that you have shown us through the beginnings of Conquer Entertainment and all the struggles and success’s that have followed our inception. Conquer Entertainment has been working tirelessly to make some major improvements to our original model and technology and have made these improvements because of the suggestions and input of “you” the field. Distributors, CADS & Artists have pointed out these concerns and we have presented them to Market America and have found ourselves reworking the program to become more synergistic and congruent with the Market America Business model. We have also experienced where the structure of the Music Business changes in front of us almost daily, forcing us to once again rework a program that we were set to launch, and found ourselves once again looking for a viable option. This led us to Conquer 3.0. This model we have is a solid business concept within Market America and bases itself on a 20+ year proven track record of their Marketing Success. Conquer Entertainment is about leveraging the Potentially Massive Fan Base of an Artist and allowing the fans to ultimately power the artists career through shopping online, which will flow up and help to power and facilitate your Unfranchise Growth.

We want to provide you some supporting facts on our statements in regards to the monthly fee the artist pays and your concerns about BV. Conquer Entertainment has been structured the way it is because it is that way within everything in Market America across the board on all product divisions or University Majors. If a customer drops or becomes a Distributor/UFO (35% of Distributors were Customers 1st) you need to replace the customer to solidify your base of 10 or more customers. This is basic MA and is expected, if you have your artist distribution package artist converting to ULO, this should be viewed as an upgrade, much like when you convert a PC to a UFO, yes we no longer get their retail profit, but we now have the value of gaining 100% of their BV creation through expanding points of distribution, which is our overall goal in building our Unfranchise Business’s.  Conquer’s business model is based on treating the artist as a business partner, and building an ABC pattern based on the music business side of things, the artists are not your customers, they are your business partners, their fans (hundreds and sometimes even thousands) are your customers.  The BV and $0.05 retail profit for the CAD retained from song downloads (and not just from the CAD’s sales of the song — from any sales of the song that come from any distributor or organization YOU the CAD gets a $0.05 retail profit, also although you only get BV on downloads that come through your organization, you get BV on downloads from ANY artist — you are able to get share of customer from your artists’ fans, making all of their music purchases through your organization)!Additionally you get the BV and retail profit coming from Artist Merchandise (a Music/Artist oriented specific product, and this is not just your artists merchandise this is merchandise from other artists as well, which you get retail profit and BV for, and which comes from getting share of customer of the artists fans)! Lastly you get BV and retail profit from lifestyle merchandising, ie other purchases the fans of the artist make, mostly due to wanting to emulate the artist they love. For most people this is not an issue because customers lead to customers (especially with cash back and the paid to shop referral .05%) and with the Internet it is easier than ever to pick up additional customers from social media like Facebook, Shopbox, MA Network and Twitter and the people you will meet as you begin to look for New Unlabel & CAD prospects, but mainly from the Artists GROWING fan base!



Lets touch on the Form 1000. You can still make your qualifications to meet the form 1000 with the changes we’ve made to Conquer’s Unlabel Program. With over 3,000 direct branded products that Market America/Shop.com carry that all carry retail profit & BV Although we have removed a sell-able product, we have also removed the barriers that allow your artists to use things like our merchandising platform, which in the old program they would have had to become unfranchise owners first and then pay to become ULO’s and then they could use our Merchandising Division. We will soon be releasing the tool that allows the artist to sell their merchandise on Conquer’s platform, which gives you a direct retail profit from the sales of an Artist/Music specific product.  Like MA we are starting with a small assortment of products, but we will continue to grow and provide you with more Music related options, until this time and in the future, please remember you are first Unfranchise Owners and these tools and products already exist and are available to you and your artist to help further you careers and these will help you cover your form 1000, as well as put much needed money in your artist and your pockets!

The main point is that we should not be looking at Artists as our customers in the first place, Conquer’s program is not supposed to be a one-off product, it is designed, and was always meant to be a business system, just like Market America offers with it’s UnFranchise. Offering the Conquer Program as a product with a retail profit positioned the artists as your CUSTOMERS not as your BUSINESS PARTNERS which is not synergistic with Conquer or Market America’s program. Again we can’t stress enough, that your customers are their fan-bases.
Let’s use our base 10 Seven Strong Model as a prime example of how you and your artists can achieve your Unfranchise Goals. If a CAD services a catalog of 10 ULO’s and each ULO converts 10 of their fans to consumers, purchasing a Minimum of 10 BV we have just in one example created 1050 BV with the CADS min. Transfer Buy if you multiply this by 7 you end up with 7350BV or 3675 on your right and 3675 on your left, clearing $900.00 in commission income. This does not include the individual retail profit potential for the 10 sales monthly…..This model is based solely on the requirements you already have as an Unfranchise Owner and helping to service 10 preferred customer of your ULO’s with transferring their buying habits to our MA direct branded products…… As we are all aware you must make 300 a month before you can make 3,000 a week and just like with MA we have provided you with the formula to make this very achievable and so that you are able to duplicate it.

As CADs you are responsible to help your ULO artist to succeed and that is how you make money not on selling artist things, this is very much the same concept as sponsoring a New Distributor, some have questioned the difference between the Distributor being required to do transfer buying, through field testing we found that when presented with HAVING to purchase monthly products that a majority of artists were no longer interested, sighting they cannot afford anything new in their lives. Where as when they were presented with changing one to two products that they currently are spending money on, to products that they could potentially co-brand with these products to increase exposure it was received and excepted as a great opportunity. We will always look to provide you with the best our program can offer, but we ask that you keep in mind that with any business there is a cost of sales or goods, there is cost in the site and music fees, commissions, storage fee’s, broadband, processing fees, etc that Conquer Entertainment must pay for and we will always look to provide you with the most compensation possible to ensure your growth and duplication. Just think 1 artist with 1000 fans converting 10% to consumers buying 1 product each per month with this type of BV headed through your organization, imagine your group reaction. Conquer will be a total game changer not just for building your MA business, but also for the entire Music Industry.

The Conquer team, the Market America corporate team, the MA training and the vast majority of CAD’s we worked along with, Conquer CEO Amanda Ridinger, and JR himself, all agree that this is a much more powerful and fair system and program from which everyone will benefit more. We hope that you will join is passionately in becoming the solution! You may find someone who disagrees or wants something that just is not possible for good reason. As JR often says: “You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time.” It’s time to build the future with those who believe we have done what is best for most of the people and the Artist and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

There are many other aspects that we have provided or will provide you with to make sure the program is a much richer and able to be duplicated, and Conquer will continue to make these aspects more prominent as we provide you with an easier and more desirable user experience so that you can help your Artists achieve their 2-3 year goals as they leverage the power of Conquer Entertainment and Market America.

Thank You for your continued support and we look forward to presenting you with many new great features that will help to ensure you are empowered to succeed.

maChatterBox Text Field Removed from ULO Admin

CADs and Artists, we’re sure you’ll breathe a sigh of relief when we tell you that we have removed maChatterbox from the ULO (Artist) administration area. On registration, an Artist will no longer need to enter an maChatterbox user name. maChatterbox has been deprecated and is no longer a supported product.

We hope that helps simplify things, where an Artist does not have to enter a user name for something that isn’t functional on the site.

Conquer Launches GetSatisfaction Support Tool

Here are Conquer Entertainment, we are working hard to build an infrastructure of communication using social tools and technologies, which help us with PR and Marketing as well as providing a place to post important announcements regarding the ongoing development and growth of the platform. In fact, we recently launched this blog to help us more effectively (and efficiently) communicate with Conquer Entertainment Artists, our CE Certified Artist Developers (C.A.D.s) in the field, and of course, music fans who visit the ConquerEntertainment.com website.

Yes, we’ve been working fast and furious to improve our communications and outreach that we need to take a moment to explain what each tool is for. Let’s start with the one that seems to confuse some of our C.A.D.s the most: GetSatisfaction.

Here are some of the questions we’ve geen getting:

What is GetSatisfaction?

GetSatisfaction is a social web application providing companies like Conquer Entertainment with the online tools to help with Customer Service and Technical Support. Microsoft, Spotify, FourSquare, and even Pampers, the diaper company, use GetSatisfaction to engage with their customers in an online and public forum.

In the past, companies relied on their support representatives to return a phone message or reply to an email. But, in today’s fast paced Twitter-verse, when someone has a complaint or a problem, the phone isn’t fast enough, emails seem to go into a black hole, and customer complaints can go from a single voice to many thousands of voices in seconds. Given the popularity of social media technologies, GetSatisfaction’s online tools help companies engage with their customers in a social way that customers are now used to.

GetSatisfaction also is also searchable by Google and other search engine technologies, so that customers may find information they are looking for about a company or product, without having to scour through the back pages of corporate websites looking for an answer they may not find. Because the conversation is two-way between the company and the customer, more information about user issues are now more readily available to be uncovered in search, which help minimize the time companies have to spend on answering common questions.

One of the most unique and useful features of GetSatisfaction, is the ability to add a “Feedback” tab to websites, blogs, and Facebook. On Conquer’s Facebook page, you can access GetSatisfaction by clicking on Conquer Support.

Conquer Facebook Header

GetSatisfaction on Facebook

On this blog, you can access GetSatisfaction by clicking on the Feedback tab fixed to the left side of the page.

Screen shot of Conquer Entertainment Get Satisfaction Support on ConquerBlog.com

GetSatisfaction Feedback Tab

Clicking on the Feedback tab will pop open a window where you can leave a suggestion for an idea, ask a question, give praise, or report a problem. Conquer Entertainment monitors the posts and we do our best to respond within 24 to 48 hours of any user submitted messages that are posted.

You can also find GetSatisfaction by clicking on the Support tab on the navigation menu of this blog. Or, you are welcome to visit http://www.getsatisfaction.com/conquer anytime.

We are working on attaching a GetSatisfaction tab to the Conquer Entertainment website, and that should go live soon.

I want my messages to be private, but GetSatisfaction is public? Why can’t my messages be private?

GetSatisfaction is a publicly facing tool companies like Conquer Entertainment user to solve common customer service issue, for example, “I can’t upload my Artist photo,” or “I’m having problems with the audio player.”

GetSatisfaction is searchable by Google, Bing, and other popular search engines. It’s important for companies to have their Help desks searchable, so that you can find answers to common problems quickly, without having to contact us directly. While we love talking to our artists, fans, and partners, GetSatisfaction helps you quickly get the answers you need without having to contact us. Or, you can quickly assist others, making support social as well. Not only does GetSatisfaction allow us to help you, it allows you to help others.

Why can’t we just use the C.A.D. Group page on Facebook?

As far as we know, C.A.D.s are still happily using the Facebook Focus Group to communicate and discuss C.A.D. stuff. We love that and hope that continues. But, if you notice, the way Facebook streams posts, we’ve experienced times were we’ve posted something in the C.A.D. group, and because someone chose not to scroll, they didn’t see the resolution to the problem. Since the C.A.D. Focus Group on Facebook is not searchable, it’s difficult to provide solutions in that forum.

The C.A.D. Focus Group on Facebook is also a private group. We need to provide a public system for our artists and music fans to get support too!

We’re not saying that you must use GetSatisfaction, but it would certainly be helpful to us if you used it for support issues while keeping your C.A.D. focused conversations in Facebook.

Why did you launch a blog when you have Facebook and Twitter?

What we are working on is a lot to digest. The world of new media moves quickly. We now have Twitter, Facebook, 8tracks, GetSatisfaction, ConquerCads.com, YouTube and other tools on the way, as well as social profiles on other sites that I’m not even yet aware of! We’ll also be launching our Conquer 3.0 site soon. We know it’s hard to keep up with all the progress, which is why we have launched this blog.

All of the other tools mentioned above are great ways to communicate with our artists, fans, and partners, but they don’t go far enough. We needed a better way to publish our messages, where we could messages that were longer than 140 characters and that could contain screen shots or other media to make announcements that can also be found in a Google search. Trying to find announcements in Facebook private groups or Twitter feeds don’t make much sense. So, we’ve got this shiny new blog to help us communicate. You can certainly comment right here as well! We look forward to hearing from you in whichever forum we’ve provided that will help you communicate with us.

We know there is another lingering Blogspot-enabled Conquer blog out there, which we are trying to get taken down as soon as possible. Unfortunately, someone set it up for us and we don’t have the login credentials, so it will stay there until we can get access to it to take it down.

 

JUSTINA DEBUTS BUBBLE GUM VIDEO ON IDOLATOR

JUSTINA DEBUTS BUBBLE GUM VIDEO ON IDOLATOR; BOOKED FOR WARPED TOUR 2012, ALTERNATIVE PRESS STAGE

New York, NY- March 26, 2012- Recording artist, songwriter, rapper and vocalist Justina debuts the new video for her single, Bubble Gum, this week on Idolator.com<http://Idolator.com> (one of the leading independent sites for pop music fans). The Bubble Gum single is off her forthcoming mix tape, Route 80, which is dropping this spring. The Route 80 mix tape is produced by multi-platinum producers Shy Boogs, JR Rotem & Mr Lee, with a feature from Atlantic Recording artist Maino. Her video debuts just weeks after the 2012 Vans Warped Tour announced Justina as a performer on the tour. She will be performing on the Alternative Press stage and attending the kick-off party in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 29.Bubble Gum showcases her eclectic, Hip Hop infused, edgy style, which is combined with her playful, pop sensibility and her distinctive, raspy vocal tone. Her sound has been compared to Nikki Minaj, Kesha and a “Hip Hop Joan Jett”. She cites a diverse range of inspirations including Lil Kim, Tupac, The Beatles, and her father who is a vocalist and a musician.

Justina’s original music has been featured on popular television shows such as NBC’s Steven Spielberg directed Smash, VH1′s Mobwives, MTV’s True Life, and Oxygen Network’s Running Russel Simmons. Justina will be appearing on a TV reality show with super producer, JR Rotem, as she works with him in the studio on her album. Justina’s Hard To The Body video appeared on Spike TV’s Top 100 YouTube Videos.

She has appeared on the back of Cheerios’ boxes across the country by winning a songwriting contest focused on bringing about change for those less fortunate. She also donates her time to the non-profit organization Pinups for Pitbulls, and appears in their 2011 calendar. Pinup for Pitbulls focuses on Pit Bull rescue and community education.

Justina is currently touring the country with Conquer Entertainment, the music division of Shop.com<http://Shop.com>, promoting her project and upcoming Shop.com<http://Shop.com> product release. Shop.com<http://Shop.com> is a shopping comparison website that offers the most comprehensive shopping experience on the web.

To Download Her Original Song For Conquer Go To: www.mamyworld.com/Justina

For more updates on go to: www.JustinaMusic.com

Follow her Twitter: www.twitter.com/JustinaMusic

CONTACT:
Lee Resnick
212.331.2424