Nimbit

Nimbit, inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Music Independent music
Founder(s)	Patrick Faucher Phil Antoniades
Headquarters	Framingham, Massachusetts, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Bob Cramer, CEO Carl Jacobson, VP Marketing
Products	Direct-to-Fan Sales (e.g., Storefront Solutions) Direct-to-Fan Marketing (e.g., Fan Management & Marketing Solutions) Music Business Platform (e.g., Marketing and Sales Analytics, Central Content Management, Central Catalog Management) Download Cards eTickets
Services	Storefronts for Facebook and Websites Digital Distribution Warehousing and Fulfillment CD/DVD Manufacturing Payment Processing Print Services Other Label Services
Employees	≈ 15
Website	nimbit.com

Nimbit, Inc. is a Framingham, Massachusetts-based company offering direct-to-fan sales, marketing, and career management solutions for independent artists and music labels through Web-based services. The most popular aspect of the Nimbit Platform is their Mystore application that gives users a storefront to sell music and merchandise on Facebook.^[1]

In April 2010 Nimbit announced that they were bringing on Bob Cramer as their CEO. Nimbit is part of a growing market of Direct-to-Fan solutions.^[2] Nimbit offers three different account options, NimbitFree, NimbitIndie and NimbitPro. NimbitPro became available in April 2010 and offers the most comprehensive artist services.^[3] Clients include Cory Gunz, Rusted Root The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Suzanne Vega, The Dead Milkmen, Vertical Horizon, Lucky Ali, and others.^[4]

Products

Nimbit creates solutions for independent musicians (indie artists) and independent record labels around the Direct-to-Fan Music Business Model.^[5]Direct-to-Fan gives musicians control over their music, fans, business and careers.

Direct-to-fan dashboard

Nimbit artists use an online dashboard to see and manage their music business. This includes sales information, fan information, marketing promotions and results, storefront results, central product catalog (e.g., digital and physical music, merchandise, eTickets), central content management (e.g., band profile and gigs). This allows products and content to be entered once then viewed and changed in one place.

Sales

Nimbit provides storefronts for Facebook, artist websites, blogs, and Nimbit's own music discovery site.

In February 2008, nimbitSKIN was released as an online storefront that was skinnable and could be custom branded to any website's color scheme. The nimbitSKIN was again aimed at independent artists, to give them their own web-store. Notable users of the nimbitSKIN include Tom Rush, Carrie Newcomer, Ellis Paul, and Rounder Records.

In September 2009,^[6] Nimbit MyStore for Facebook was released to take advantage of the social networking capabilities of Facebook, giving artists fan marketing, promotion, and direct selling capabilities. Artists can sell both digital and physical products based on fan buying behaviors—and do so from the artist’s Facebook pages (Fan Page or Personal Profile). The goal of this is to give artists knowledge of what each fan buys, and let them retaining more of the profits.

Marketing

Nimbit Marketing includes fan capture, email marketing, fan messaging, and fan management. Nimbit's marketing products focus on helping musicians create demand for their music, know their fans, engage their fans and offer them appropriate products, and tools to help them build loyalty & brand around the artist.

Download Cards

Nimbit designs, manufactures and processes Download Cards [3], which give fans access to the artists music. They can either be sold or given away for fan identification and marketing programs. Download cards are redeemable at artists' storefronts.

Tickets

Artists can sell Tickets to their shows from their Nimbit storefronts. The event/show/gig information is entered once through the Nimbit Dashboard and then the etickets are automatically available on all storefronts.

Services

Nimbit offers Label services including digital distribution to retail sites, CD and DVD manufacturing, custom merch, print services, graphic design and web services, warehousing and fulfillment, backend ecommerce and payment processing. [4]

Digital distribution

Nimbit offers digital distribution to third party retailers such as iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Rhapsody, and Napster. One differentiator of Nimbit versus other digital distribution is in the area of surcharges, Nimbit passes all of third party royalties onto the artists and charges the same to distribute to one or all of the retailers. [5]

Warehousing and fulfillment

Nimbit warehouses and fulfills (picks, packs, and ships) physical CDs, DVDs, Vinyl, t-shirts, posters, and other merchandise directly for their customers. Nimbit also handles all customer service and payment processing regarding any order placed though a Nimbit storefront. Nimbit's storefronts take major credits cards and paypal. Nimbit processes all orders, and handles all payouts, including splits. Nimbit also provides artists with credit card machines to process payments at shows/gigs.

Disc manufacturing (CD/DVD) / Promotional Printing

Nimbit does CD and DVD replication and short-run CD-R and DVD-R duplication. The service includes prepress graphic work, UPC (UCC-issued barcode), Electronic PDF graphic proof, and assembly and wrapping. Nimbit also provides printing services for posters, flyers, cards, and other promotional materials

Partnerships

ASCAP and Nimbit have partnered since 2004 to offer "ASCAP Web Tools" for ASCAP members. These tools included web hosting, design, and email marketing tools as well as widgets to implement on the artist's site.^[7]

JSR Merchandising and Nimbit began a partnership in June 2010. This allows JSR clients to use Nimbit's direct-to-fan solutions, and it also allows Nimbit clients access to JSR's merchandising services. This gives artists on stop shopping for all of their touring and online needs.^[8]

Nimbit has also partnered with Amie Street and other music companies and festivals.^[9]

References

1. ^ Black, Leyl. "4 Facebook Marketing Tips for Entertainment Brands". Mashable. http://mashable.com/2011/06/06/facebook-tips-entertainment-brands/. Retrieved 06 June 2011. 
2. ^ http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/04/nimbit-names-new-ceo-as-competition-heats-up.html
3. ^ http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004084567
4. ^ [1]
5. ^ [2]"Hypebot, July 2008"
6. ^ http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/09/16/nimbits-mystore-lets-bands-tap-the-power-of-facebook-to-promote-music-and-merchandise
7. ^ http://www.ascap.com/benefits/webtools/nimbit
8. ^ http://www.nimbit.com/jsr-and-nimbit-take-direct-to-fan-to-next-level-for-nationally-touring-artists
9. ^ nimbit | partners