June 2017

Attending: Mai Le, Amanda Guest, Eddie Codel, Noel von Joo, Tom Tierney

Convened at 7:51 PM

Item: vote on Will to join the board

Mai: He’s a PR professional, has worked on PR for solar city. He has contributed to the station.

Amanda: It would be good to start the newsletter up again

Mai: He also contributed to the kickstarter.

Tom: Negroni week was not terribly successful; we took $100. A check was delivered.

Will arrived at 7:55 pm.

Amanda gave a brief introduction on Will’s credentials

Will: It’s a source of new music, which is pretty stimulating. It’s nice to find older things and new music as well. Communications is an area that he has experience in. When he worked in solar, he focused on several states. One component of that work was building an email list of contacts in the various states. It would be interesting to build an email list, which could be used for fundraising. If it was him, he would open that email to see a source of new music and upcoming shows. For a fundraising push, an email list would be a component.

Tom: When you were doing the outreach, was it mostly online?

Will: Yeah. With the current political climate, emails count for a lot. They know exactly how many of their constituents responded.

Mai: Emails are the most effective form, since you know who has opened it, and you have it in writing, but it is immediate.

Amanda: I have an artist friend who has an email list as well as Facebook events. She gets a better response from the email list since the people opted in, rather than getting caught in the broadcast.

Eddie: The tabs in gmail help, because it keeps you in the same mindset.

Will: it’s interesting to do A/B testing for subjects and graphics.

Amanda: My company did some testing for the inclusion of emojis. Our audience is older, so it didn’t work.

Mai: We did that with collections, and emojis worked, but I felt it was unprofessional.

Will: it’s possible to test all of these approaches.

Amanda: The other thing with email is that it isn’t shown to the user by an algorithm like Facebook ads. They get an email immediately and are more apt to respond.

Amanda: how would you fill the email list?

Will: we can do some facebook advertising, but I’m not sure of the appetite.

Amanda: We could add the DJs and get them to forward information to us.

Mai: Have you heard of the Skim? There’s thing called a skimbassador which we could try to get added.

Will: I know you said you did contests. What if in order to join the contest, you gave something?

Amanda: That’s illegal. But we could hold some tickets to only be given away to newsletter subscribers. We could work it out with the promotions team. When we used to do giveaways using woobox, we collect emails and ask them if they want to be added to the list.

Forrest: we used to bring a signup sheet to shows, but since we didn’t use it for anything, we stopped bringing it.

Tom: You used to bring signs and everything to Pop’s but it doesn’t seem like you do that anymore.

Amanda: We tried to do that for Loud and Local, but with the Warriors game, it was too hard to put anything up in there.

Will: I also won a contest before, so I know how that process goes. It was for Phono Del Sol.

A vote was taken. Mai nominated Will for the board. Amanda seconded, the ayes were unanimous, with Ben abstaining due to absence.

Amanda: At the end of the year, we will revisit the board positions. Amanda is the Chairperson, Forrest is the Vice Chairperson, Secretary, and Treasurer.

Fundraising

Amanda: Since the last time we met, we launched a new monthly bar night at pop’s. Loud and local is curating the bands that participate in that. It’s free to enter the bar, but we are asking for contributions at the door. The last event was the same night as a Warriors game, so we weren’t able to set up and collect much at the door. However, the bar did have a good night, so we were able to get some money from the bar.

The other thing that happened is Forrest got a year older, and donated his birthday to BFF, and collected $750. Facebook charges 5%, which they use to bubble the notification to the top. We got approximately $700 from the campaign. These funds will be used to fix a few things in studio B.

The other thing that wasn’t part of the schedule but came up is that Helen came up with a new shirt design, a bat with a crystal. We earned $571.32 from the first round, and have started another campaign. It was low impact, Amanda set it up and put a few facebook posts and tweets out. Some people complained that they hadn’t seen it the first time around, so she reopened the campaign. We will order some to have at the birthday, but these are all printed on demand so we don’t currently have a surplus.

So far this year, not counting the facebook gift, we raised approximately $3960.05, and have a recurring donation of about $280. I’d like to see more recurring donations, but our goal in May was to get $200 to cover the rent increase, which we made. We also have a little cushion to cover a catastrophe. Last year our board died and it cost us $5000 to replace it. I’ve also been working with individual DJs to try to convince them to move over to the subscription. Most people who weren’t paying had the money, they just forgot and didn’t want to set up the subscription. New DJs are all set up with the subscription, but we have a few holdouts. DJs pay $50, some people don’t pay, some pay too much.

This past month, we had Negroni week, which raised $140.00. Tom also suggested creating a signature cocktail, which needs more discussion.

The pop-up beer garden didn’t come together, since everyone has been busy this summer. However, we will be meeting with Luke Spray, the Portola corridor manager, and we will be visiting the Jerry Garcia gardens. Someone cancelled an event on September 12, and BFF may be able to get it. We are going to meet, look at the site, and discuss. There isn’t any power or amplification equipment, we can rent it for a current estimate of $1200. The city has some money to support these events, but it’s unclear how much they will be able to contribute. We are also considering a shuttle to the event, or another goofy transportation option.

Mai: I used to go there when the Mission Creek Music Festival had shows out there.

Eddie, Will, and Tom think it’s pretty far away.

Noel: I know someone with a bus, which may be an option. Maybe meet at Pop’s to get a drink, then get on the bus.

Mai: The only thing is keeping to a schedule, because people get screwed if it runs behind.

Amanda: you could do a dry run, or a few loops at the beginning and a few at the end. The TIMF boat required people to reserve slots in advance.

Mai: I just read an article about grand Fails, so I am concerned about potential risks.

Amanda: If it seems like it’s a go, we’ll have to book another event. The birthday party is Sept 3 at the Elbo room.

Also, did I mention the tapes last meeting?

Forrest: No, that happened right after the last board meeting.

Amanda: We had a booth at the bay area music festival, which wasn’t well attended, but we entered the raffle and won a free tape series. The company would like to eat the production costs for another run, but the ones that we won as the prize will be 10 tracks, free to the first 100 people at the birthday show. All of the tracks are by BFF DJs or people who have been to other shows. The tracks include some pre-release tracks that will be out once the tapes come out, but they will at least be fresh.

For the birthday party, we are still working the artist lists. We’ve approached the Shes, we know the manager. Soar is really popular, but was unable to do the show. Many people are out of town for labor day vacation, and a lot of bands are on tour.

Listenership

Amanda: the last item on the agenda is raising the listenership. I don’t think we’re done with Fundraising, but we’ve accomplished a lot this year so far. I’ll provide updates and take comments, but now I’d like to shift the focus to increasing listenership. If we can’t get good metrics, we could try to get the brand out a bit more.

Noel: The sign may help.

Mai: I’ve already set it up but haven’t showed it to anyone, but I’ve set up Social Listening. When we start doing new things, we can see where we grow.

Amanda: Even if we can’t measure listeners, this tool will let us track who is talking about us, and when they are most likely to retweet us.

Mai: I’ll set up an account with a tool I have access to.

Will: how far are we from knowing how many listeners we have?

Forrest: Our website and streaming server both have stumbling blocks. We may be able to get those numbers from AWS and Google analytics.

Amanda: right now we have google analytics but it only captures the front page, and doesn’t include the player. A few of our DJs are working on a redesign. The target was originally about now, but everyone has been busy this year. The new target is for our birthday.

Will: that won’t have the functionality of tracking listeners

Amanda: it won’t have perfect insight but will have much better google analytics

Eddie: Is there any way to know from the stream itself?

Forrest: The stream aggregators rebroadcast and don’t show those numbers to us. For example Tunein and Soundtap don’t share our total listeners at any given point.

Eddie: It may be interesting to include a survey in one of the emails - “how do you listen to our stream”

Will: is it illegal to answer a survey to get a giveaway?

Amanda: yeah, I actually won an ipad that way

Tom: Does everyone use tunein because it’s easy to use?

Amanda: Our website is responsive, so it looks great on the iphone. But some people just want to download the app. Also, the stream doesn’t automatically restart. If you lose the connection, it will just stop.

Forrest: There is an iphone app under development, but I haven’t had a chance to finish it.

Amanda: There is definitely room for high tech solutions, but I’d like to promote some low tech solutions. For example, someone discussed wheatpasting or postering around the city.

Noel: It happens all over the city, the only drawback is that it gets pasted over if you don’t keep up on it. You should talk to Cody about some ideas.

Forrest: We also set up a street team, but then someone has to be in charge of it.

Amanda: Someone even said they would put up posters and asked for them, but they never got used.

Noel: If they aren’t dated, they can be up in coffee shops for a surprisingly long time. The Jejune was up for years.

Will: Four Barrel did mugs with the baristas on it, and in sort of similar way, the Djs are the ones you spend time with.

Eddie: What about BFF trading cards, with all of the DJs?

Noel: Mike at Fayes does those. I have a contact with him.

Amanda: Roll Over Easy does Coffee Sleeves and just pass them out.

Tom: Also bar coasters would be a good idea. Most bar owners are always looking for coasters. I’ll talk to my resource.

Noel: Maybe a beer quiz on side or fortune?

Tom: Or a giveaway?

Forrest: The only problem is that it becomes dated.

Tom: A thousand only lasts a week, so they won’t stick around.

What other small items could we get in front of people?

• Matchbooks?

• Condoms?

Do we know any shopkeepers in tourist areas? Since we are international?

Amanda: I’ve been wanting to do a popup.

Mai: Do we know the news grandstand people?

Amanda: We know Courtney, she wants us to do the pop up.

Forrest: I’d like to spend money on a travel battery pack for putting on an event like sunday streets.

Amanda: I’d like to get into the ATA window if possible.

Forrest: we have a loose partnership with Out Of Focus.tv

Mai: would ATA do something for our birthday?

Amanda: That’s sort of what I was thinking, I just need to get in contact with them

Will: What was been the experience at having a presence at various shows?

Amanda: It really depends on the show. Strangely the best show we’ve ever done was this band in town from Estonia.

Mai: I set that up!

Amanda: Yeah, we sold like 10 T Shirts

Amanda: Our listener base is roughly 21-35, but in the bay area they don’t have a lot of cash to throw around. KUSF has listeners who are much older, but they have much deeper pockets. We can expect $5 a month, but they have some people who would give hundreds a month.

Forrest: I liked the idea of having special member benefits, like a high quality stream, or early access to the giveaways.

Amanda: Something we have talked about was locking down the archives to the last episode or two weeks and then only grant access if you become a member.

Part of the redesign is to make it easier to find the archives.

Eddie: I’ve noticed that the DNA lounge is now on the Internet Archives - all of the video and audio gets stored. Is there any way we can move our archives there?

Amanda: Can you ask them? Maybe we could just give them stuff?

The meeting was adjourned at 9:26 PM.

Will Craven: [e-mail]