Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Let me tell you about the community

One thing I hate (well...dislike) about being on 3 blogs now, and all the other side-stuff is that it doesn't leave that much time for finding new blogs. But thankfully, I can still find some occasionally, or via linking, they find me. Hee-Haw Marketing has to be the best name for a blog I've seen in quite a while. Paul's off to a fast start, and I've already marked HHM.

Second, I've really been impressed with David's work at Logic+Emotion. He creates great visuals, and he understands the importance of joining the community. And he gets to attend kick-ass conferences, but more on that later...

Third, send congrats Miss Rogue's way, as Tara is going the indie route. Really seems like the perfect move at the perfect time for Tara, as her star is burning pretty damned brightly right now. There will be some very exciting reading on HorsePigCow in the coming weeks, I'm sure ;)

Fourth, I completely forgot to mention this earlier, but Mike Wagner of Own Your Brand! fame has become the latest edition to Daily Fix. Ms. Community wanted to be able to market Daily Fix as being the blog that had signed up every A-Lister in the blogosphere, but she scrapped the idea when she realized she'd have to run me off first.... ;)

Fifth,.....there's gotta be something '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers' idea has been communicated to some of what I think are 'the right people' at the 'right places'. There's a couple more labels/artists I want to try to contact and see what happens, it's just a time issue.

BTW in a COMPLETELY unrelated's what one of the EDAs said about Jewel's marketing for her latest album (which is tanking big-time, I might add):
You know what? I'm so dumbfounded with this album. You have a perfectly good album from a perfectly good artist, and how do they promote it? NASCAR? Young and the Restless? Wal-Mart?

Give me a break. This album is a big bomb for a reason. It was barely promoted--no one I know knew that it was coming out--and next she wants to release a song that has zero chance at radio? Come on, "Only One Too" or "Drive to You," Jewel!

And come on, Irving! If you can't do better than NASCAR, you need to find a new job. I know you're a famed manager, but your demographics are WAY off this time.

Gee I coulda sworn we'd heard such talk somewhere before. The funny thing is, the EDAs are the absolute PERFECT avenue to promote Jewel via '100 CDs for 100 bloggers'. If I were Jewel's management, every member of that list would have had a signed and inscribed copy of Goodbye Alice in Wonderland in their hands a month before it was released. If not sooner. That one move alone would have guaranteed more sales than she has now (BTW GAIW sold less than 20,000 copies last week, its 4th week on the charts. Nuff said.), and could have saved her all the money she spent on crap like NASCAR appearances and being on soap operas.

Hell she could have saved more than that, I would have designed and executed the promotion for FREE for her, just to show that it could be done. Ah well, her loss will be someone else's gain....stay tuned.


J.D. said...

Re: the 100 CDs issue

I'm beginning to think that the idea is going to have to be proven first through the indies. Their management seems to get it. Case in point, my most recent interview with Nashville Star's Gregory DeLang. Not only did she give the interview, but she also autographed a CD for me, took a picture with me, emailed it to me later, gave me her manager's cell phone number...just whatever I needed to get the info so I could publish the crap out it and plug her. I think the starving artists are the ones who get it the most.

And y'know, it doesn't even have to be CDs. If you have a hardcore music fan who is a blogger, like myself, then you've already got a receptive marketer. I'm inclined to improve my review of the music if you'll even just throw me an autographed head shot or just something! (I had one band send me a CD with a free bong filter, once. Never used it or them, but interesting idea nonetheless.) However, if an artists shuts me out, I'm much more likely to pan their album, if I even publish about it at all.

In any case, I'm anxious for this idea to work, and I hope I'm in on it when it does!

Mack Collier said...

Instead of saying 'using bloggers to promote music', I keep hammering home '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers', because this is a specific plan that people can read and understand, whereas 'using bloggers to promote music' is a generic idea. Indies aren't going to be as receptive to this idea because of cost/time issues (which aren't as much as they/you think, but still), and because this particular promotion works better for artists that have an established fanbase. I've thought this all along, and the label/artist people I am talking to are telling me the same thing.

This promotion works best as a tool to EXPAND an existing community of fans for an artist. Ideally it would work best for a lower-to-mid-tier artist as a way to expand their fanbase up to the next level. So that gives us 2 qualifying parameters right there: Existing fanbase of decent, but not huge size, and a label receptive enough to non-traditional marketing to go along with using bloggers to help promote their artists. As you can guess, those 2 factors limit the possibilities considerably.

But it's going to happen, and it's going to work when it does. And when it does, labels will then realize that bloggers are really an untapped avenue in the marketing channel, and they'll embrace us as they should.

Paul McEnany said...

Hey, Thanks for the shout, Mark. It's always nice to hear some encouragement from someone so experienced in bloggery, especilly for a relatively young pup in the community.

I've got some thoughts on the 100 for 100 idea. I'll get something posted in the next couple days. Thanks, again!