According an IFPI study, 20% of music on iTunes does not sell even one download. That is really amazing to me. One would think that everyone who posts music on iTunes (most likely thru a digital distributor such as myself) would have at least a few friends and family willing to buy a track or two. Yet, BFM's own quarterly accounting reports showed about 100 labels/artists that had no revenue at all during Q3.
My takeaway from a sad number such as this is that these folks are doing nothing to get the word out about their music. I mean if you can't convince your Aunt, brother, or your buddies at work to buy a track, then how the hell is a perfect stranger going to find out about your music. Personally, I have posted a few tracks that I recorded. It gives me a giggle to see if my paltry four tracks will make me the winner of the smallest royalty check each quarter. Proudly, I can say that I've never hit the very bottom ever. I've been close. Why? That's because I am always mentioning to friends that I have an EP online and a few of them inevitably buy them.
The key to selling music on the digital services is two-fold: marketing and discoverability. In reality, it is really all about marketing since that only serves to increase discoverability. But I will write about the latter in a subsequent column.
Now, I am not about to tell you the magic secret for marketing your music. Usually, it comes down to marketing 101 techniques and there are plenty of books out there that are great. I am here to tell you about one of the most powerful marketing techniques that has remained unknown (or ignored) by most artists and labels.
What if I could tell you of a way to get 50ยข back on every marketing dollar that you spend? ...automatically! That would be incredible wouldn't it. Well, here is how you can do this.
Gift ONE track from your album to 100 people. (Do NOT send them the whole album.) iTunes has a very cool feature that lets you buy a track or album and send it to someone as a gift. It won't cost them anything and they will have to come back to iTunes to download the track. This accomplishes many things.
First, it exposes your music to 100 people who may not have heard it before. I know what you are saying: "I don't know 100 people that I can gift my music to." That is pure B.S.! If you add up your co-workers, friends, musicians, family, religious organization, college buddies, etc., you should be able to easily come up with 100 people. Plus, you can also include your local music promoters, critics, producers and the people at the supermarket.
Secondly, some of these folks may just buy some more tracks. I think it is quite likely that this may happen. Of course, there will be those recipients that are not into your music. It is equally likely that many of them will like what they hear and will want more. This is why it is critical not to gift the entire album. Just do one track and let them come back for more.
Third, one hundred people should be enough to start a bit of a viral effect on your album. Hopefully, they will each tell a friend about your music and spread the word.
OK, now comes the most obvious objection. Many of you reading this will say that you don't have $100 to do this. Well, the good news is that for every $100 you spend, you will only be spending around $50. That is because you'll get about 75-80% back from your digital distributor in royalty payments. If you have an 80/20 deal with your distributor and spend $100 at iTunes, that means that you'll get $56 in royalty payments the following accounting period. In reality, your $100 of marketing has only cost you $44! Where else could you get such a great deal and save 56% on your marketing dollars?
When you made your album, I am sure that you spent money on items that were not essential. For some, I imagine the beer-budget came close to $100. Perhaps you rented that amp that you used on only one song. Or maybe you had to slip some money to a club owner to use their space for a studio. Regardless of your recording, mastering, and manufacturing budget, I don't think that you wanted to spend all that money only to see it languish at the bottom of the lists on iTunes or to look at the zeroes on your royalty statements.
Lastly, please remember that some of the best digital marketing plans began by giving away free tracks. That works very nicely if you already have the traffic on your site. It does not work well if you trying to generate interest from scratch. If this technique doesn't work, you are out only $44. But if it does work, you can be proud that you took a proactive step and created a buzz about your album.
Happy Holidays!
We tried this with Cathy-Anne McClintock and were successful. We will do another 100 before Christmas.
Thanks for the tip, there is NO place where you can guarantee your return on investment to that degree. Bravo.
Posted by: Steven | December 15, 2008 at 09:20 PM
Great post.
I read this in the iTunes Store:
"Gifts can only be redeemed in the store country from which they were originated"
For someone like myself who's living outside the US, this will not work to promote my music to people living in the US.
Hopefully this will change. Any thoughts?
Posted by: Sambodhi Prem | February 10, 2009 at 02:39 PM