Online Promotions
Online Promotions and Marketing – Part One
This is a three part blog covering the area of digital store promotions but much of the information can be applied to the physical world too. In this part I’m going to cover what promotion is available with digital stores; part two will be how do I get this and part three will be looking at the one sheet / sales sheet.
So, a question I’m often asked is, what promotional opportunities are available with digital stores (downloading and streaming)? Many stores offer similar opportunities, but how you get them is often very different. Additionally not every store offers the same promotional opportunities and in some cases you even have to pay for it. I must say upfront that I will mention Apple a lot and it’s not because I’m Apple obsessed, I’m not and I use a PC, but it’s a company I work with a lot on a daily basis so I’m more familiar with their workings than some others.
The most obvious and most sought-after opportunity is to get at least a Pac shot on the front page of a store, and even better a promotional banner. In the case of Spotify, artists / labels do have to pay for these whereas most other stores will do it for nothing. The equivalent of front page in the physical world is being able to have your product placed right in front of you as you enter the record shop and like Spotify, it is an opportunity labels have to pay for especially in the case of large music chains. In the case of Apple iTunes there are nine rolling banners at the top of the store, 32 sliders in the middle and 18 bricks and this is replicated on the genre pages. The genre page is often overlooked by labels but for any new band or artist, this is much more likely the place you will first get your major promotion and can still be rewarding. How you get these I will cover in the next blog but I will make it clear, Apple, like many other stores, gives this opportunity to artists for free.
Some stores have made it easy to find product by using unique URLs and this is useful if you’re on radio as you can say to the listeners, my new album is available on iTunes and you can go directly to it by visiting www.itunes.com/bobmarley. Every artist on iTunes has their own unique URL like this and you can go a stage further by adder a further / and putting the name of your release after the artist name. This is much better than just saying it’s available online; at least you can now point your audience directly to your own page as many people will not spend a lot of time searching for product.
Some stores have made it possible for artists to create widget type interfaces that can then be copied and pasted to your own website / social networking site that will give the fans the opportunity to listen and then buy straight from that store without having to search. I know Apple iTunes has this ability, but the artist has to obtain the code from their distributor unlike other stores where it can be created from within the store and also create playlists of your releases or somebody else’s.
Most stores allow the use of their logo to help push audience members to the various stores. Most come with instructions on how you can or cannot use the brand, so do make sure you follow them carefully. Additionally you can sometimes give out custom codes that will allow you to essentially give away your music for free to fans or press etc. In some cases these are paid for by the label or the artist, but it’s still a promotional opportunity if used correctly.
These days all sites have their own pages on various social networks especially on Facebook and Twitter and they have a large number of people following them. On Facebook the demographic tends to be a younger audience and older on Twitter, so one option is to ask for your release to be plugged by the store to these social sites. This is an opportunity that many artists could obtain much more easily and it’s more targeted to your potential audience so don’t be afraid to ask for a plug by the stores on these social sites.
One thing Apple iTunes does that nobody else does that I know of is hold their own festival. Each year in July, iTunes holds a festival in London in which two artists will perform each night and the festival take place for a whole month. The festival does get television exposure around the world as well as a lot of media interest both in terms of radio and press. I was pleased to see in the festival line-up this year that at least one quarter of the artists taking part were from independent labels so well done to iTunes for being even-handed with that. Of course artists taking part in this festival gain additional promotion with front page exposure and lots of other Apple branding behind them, so this is definitely an opportunity to aim for, but not something you will get starting out, it’s more of an opportunity to aim for once you have some success and story behind you.
Some stores do give away music such as Apple iTunes single of the week. This of course is a great opportunity for letting the world know about a great new artist or band and I’m sure the number of music fans taking this opportunity for free music is high. One thing to note is that the artist does not get paid for this, they only get paid mechanical fees. I believe however the editors choice of the week is very different and you are paid for each downlaod.
At the start I stated this would be a three part blog and in the next I’ll cover how you can go about trying to get some of these opportunities. For companies that are giving these opportunities in their store for free, there is a lot of work you need to do and having great music is a start, but it’s not the whole story.
This post was written by Nick Dunn.
Copyright 2011 Help for Bands. All rights reserve.