Recently I had a marketing group contact me about helping their client with a music promotion. They were working with a band that wanted to give away CDs to music bloggers in order to boost exposure for their client. Since I frequently blog about music marketing, it might have seemed like my blog was a perfect fit for this promotion, but it wasn’t the case.
I suggested to the exec that if the band wanted to give away CDs, that instead of targetting random bloggers, why not target the fans of the band? Why not empower your fans to evangelize the band’s music to their friends and fellow music fans?
But my marketing friend was having none of it. The exec agreed that reaching out to fans was a great idea, and wanted to know when I’d be posting about the band’s promotion. Sigh. A quick check of the band’s MySpace page revealed thousands upon thousands of ”friends.” No doubt there were 100 bloggers that were also fans of the band, mixed in that number. Also isn’t much doubt that they’ll never be contacted.
And to be fair, at first blush the above advice can seem counterintuitive to many companies. Who do you want to promote your product, the blogger that has 600 visitors a day, or 6?
But the answer is: it depends. For example, I had never heard of the band in question, and had no reason to endorse them.
But if you give the CD to a fan of the band, even if her blog only gets a handful of visitors a day, she’ll positively endorse the CD, and the band, and sing the praises of both.
Many companies do this, focusing on creating new customers, while empowering their existing evangelists is the much smarter play. ut to these companies, it also involves enormous “risk.” It requires ceding some marketing control to the community, and trusting on existing evangelists to sell their product for them.
It involves sharing control. But the loss of control is well worth the gain that’s realized.
Tags: Blogging, Mack_Collier, Marketing, music_bloggers, Music_marketing
Mack,
Excellent post. I think this example says that the executive was seeking reach rather than targeting his audience. I suppose if that effort is free, through us bloggers, that’s okay.
But I agree with you, Mack. While reach may gain a few new fans, sales escalate when we reach our target audience, our fans, and free CDs to a few of them can create a wildfire of buzz that reach can never achieve.
For whatever reason, some “marketeers” like the speculative nature of creative enterprises, but have short attention spans and the will to commit to the long haul of promotional activity cycles.
So I also add a whiff of either cynicism or ambivalence directed towards an “audience” in general (not specifically fans) and artists of all stripes (not only in the area of music). Notice how there’s often little investment in what they push, no tailoring to fit the needs/style of the artist (regardless of the quality of what’s being pushed)? Hence the inclination to go for the cheap, quick, broad, “hands off”/ “no follow up” appproach in getting word out,
Lewis my hope is that as companies begin to dabble with letting customers share in the marketing process (create our ad for us, etc.), that eventually they’ll shift toward empowering evangelists. Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba had a great quote in Creating Customer Evangelists, they said that evangelists can ‘reach the target market much more effectively than you can, because they ARE the target market’.
This is why companies need to either join their communities in their space, or empower the ir evangelists that are already in those communities.
Good post Mack. In my experience, when companies let customers have a say about their brand, the evangelists promote them a lot more strongly – and sincerely – than they’d be able to promote themselves.
And when something bad is said about the brand, that’s often a warning that something is wrong and needs to be changed.
It all comes down to quality over quantity. Too many marketers still believe that quantity is more important.
What they need to realize is that quantity is a RESULT of quality.
Start with a bar full of true fans and you’ll end up with a stadium full of devoted listeners. Start with a stadium full of people who don’t care, and you’ll end up sitting at that very same bar asking yourself what the heck went wrong.
Nice ideas! This has actually already been done by a couple of bands. Take a look at what “Arctic Monkeys” have been able to achieve through their online social-marketing strategies.
Like Ryan says, it’s a matter of quality over quantity. Especially now when there are thousands of bands and artists out there, just like most brands and product in other industries, they will have to focus on small(-er) niches and be profitable and successful in them.
Mark,
I am dying to know what role that “executive” played in relation to the band’s career. If he’s their manager he should be fired. If he works for their label then there’s less the band can do other than do it right themselves.
The good news is, today bands can do much of the promotion work themselves. And by themselves I don’t necessarily mean the musicians personally need to be chatting with fans on MySpace or schmoozing with bloggers, but that they can bring the evangelical enterprise in-house, own the process and have the conversation with THEIR AUDIENCE as opposed to their label’s rolodex.
Interesting to notice that this “executive” confused the medium, blogs, with the band’s audience.
Thanks for the post.
Good points all. I think targeting bloggers with greater reach is fine as long as they ALSO have the incentive to want to spread your message to others. Evangelists have this incentive. One evangelists with a handful of readers for her blog trumps a blogger with a few thousand readers, who has no incentive to spread your message.
Excitement and passion from a few trumps reaching the indifferent masses, IMO.
Interesting, Mack.
With some products, it comes down to word of mouth. If I see a review of a new CD in a magazine, that will mean more to me than seeing an ad. But if I hear good things about a new CD from a friend whose taste I respect, or from a blogger whose taste seems similar to mine, that will mean so much more in motivating me to go buy it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the exec was a label guy. So many of them just don’t know how to market the music they sell.
I’ve seen it firsthand with a singer/songwriter I do some work with, who I’ll leave unnamed. He’s on a major label. When he tours, the label’s p.r. people don’t even set up local radio and newspaper interviews. Those localized p.r. efforts are so much more important now, since it’s harder than ever to get airplay.
Mack,
You have started a great discussion here. In giving away the CDs, I would go so far as to say to give the select fans 5 or 10 or as many CDs as possible so that they have the quick means (and desire, no less) to give away these CDs to their friends.
What better way to spark interest in your product than to have your “enthusiastic core” giving away what they love?