Not only am I a fan of Trent Reznor’s because of his music, but I also admire the guy for his online marketing understanding and knowledge. He did what brought Radiohead probably their biggest moment of fame, the In Rainbows release on a pay what you want principle, earlier already and actually had a plan for both Ghosts and The Slip.
Some days ago he chimed in once more and delivered his stance on whether artists should charge for their music or not.
If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:
* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) – your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.
If you’re forging your own path, read on.
* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
It is no secret that Reznor a fan of free distribution of music is (who also released all his latest albums under a Creative Commons license) but the truth needs to be said and repeated: unless you receive massive marketing, you will NOT become really popular or rich even. Not from your music. Let’s face the harsh facts: no matter how good your band is, if you have to rely on local gigs and sales, within several months you might be able to get several thousands to your gigs. Many of those will be REPEAT fans, and probably almost as many will be acquaintances, friends.
If you’re lucky, 20% will buy your music. Probably the repeat visitors.
Fact.
Every other sale depends on you being able to reach beyond local stages and broaden your geographic area. BUT you will have to be able to get follow-on gigs, without creating the impression ‘Oh it’s XXXXX AGAIN. Meh, can’t be bothered’. People in the 21st century suffer of boredom very quickly. And you will have to be an social media ace to keep boredom away online. We saw it with Myspace. Facebook fan pages are no exception to this(1) and soon people will start hiding band updates because they have whether become a fan of too many bands or bands push too many status updates and pollute one’s news feed. It is a tricky and difficult line to walk.
But was does go viral?
Free music does. The 21st Century is the era of free, especially online. And music is one of the biggest promoters of Free.
The choice obviously is left to bands, but it is a simple one. The only decision to make is the one about what your real aim is: become rich and sell yourself and your soul (see Reznor above) or do you want your music to spread virally and enjoy hordes streaming to your gigs?
Their are many platforms available to distribute your music virally: Bandcamp probably being the best one right now, Last.fm although pretty much dead almost, still is a great way to get out there and offer downloads. Forget about Spotify: people want to take your music with them, have it on their laptop, on their media player or stereo. Most people are cheap skates and Spotify IS expensive, especially the portable versions. Face it, offer free downloads of your music and you might climb the Last.fm rankings. Upload your music to Youtube and your video might hit Facebook news feeds and be embedded on several music blogs. Free downloads will also be featured on many more music blogs. Yes, free is the decisive factor nowadays.
Your biggest fans will gladly buy special, limited releases.
I even do not want to mention the influence of the credit crunch, but remember that if people want your album they will get it. Without paying.
Don’t call them pirates because probably you have received many a copy of music albums yourself over the years. Whether you’re as old as I am already and still remember audio tapes or nowadays just by sharing digitally. Remember, even iTunes initial DRM allowed music to be played on 5 devices. Now it is only an ethical matter anymore whether you share iTunes downloads or not. I am old and consider every burned CD I pass on just like the old copy on an audio tape. Because… music is made to share and great music I will share.
Freely.
I will come to your gig. Maybe, maybe I might even be that one person who will pre-order your next release in iTunes. But only if your music has climbed my play count rank.
- On a side note, I see way too many bands use ‘message updates’. We do not read anything which is not on our NEWS FEED!(↩)
So true. People look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them I do this.. but as times change, so must our marketing strategies. It’s common sense, really.
Props to Trent- he is a huge inspiration. :)
Raivyn, another great source for inspiration for musicians is Derek Sivers. He has many an inspirational entry on his blog, also to non musicians, the guy is really inspirational but he also has some great stuff about music marketing. Head over to his site and browse his archives. The guy’s an inspirational genius!