Marketing Outside The Box

Last week, we posted an article about using the service Twitter for music promotion.  I'd like to give special thanks to reader Daryl Shawn for bringing to our attention this fascinating story about an artist who planned a 7 week house concert tour almost entirely through people he met on Twitter.  In the article, the artist compares his standard tour procedure with his "Tweet" based tour and explains how he made more money, had more fun, and managed to sleep and eat cheaper on the road than ever had before.  You can read his full article here.

 

This got me thinking about marketing music "outside the box", and some of the more interesting promotional tactics I've heard about over the past few years.  Radiohead made a huge media splash when they announced they would be releasing "In Rainbows" and allowing customers to name their own price for it.  Nine Inch Nails (with some help from TuneCore) offered their album "Ghosts I-IV" in a number of different formats, including 9 free tracks on BitTorrent sites, all 36 tracks on Amazon, and then multiple physical packages including a limited pressing $300 deluxe version.

Other people have tried a different tactic, looking to earn money for their albums before they've even completed them.  In early 2008 singer-songwriter Jill Sobule asked for donations to help cover the cost of recording her new album.    In exchange, supporters would receive "prizes" of different levels - some examples include $500 to have your name sung on the album's final track and $5,000 for a personal house concert.

I would be interested to learn more about some of the experimental promotional moves attempted by our TuneCore users.  No idea is too big or too small, I'm simply curious to know what you've tried.  What worked well, what didn't?  Did you have an idea that seemed far fetched at first but turned out to be your secret weapon?  Post your thoughts here!

Comments

[Mark Marshall]

I'm taking on something pretty big - multiple albums in one year - with an audience looking on. It's called the Four For 4 Project:

http://four.markmarshall.com

Launches on 4/1 - ramping up now. Whew.

Great article - thanks for posting it.

[Jake]

Thanks Daryl... I manged to catch that in the newsletter but not on the blog post.

It's cool to hear that some of you have pulled off with pretty high success the album "fund raising" angle - I suppose as a fan it makes getting the album all the sweeter when you feel like you've directly contributed to the recording/creation process.

[Andy]

Here are a couple of things we have tried.

1) We subscribed to Commission Junction and put a link to eMusic and then suggested people go and get the album for free by subscribing to eMusic. We get a commission when someone subscribes via our website, and the fan gets the album for free, plus a few additional free tracks they can use.
The only issue is that people seem to think it's too good to be true and dislike having to give their credit card details to start the trial period. But it really does work. eMusic will give you the commission whether the subscriber stays on or cancels the first day.

2) We started a campaign called 9 songs/9 friends. By sending an email to a specific email address, you'd get a link to an MP3 file for free. If you could get 8 friends to send us an email with 'Joe Blogs told me to send you an email' then you'd get the whole album and could share it with your 8 friends.

[Claire]

We're just now unveiling our plans to release a limited number of a series of singles. See details here: http://www.sarahmacband1.wordpress.com

We'll let you know how it works. So far, so good. Pre-orders are steadily coming in.

[Daryl Shawn]

hey, thanks for the props, but the link to the article is missing above. Here 'tis:

http://www.stevelawson.net/wordpress/2009/02/real-life-touring-a-social-media-fuelled-tale

Daryl Shawn

[Esther Grace Ellis]

I got this great opportunity to record with a producer in Nashville back in December but didn't have any money or any resources. So I sent out a mass emailing to ALL my friends & family with a paypal link and asked for donations to help send me to Nashville. I got half of what I needed in one day.
I'm giving everyone who contributed a CD once they are finished.

NoiseTrade is an AMAZING way to get the word out about your music by letting people pay what they want or get it for free by telling 5 friends. What's not to like?