Last Friday, the following bulletin arrived on my page from Jewel:
From: JEWEL
Date: May 12, 2006 1:53 PM
We are giving away 8 GOODBYE ALICE IN WONDERLAND Jewel posters to 8 lucky fans! To enter, Put Jewel in your Top 8 and send a message to her myspace inbox by 12 PM EST on Monday! Please put 'JEWEL POSTER' as the subject along with your name and COMPLETE mailing address. One winner will be selected by random from all eligible entries at 12 PM EST Monday! A few lucky winners will also get to be featured in her top 8!
Feeling totally uninspired by this 'promotion', I fired off the following reply:
To whoever is reading these from Jewel's camp:
Instead of offering $2 posters(eight!), why not give away 100 copies of GAIW to 100 bloggers? And as an added bonus, when those CDs arrive to those 100 bloggers, have them all be SIGNED and INSCRIBED to the person.
How much positive publicity to you think that move would get Jewel and GAIW in the blogosphere? A ton and a half.
How much positive publicity do you think giving away 8 $2 posters is going to get Jewel? Most if not ALL of the people that will go to the trouble to apply for the poster, already have Jewel in their Top 8 anyway.
Which move, giving away 100 signed copies of GAIW to 100 bloggers, or giving away 8 $2 posters on MySpace, is going to generate more publicity for Jewel and GAIW...and ultimately more sales of GAIW?
We both know which will cost more, giving away 100 CDs. It will also require Jewel to set aside 10 mins or so to sign them.
But it, unlike giving away 8 posters, will lead to sales.
Isn't that the name of the marketing game here?
Everyone will be SHOCKED to note that my above email still sits in Jewel's box 6 days later, unread.
9 comments:
Tell you what Mack.
Jord and I will get to the bottom of these types of problems when we take in Nettwerk's seminar tomorrow night.
LOL! Thanks man. BTW now that you mention it, if you get a chance to talk to Erin or anyone on the panel, ask them what they think about the idea of using bloggers to promote a CD, like giving away 100 copies of a CD to 100 bloggers. There might be a legitimate business reason why this isn't feasible, so tell her that I won't blog about their reasoning if it's not something they want to do. I just want someone to explain to me why they don't think its a good idea, if they don't.
BTW I am still jealous, just so you know....
Will do man. It was going to be one of my questions anyways. I mean, it worked for Hugh and Stormhoek, did it not?
Who says it can't work for CD labels?
Keep firing your missives in the direction of Jewel and any other artist who will listen. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that will get music companies (and others) to think about using blogs more effectively in promotions, or get you a kickin' job heading up such an effort, or -- best case! -- both.
BINGO Ryan! Stormhoek is a classic example, and was the inspiration for my 'You be the marketer' post I left earlier this year on BMA discussing labels using bloggers to help market their CDs.
Some label is going to finally take a chance and do this, and it's going to be a HUGE success! I really want Nettwerk to be that label.
Thanks Ann, musicians already have the community ready and WILLING to help market them. Any artist that doesn't work with them, quite frankly gets what they deserve.
Thanks to you Mack, Erin and the folks at Nettwerk might have a better idea of the value of having bloggers like Ryan and I in the audience tomorrow night.
Me thinks even they don't really appreciate the full extent of the power of the blogsphere just yet.
If they open up the floor, I promise to pipe up on your behalf.
Jordan tell them that you and Ryan are bloggers that found out about the seminar because 'everyone's blogging about it'. LOL That might open their eyes!
And the best part is, Nettwerk is one of the few/only labels smart enough to actually know what to do with that info.
Good Job! :)
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