Imogen Heap
All this to sell an album?
I know this guy Scott Perry. I met him at the CIMS convention back in the summer of 2000 (CIMS-Coalition of Independent Music Stores, Scott worked for the organization, I spoke at the convention.) We immediately hit it off, we connected as they say. So Scott Perry earned access to me.
That’s the most important part. Being able to reach someone.
PLEASE read this Seth Godin essay on Permission Marketing:
It’s the most informative piece of marketing info you’ll read all year.
Every Monday I get an e-mail from Scott, entitled "New Music Tipsheet"
sign up here: New Music Tipsheet
If I scroll down, I get some factual information, about what’s coming out, I don’t care about that, it’s too overwhelming and generic, but it’s Scott’s essays atop the e-mail that interest me. Today Scott went on about Imogen Heap’s online marketing.
Imogen occupies a far distant spot on my radar screen. I know who she is, but I don’t voluntarily play her music, even though I get regular e-mail about her from fans.
But employing Google, I uncovered the essay Scott was referring to, delineating everything Imogen had done to sell her new album.
And my first reaction was, is it worth it?
Now the activities took two years to unfold. But suddenly, you’re no longer a musician, but a personality. And so much of what Imogen was doing was generating no revenue. It was all leading up to a single sales event, the ultimate release of an album. Huh?
Do you have to be a newfangled self-marketer to have success in today’s world? If that’s what it takes, if you’ve got to do everything Imogen did, how many will say no? What about practicing, gigging, getting good?
Just about everything Imogen has done here has nothing to do with music. She could speak at Kellogg, America’s number one business school, about marketing. But those chumps would rather just go into finance anyway.
There’s nothing wrong with what Imogen has done here. But if this is truly the future, we’re fucked. There’s got to be a better way to reach fans.
I believe it’s a Website, a place where you go to find out all information about artists. Something that no one, not Ticketmaster, Live Nation, MTV nor Apple nor labels has yet created. A trusted source. There’s only one Amazon, why should there be a million music sites?
There will be only one. If I wasn’t a writer, I’d create it. I know exactly what it should contain, how it should look.
But you can’t do everything. If I were to create that site I’d have to give up writing, which is my passion. Do people have to give up music because they’re so busy marketing themselves?
But Imogen is at the cutting edge of today’s music world. It is about fans. Capturing them and keeping them satiated. If you’re playing in the old top down world, not only are you wasting effort, most people just don’t care. That’s the point of Seth’s post above… You can do saturation advertising, but that doesn’t mean people are going to pay attention!
But I’m paying attention because of my trusted source Scott.
And that’s my point here, it’s all about trusted sources.
Imogen’s got a flock of dedicated followers, that’s the key to the future, but they didn’t come free. Furthermore, by employing grass roots methods she built from the bottom up and has more fans than those who built from the top down. But wow, it was a lot of effort.
Read this: The New Music Business Model: Imogen Heap
