In Your Face
I hate people I’ve never even met.
No, let me narrow this down. I hate musicians whose music I’ve never even heard. Because of the endless hype.
There’s a fascinating story in today’s "New York Times", entitled "When Flood Of E-Mail Pitches Recedes".
Turns out, the closer online retailers got to Christmas, the fewer promotional e-mails they sent. You see they were worried about pissing off their customers.
If you get down to one week…many people have already completed their Christmas shopping, and it’s impossible to guarantee delivery with standard, cheap, often free, shipping. So, retailers stop e-mailing pitches to maintain their lists.
Do you get this? Rather than eke out a few more sales in the short term, sellers are holding back, for fear that those on the e-mail list will sign off, for it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to acquire new e-mail list subscribers.
In other words, you blast your message again and again at what cost?
Continuing to live in the twentieth century, too many believe all publicity is good publicity. That saturation is the key to success. But it’s not, because of the backlash. Ever hear of hard core fans abandoning an act when it becomes popular? Same thing. It’s cool to see your old fave in the press once or twice. If they appear every single day, online, on the cover of multiple publications, you’re turned off and abandon them.
Ever since the advent of MTV the music industry has focused on the casual fan. Get the last person on earth to buy the CD, even though early adopters have been burned out on the tracks for years.
It’s not that different in the concert business. Let’s charge a lot for an extravaganza of the latest top forty wonder in an arena. People come once, and then, if the act can tour again, it’s theatres, that they don’t even sell out.
It’s no longer about casual users, it’s about fans.
It’s too hard to reach everybody today. And you piss off those who truly care.
I got the message. Don’t beat me over the head with it. Don’t send me another e-mail with the same damn content. Fans pay attention. They caught it the first time.
So, start with getting fans.
The top forty acts usually don’t have any. At best, listeners are fans of the song. And they’re searching for another great song, not to hear another song by you!
Feed your audience great material, that they can pull when they want to. Don’t make them sign up for your e-mail list to get some reward, they’re just going to be pissed off at you when you keep dunning them in the future. Let people sign up at their option. Otherwise, they’ll use fake names and you’ll end up with a shit list anyway.
You’re now in a relationship with your listener. Before you abuse him, think of how you’d treat a spouse, or a friend. That’s how you have to treat a fan today.
