Case Studies - Successful Online Music Marketing

CASE STUDIES ON SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MUSIC MARKETING

• Arcade Fire – Interactive Music Video Using Google Street View

Arcade Fire utilized HTML5 to create an interactive music video for “We Used To Wait.” Users are prompted to enter the address of their childhood home at the start of the video. While watching the video, scenes from your old neighborhood are pulled in using Google street view.  The elements of new technology, interactivity, nostalgia, experimentation, and personalization all aided in making this video a huge hit. Think about those factors for your next campaign. 

• The Poison Control Center – Tumblr Tour Blog

The Poison Control Centre have an awesome tour blog. The band uses Tumblr, a simple and free blogging platform, to regularly update their fans from the road. After each show they share pictures, videos, and posts about their experiences, even down to thanking the sound guy, door person, bartender, and of course the fans. They do it right by updating frequently, providing a wide variety of content, and always remaining authentic

• Gossip Grows on Trees – Building Your Email List with a Fortune Cookie

Email is one of the best ways to directly reach your fans, but sometimes it can be difficult to grow your subscription list.  Gossip Grows on Trees from North Carolina executed a creative way to gain more email addresses at live shows.

They created a download web page that gave visitors a free music download in exchange for their email. At shows they walked around and handed out custom fortune cookies with the URL of the download page and a short message from the band. This gave the band an opportunity to spark conversation and develop relationships with fans. Plus, a lot more people visited the download page and provided their email address because they were approached in a memorable way.

All of these online music marketing case studies have a common theme of musicians connecting with fans. It isn’t enough to put your music out there and hope people will gravitate towards it. You have to be willing to push it out there and utilizing online mediums is a key element.

CASE STUDY ON ONE DIRECTION

• In 2012 One Direction was the world’s biggest band with an upcoming second album. But generating and satisfying demand from fans around the world is a very real challenge. The boys performed a one-off gig in Madison Square Gardens and turned it into a three-month global adventure called Bring me to 1D that got every One Direction fan and the world’s press buzzing.

• Fifty-five 'Go1Den Tickets' promising a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” with the boys in New York were released globally. Each was won in a completely different creative way. The band joined the dots with its constant presence via Facebook, Twitter and the official 1D site, where an interactive Bring Me to 1D map enabled fans to follow what was happening around the world.

• Millions of fans took part. Tens of millions engaged. And the result? One Direction’s site achieved its biggest ever volume of traffic. Facebook likes and Twitter follows doubled and, in the first week of release, Take Me Home, went straight to Number 1 in 32 of the 40 participating countries, flying the flag for British music all over the world.

• Genevieve Ampaduh, Head of Digital Marketing at Sony Music, who masterminded One Direction’s social media campaign says: “Social media has changed the face of music marketing forever. The ability for artists to reach out to their potential fans in every corner of the globe in real time is incredibly powerful and cannot be replicated by traditional media.

FIRST WORD RECORDS GIVES MUSIC AWAY FOR FREE ON BANDCAMP  

They put together a free, bi-annual, compilation that they offer on their Bandcamp page in return for email addresses. The compilation only includes artists from their own roster, and seems to have great promotional value beyond acquiring email addresses.

• It gives music enthusiasts and writers a special reason beyond the music to feature it on their websites as it’s free
• It helps to introduce newly signed artists to a new audience and potentially turning them into fans without the consumer having to take a risk when acquiring the music (since it’s free)
• It can also help promoting back catalogue and help those artists reach a wider audience that might not have heard of the older releases

 MUSIC MARKETING FROM PUSH TO PULL

• “push marketing is on it’s way out.”
• Push example; passive, the marketing campaign is in control of the message being sent out and how it is received by potential customers. Pull example; active, the recipient of the marketing campaign is in control of the message and their decision whether to act or not. “Generally the shift from push to pull has been viewed as a shift in power to the consumer away from advertisers and so is bad news for marketers.”
• Social networking has become a major and focal part of music marketing adopting the pull marketing strategy. Pull marketing shifts emphasis and attention onto the customer, the essential attribute is to market in the correct places and know where and who your target audience are. “Get people’s attention by providing value and earn their love by engaging with them. This will naturally lead to increased website traffic and increased sales.” 

HIP-HOP MARKETING

• The never seen before marketing technique, or lack of as the case may be, is yet another example of the Los Angeles based collective’s adversity to conformity. The identity of the group is largely credited to the founder, Tyler, The Creator, described as a “sadistic yet compelling performer” by the New York Times. His antics both on and off-stage continue to define the rebellious, alternative learning that have to come to be associated with the young ensemble.
• Tour merchandise has always been present and popular, but Odd Future redesigned the experience. As opposed to selling cheap generic t-shirts featuring printed logos on a table as you enter the venue, forcing the fan to pay over the odds of course, they turn it into a whole companion experience to the show. They offer merchandise that’s one-of-a-kind, which can’t be bought online, in stores or at other shows, reinventing the phrase “exclusive”.

• “There’s no marketing, it’s exposing it at the right place at the right time. So when you have kids that are completely themselves, you don’t necessarily market because you just take who they are and expose it. Right? So it’s not like a push.” - Christian Clancy.

BEYONCE’S LEMONADE MARKETING GENIUS

• Lemonade, the visual album, had no release date when the single “Formation” was surprisingly released on February 6, 2016. Prior to that, Beyonce had not released an album since December of 2014. While remaining silent about her endeavors for this new album, she released a single right before her second Super Bowl halftime performance and made sure that the visual addressed the controversial racial injustices of America.

• Once the halftime performance was over, she announced the “Formation World Tour” to an average of 111.9 million TV viewers (the third largest audience in TV history). Within the first two weeks of sales, Formation sold out two New York shows, two London show, and added a second Chicago night. This was all without any indication of an album being released.

• Her marketing team along with HBO released a 5-7 second clip of “Lemonade”. There was no indication as to what it could’ve been. A short film? A music video? A documentary? The album everyone was waiting for? The release was announced and set for April 23rd, leaving a week for suspense and anticipation. As the date grew closer a longer promotional clip was released, and it still kept much of what it was a secret.

• Within hours of the album’s release, Tidal, the only place you can listen to “Lemonade” for now, shot towards the top of Apple’s App Store rankings. It was number 12 as of Sunday morning, even though it wasn’t even listed in the top apps list before “Lemonade” dropped. It reached as high as number 3 by Sunday afternoon.c ase