Two Web Marketing Paths

Here's a question. I'm recording my third CD this summer. I have this idea to build a website for my three CD's - each section would have individual descriptions of each song, ie the story behind them, demos, alternate versions of the songs, "making of" videos, and so on.

So there's two ways I can think of to do this. I'm interested in opinions on which way is best:

Method 1 - When you buy a CD, you get a code to unlock the website section for that CD. There you'll get free downloading of all the bonus materials, songs, and access to all the other stuff.

Method 2 - There are no access codes, and the whole entire site is available to everyone for free.

So the decision is this - do you produce a whole lot of content and put it out there to get people interested in you and buying your music? Or do you use all of that extra content to reward your fans and give them something more, a bonus for buying the CD? Remember that we are talking about demos and alternative versions of songs, so we are talking about downloading music.

What method makes more sense?

hmm, just don't know and I suppose it could depend on how much of it you project to be repeat biz.

One concern (just concern - might be nothing) I have is that with full-on, freely avail "alternative versions", those people who may just want sort of a "representative sample" [not talking strictly statistically this time ) might be satisfied with just that - "a few tunes from this guy". that might be magnified if your style is fairly consistent

I'm not super-duper confident that a lot of stuff like "the making of" type bonus material will have a bunch of drawing power unless

- there is some celebrity capital to cash in on

- there are some unusual aspects to the production, instrumentation, or conceptualization (like it's essentially a musical travelogue of your hiking trip across Africa or something).. If it's more "thoughts of a guy with an acoustic guitar", I think it will be less compelling

More just concerns than solid "this will work and I don't think that will"

Reverbnation gives you the possibility to unlock songs to fans only if they enter their email address and join your mailing list. Cool option.

hmm, just don't know and I suppose it could depend on how much of it you project to be repeat biz. One concern (just concern - might be nothing) I have is that with full-on, freely avail "alternative versions", those people who may just want sort of a "representative sample" [not talking strictly statistically this time ) might be satisfied with just that - "a few tunes from this guy". that might be magnified if your style is fairly consistent I'm not super-duper confident that a lot of stuff like "the making of" type bonus material will have a bunch of drawing power unless - there is some celebrity capital to cash in on - there are some unusual aspects to the production, instrumentation, or conceptualization (like it's essentially a musical travelogue of your hiking trip across Africa or something).. If it's more "thoughts of a guy with an acoustic guitar", I think it will be less compelling More just concerns than solid "this will work and I don't think that will"

Thanks for the input. I do agree that "making of" might not be something to push. It would be better to just have it on there... if people were interested, they could click on it. And I share the same concerns that alternate takes and demos might be enough for some people and possibly hurt sales.

Reverbnation gives you the possibility to unlock songs to fans only if they enter their email address and join your mailing list. Cool option.

That is a cool option. It's sort of a different approach to the two things I was considering.

My preference would be method 1; you're aim is to promote CD sales, then that is probably most effectively done by the music itself - if people don't like that, they probably won't be interested in the extra content. Therefore, it doesn't hurt to make this content unavailable to those who aren’t interested enough to buy the CD, plus it could act as an incentive to buy the CD.

To put it another way, if Method 3 was to sell the CD and don't bother with any extra content at all, just as a benchmark, I can't see how Method 2 would encourage significantly more sales than 3, whereas method 1 might just. Unscientific, I know.

Method 1. The exclusivity helps strengthen your bond with your paying customers.

I'd go with (1) also.

number one would work, provided you are providing extra value.

But just a thought, you say that people will buy the cd and then get a code to go one the net and get more content.

The issue i see here is you are adding a barrier to your fans. In short, its too much work. I can't see many people bothering with the fuss.

Why not just include all that extra stuff on the cd? It adds more value to the cd, and enables on purchasers of the tangible product to access it.

A good idea would be for the alternative songs, if they are cut-down/acoustic versions have them online and on the cd.

It presents some value to potential fans and may help you maintain their attention long enough to purchase your cd with even more additional content.

I would say a mixture of 1 and 2 is best.

See, I just don't see that. Pretend it's David Bowie and not me doing this. Bowie comes out with a new CD, and I buy it. I open it up, and... there's a card with a web site and a special code on it. I can go to the website and put in the code, and now I've got access to all of this extra content - demos, songs that didn't make the CD, alternate mixes, and so on.

I can't see many people NOT bothering to at least go to the site. To me, I'm thinking that Bowie just gave me something extra for my money, something I was not expecting.

What I'm trying to do is put together a strategy for all different types of listeners, for my new CD when it comes out. For people who just want to check out my music, they'll be able to stream every song and see the lyrics. For people who want to download a track or two to put on their iPod for free, I'll make two tracks available for free downloading. For people who want to purchase the music, I'll sell them the CD plus I'll give them access to demos, alt takes, alt mixes, and so on.

Method 1 seems the most thought out and logical. As you've said if we were speaking of an established artist promoting a cd that would be the basic track they would follow. You'd be offering a little bit of everything. Free songs to entice new listeners, the ability for interested parties to purchase a full cd, and then a bonus for the user that may actually be interested in them.

You can also save some of the extra content for use in emails. Send an email to your base with a demo attached - it could be a news email or the email could be all about the demo. You could do this on a monthly basis. Maybe you could post the demo a month later to give the email subscribers some exclusive access for a period of time. Or you could release all your extra content in this fashion, pointing back to the website for additional content each month.

Good stuff. I like the idea of sending an e-mail out, once a month, letting people know what new content I've posted. I'm going to use that idea - thanks!

Pay per listen, its got to be.

End result of all of this, BTW, is that I dumped the whole idea. My new approach is to offer full streaming of everything and include lyrics (via bandcamp) and then on my site, go into more details. I think it's a good idea to offer a bunch of extra stuff, but I don't have the extra stuff to deliver, at this point.

1 million albums on a major label =$70k (but most likely nothing)

15.000 albums sold by you for $5 each, as a download =$75k, no cost!

and why are major labels dead....?

Oh yeah, Spotify took care of that ;-)

Hmm... I see what you mean, but your numbers are quite low imo.

1 million album sold = more like 300 000$

If you are on a major label and you sell 1 million albums, you are packing arenas with your live shows.... = $$$$$$$$ with the money, the label will make you an household name nationally. If your contract is good, 1 million album sold should give you enough money to stop working for the rest of your life.

You won't play to full arenas with 15 000$ sold on your own...

Bonus material is always a plus for fans.

well, with a major label you're looking at 10%-20% of either profit (if you're just starting out) or revenue (if you're an established superstar band). 1 million in sales could generate anywhere from $7 million to $12 million in revenue. Costs for a major label band just starting out would be around $1 million so the profit from 1 million in sales could range from $6 million to $11 million of which the band's earnings would be somewhere between $600k (10% of $6 million) and $2.2 million (20% of $11 million).

A superstar band's earnings would simply be a line item expense in operations for the label and the band would get 20% of revenue right off the bat - they wouldn't have to wait for any other expenses to get paid off beforehand. So they would be looking at 20% of $7 million to 20% of $12 million ($1.4 to $2.4 million).

But in both the superstar case and the new major label band case, you only start earning money after paying off the advance.

So say you're a superstar band and have sold 1 million albums. Maybe your band makes $2 million. you have 4 equal members of the band. You each get $500k. That's not enough to retire on! Hitting the road seems to generate about 10x the amount of money for a band compared to album sales. however, radio royalties (for example, $19 a minute for a song played on BBC2) and licensing can generate a significant amount too.

i like the first option because you can also drive traffic to your site. Buying offline and promoting online. If you want to sell more , you can try marketing with postcards and send them to your qualified prospects.

Nice bump.

Definitely #1.

I write CD reviews for the local music zine. One of the CD's I reviewed had a code on it. That code enabled me to do just that...download additional un-released tracks and find out some more info about the recording.

This was a great idea by this band. I usually visit the websites of bands I review, but this time I was excited to see what was in store.

This thread is a bit old, have you made the website yet?

I haven't read this entire thread yet, but let's say you go with option one or at least a spin on option one. Why not make it so that when someone purchases any of the three cds, they receive a code which gives them access to a website that has ALL your bonus material and freebies.

I realize you said you dumped the idea but I think all the stuff you wanted to do sounds cool. I'd put it all up for free. If you have lots of high quality free stuff on your site and you promote it on Twitter and Youtube you could drive in a lot of traffic, get subscribers to your newsletter and sell CD's. Sure some might never buy a single thing and just soak in the free stuff all day long but even if 99% don't bite there's still 1% that probably will.

If you must dangle a carrot then use that as incentive to sign up to your newsletter and promote your releases through there as well.