| CD Baby DIY Musician Podcast |
 June 29,
2009
Ep.65 : Matthew Ebel - Stream your concerts to the world
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| CD Baby Music Podcasts |
 Music Discovery
 Hip Hop
 60's Pop
 Rockabilly
 Top Sellers
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| Mass/Bulk Email Campaigns Don't Work |
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If you're thinking of hiring one of those companies that is going to email thousands or millions of strangers about your CD, don't. It's not worth it, it can hurt you more than help you, and doesn't work anyway.
I don't know if you know, but say you send out an email to someone who didn't want it. And in your email was the link to your CD Baby page. Guess who gets the complaint? ME! The abuse department forwards me every single complaint about every unwanted email that mentions CD Baby anywhere in it.
I'm expected to SHUT OFF the account of anyone who gets a lot of complaints. Sometimes I do - sometimes I don't.
When I don't, it's out of curiosity : wondering, how many CDs will this person's massive email-bulk-blast campaign sell?
(By the way, emailing people who didn't want or ask to hear from you is called SPAM. I know that because it's your MUSIC and not viagra, that you don't think of it as spam, but it's spam, by every definition.)
When a company says, "We will email millions of music fans about your music!" - be suspicious. If they had said hundreds or thousands, then perhaps those people really did choose to be on a mailing list that hears about new music. But when the numbers are TOO high (especially millions), there's a good chance it's just a list of all possible email addresses, and you're about to become an evil spammer.
And now - I can tell you from running the store : I've watched quite a few big giant massive email-campaigns now - ones where I'm assuming they mailed many thousands of people, because I get hundreds of complaints insisting that I shut down their account - and ALL of them have sold either NO CDs or TWO CDs, tops - TOPS!
Then consider the downside: CD Baby may need to shut down your account. I'm sure whoever is hosting your website (yourname.com) is being asked to shut down your account. Whoever you use for email (@aol.com, @earthlink.net, etc) - is being asked to shut down your account.
It's just not worth it. Don't do it.
Keep in touch with people who have ASKED to hear about your music, yes. And if you don't have many fans yet, go make some! Play live. Meet people. But don't be a spammer.
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This raises interesting points about new media and our perceptions of it. We need to deconstruct familiar concepts like spam; what underlies it and what can we learn from understanding it.
I think there are essentially 2 approaches to marketing (and possibly some hybrids): top-down or bottom-up.
Conventional industry wisdom is pay lots to get a message widely publisised, and manufacture a sense of identity with the image of a musician: top-down.
What seems to underlie spam is the assumption that part of economic progress is an increase in quantity, be that units, potential buyers etc. I just don't think this works in the long run.
I'm drawn to another approach. Not just because I don't have the funds that big record companies have. Consumer enthusiasm relates to goodwill. This is the capital of the independant marketeer. Customer loyalty and long term career building are best served when growth of reach is gradual and backed up with integrity.
If you make a solid connection with a listener, they will become your medium. If the infection takes, it will spread, (to use a negetive metaphor).
Sheer funds or quantity of coverage (be it mainstream mass media OR new media spamming) will never achieve that. The core element that results in sales is an enthusiasm for what you are and represent. Spamming simply cannot achive this, as  says, it achieves the opposite.
OK now I've said all this with such heartfelt attention to the common good, you can't blow the whistle if I plug my album, http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/nicpaton>The Middle of it All, can you? I mean go check it out and tell me if my ramblings apply to my own work.
Nic Paton
www.nicpaton.com
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That backfired didn't it. No more bending the rules by plugging where its not allowed for me.
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Derek,
I've got a great story in my
book about some guys who bought like 10,000,000 email
addresses to send to. They figured that with even a .0001%
response, they'd sell out of their first pressing.
But what happened was that they lost their web host. And
because they didn't have their own domain (this was a few years
ago), all the CDs that they had printed up now had the wrong
info.
Oops!!
And they were out some money for the email addresses, of
course...
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Derek, why don't you just put a no-spam clause in the member agreement?
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There is no member agreement and legalese is never the answer to anything.
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Let me rephrase that. I really meant to say, I suggest putting a note about this on the sign-up pages, and by no means in legalese, but in your usual informal style. To educate people and to make them aware that they may lose their CD Baby page over this.
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I've never considered doing the bulk email thing, but here's a question. What DOES work?
Like, the top selling artists on CDBaby. What are they doing to promote their CD?
->Later.....Spice
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I can tell you from experience, Derek is right.
Hating the whole concept of SPAM, I figured I
would go another way. I would pay extra
money to get an email list of people who had
'opted-in', meaning people who had agreed to
get sent emails based on a certain
demographic.
In my case, it was a children's CD so, I spent
$500 (a fairly pretty penny) for 10,000 emails
of people with children ages 2-10 who had
'opted-in' for emails regarding children 2-10.
I sent my email 3 weeks before Christmas
with two different subjects:
'A Stocking Stuffer for Kids', and 'From the
composer of Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer'.
I figured I COULD NOT MISS. Legitimate
non-spam emails, targeted to willing
customers at a perfect gift buying time. I've got
major TV credits as well. The response:
1 CD sold. Net profit (-$490)
I've sold nearly 300 CDS through CDbaby and
it's 'holistic' channels.
Skip the mass emailing game. Unless it's to
your own fan list.
-Josh :)
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