Sorry it's been a while, I've been keeping busy with work, parental visits, work, passover, work, my sister's wedding, and have I mentioned work? Anyway, I'm working on a Green Day blog (researched and everything!) but real life jumped in and made me write this email to Bob Lefsetz, so I figured I'd throw it up here as well. I give you, the BEST MARKETING PLAN EVER!!
This is how you make money if you're in a band, major label or not:
Jimmy Eat World recently did a 10 stop tour to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the release of "Clarity" in which they played the album in its entirety (and then played an encore of fan favorites and their singles). Tickets were $54 with fees. While there, I bought a Jimmy Eat World Clarity x10 hoodie, another 50 or so dollars. Yesterday, they put out a digital download of the final performance (just the live Clarity tracks), $8.99 on their website. To promote this, they played a 6 song encore in their home studio which they broadcasted on their website next to the link to buy the cd. They posted on their twitter account (and reposted and reposted) that they were going to take fan requests, the top 6 most requested songs they would play. They had hourly reminders to the release of the CD and the live performance. I stayed late at work to catch the feed...and by the time I got home, I was suckered in to buying the download. I bought the CD 10 years ago (at the time probably 15 bucks), and I'm buying it again for a few dollars less, after having just seen the performance live in person *and* online.
To do the math, Jimmy Eat World made $54 (tickets) + $50 (merch) + $15 (original album) + $8.99 (digital download of live performance) = $127.99 off of one CD from one person. And I'd do it again. Give something away, interact with your fans, do something fun and different that the fans want to see, they'll help you out in return. And my ultimate act of support? We had a half-hour discussion at the management company I work for talking about the band. I was twitting about Jimmy Eat World all day yesterday (and facebooking and im'ing and message boarding and any other kind of online conversation one can have). Now I'm sending this to you. Jimmy Eat World may not be as big as they were when "The Middle" came out, but they're being talked about again, so now a whole lot of people are waiting to see what they're going to do next.
fyi: follow me on twitter (I gave in finally) @rustincolor
Oh, and listen to Automatic Loveletter, "Let It Ride" www.myspace.com/automaticloveletter
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1 comments:
In this day and age, you have to be innovative and think of ways to get yourself out there. Even with a major label, there isn't much a band can do anymore without hurting themselves, their music and their fans. I mean they're have been talks about certain bands getting the short end of the stick because they weren't the cookie cutter, sugar coated, sh!t on a stick band. They're bands out there with as much talent and passion, but they aren't getting the time and energy deserved. Music sells! It really does, not in the most conventional traditional sense but it does sell.
And you know what's sad, we've seen this happen to really, good bands. And on top of the 'plan' working, the bands generate money from ticket sales and merchandise as well. Everything counts in this industry.
ps. all has new stuff, gotta check it out!
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