| Marketing Classical Music Online |
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Written by Luiz Diez December 13, 2006 Internet Marketing for Classical Musicians
I've been lurking for some time but still quite new in this arena. Hope some of the very informed and kind souls on this list have some time for my doubts! |
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| It is being done. I have been working on this for over a year, and launched my company back in July. I focus mainly with unsigned bands / artists in all genres. My company has several layers to it, which include profile pages with songs for bands (like a myspace), a radio station (internet based) and a magazine that tracks news from the music and related industry. I interview artists on the radio, and even do concert reviews, and every month we feature an artist. Things are rapidly changing in the record industry, and that "record contract" doesn't mean so much any more. Rob Halford of Judas Priest recently created his own label, and purchased the rights to all of his solo stuff. He now sells it off his own website and thru iTunes. Metallica is also selling music off thier website. The "big guys" are starting to follow the little guys. It takes a lot of work, time , and a love for music. But's it's a great time! Phil Bowyer |
David Yancey
said:
| Luis Diez poses the question why online marketing isn't being applied to the niche market of classical music. In spite of the lack of serious music exposure in American education, there is something of a boomlet underway for serious music, thanks primarily to upstart CD labels bringing down the price for a vast list of compositions, and thanks to a few popular and attractive "cross-over" artists. So the interest is there, clearly. More significantly IMO, it has been well proven that people who listen to classical stations and who prefer "good" music tend to be way up there as premium consumers. They also tend to be much better educated than the norm, and relatively articulate about their preferences. I have long assumed this intellectual independence would carry over to other lifestyle and artistic interests, as it clearly does in upscale travel, for example. It's a mystery to me why smart premium-niche marketers don't tap into this interest and parlay it back into their particular goods and services. As far as the larger market goes, however, sorry, Luis, but I'm not persuaded that serious music can compete for eyeballs (or eardrums) in sites and communities like MySpace, much less Youtube. People under 35 or so in the mass-consumer market countries have pretty much written off serious music as being hopelessly un-cool. Even so-called "cross-over" classical musicians face tremendous obstacles in getting through the phenomenal amount of mindless hip-hop, country, rock and other Britnified pap. Anything "smart" has now been tainted by pop culture as being of interest only to girls who cannot get a date, nerds and old people. So, while the web most certainly *can* be used to reach the serious music audience, it won't be via the conventional, dumb-downed mass-user sites. Similarly, interactively-driven "viral" marketing can surely be effective, but not along the lines used commonly by mass-appeal sites aimed at hormone-saturated young men: good music doesn't involve violence and women-hating, nor does it lend itself to a level of entertainment that these guys would want to see. Why bother with serious music lovers, then? Well, we think Luis is spot on in the key idea: globally, there are millions and millions of educated people who love serious music, and who *also* love quality consumption, quality entertainment, and premium services. For the first time, the web offers us a low-cast channel to reach them. The trick is *how*. We don't sell music; our niche is witty shirts and accessories for smart people. We are well along in developing special interest "micro-brands", such as our hot new "Appeteasers" for foodies. We have 3-4 more special (premium) interest microbrands on tap. Then, as we geared up for the holiday season, and realizing that serious music lovers also tend to live well, we concluded that we might be able to efficiently reach their gourmet tummies through their musical tastes. We recently were able to register the domain "JustDuet.com" -- the new brand will appear around Spring of next year, and bring (what some would agree is much needed) humor to a niche that is all too commonly perceived is seriously unfunny. How does this relate to Luis's question? Well, for starters we will introduce a specifically targeted affiliate network, one aimed at the many smaller sites who serve serious music lovers. We see a special-interest blog on the horizon, and lots of related content that definitely will engage these educated folks, but that today simply doesn't show up anywhere in a mass-audience web portal, or even newspapers, or any other easy-to-find way. We even see humorous short videos coming, some of which could well appeal to a large audience of people who might give serious music a try, even if they would not be caught dead in a concert hall full of smart people who are all sober. We'll adapt what we know about "online", in short, and try to aggregate this premium audience niche both for introducing our own goods and, especially, for the benefit of our web partners. We also recognize that a very large part of being involved with serious music is *offline*, however. So a substantial part of our effort after the initial stages will be aimed at working with local choral and amateur musical societies, schools, semi-professional musicians, and local orchestras. If our effort succeeds, we expect to become a natural venue for introducing new artists and groups. Maybe we'll someday sell tickets, who can say? David Yancey PS: Let me add my best wishes to all LEDers for a prosperous 2007! |
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