I’ve been reading a few great recaps by students of Seth Godin‘s Six Month Alternative MBA and feel inspired to learn from their lessons. This is my take specifically on Al’s recap, and how it can be applied to Family Records/ERR.
“If you want your product to go viral you’ve got to first think about what types of things make an idea spread in your target market, and then pick a product/business that has those qualities.”
Very good point! I think music in general has a viral quality to it, simply by the fact that if it’s truly great, people can’t help but talking about it. We try to help that cause along by promoting our music with a number of tools that lend themselves to virality. These include videos that are topically relevant to current circumstances people can relate to, for example Casey Shea‘s great Bail Out video which made it to the NY Times. Other tools used are topical free downloads (watch for an upcoming free Modest Mouse cover EP on FR), keeping blogs and tweets current and of interest to people by keeping it personal and writing on tour and during the recording cycles, and finally providing a way of framing projects such as thematically oriented residencies/tours/product.
“Pick products that lend themselves to expirations, deadlines, and limited availability, that allow you to create a sense of urgency for the buyer.”
The way we try to translate this is by releasing albums in a limited edition (hand-made) physical version first, effectively creating something fans will want to have as a token of their fandom. These are followed by a digital release and a second physical one in a second run larger than the first and different in look and exclusivity. A good example of this is the 6 month run we just completed with, again, Casey Shea, releasing one 3-song single each month in a limited run of hand-silkscreened copies. (Download those here for free.)
“There are many products whose benefit to the customer increase as more people use them. So from a game theory perspective, existing customers have an incentive to get their friends to adopt the service too.”
We try to do this by making our music easy to share and build a community around. Each album released is fully streamable for free on label and artist sites, in easily embedable players. All the music players, album and artist pages have commenting features and we provide easy access to artists and staff by listing e-mails, twitter accounts, and blogs. I think we can further improve this by making the artist and label sites even more of a hub of activity and increasing stickiness. Question: Should we reduce the number of places where comments can be left to consolidate them and creating tighter hubs, OR should we let the internet do our work and simply provide as many places to communicate from as possible?
“Your product might be great, but is your story remarkable? Remember, there are tons of great products that no one talks about, and therefore no one knows about. That’s because what makes people talk is the story that a product tells (or the story you tell yourself when you buy a product). Tom’s Shoes didn’t spread because their shoes are the best on the market. They spread because of their “One for One” philosophy. For every pair of shoes you purchase Tom’s gives a pair of new shoes to a child in need. And the best part of their story is that it’s the exact same pair!”
Very good point. We need to create a “unique, authentic, and remarkable story” for each album and each artist, and then for the movement of the label as a whole. We need to communicate what an artist stands for in life, and tie this into the product and the marketing. We have attempted to do this in the past by relating each album to a specific charity, and by releasing product specifically related to a historic moment like the split Casey Shea/Lacrymosa single “Hope/Change” (Download it for free here.)
Much thanks to Al for inspiring me to think hard on these questions, it doesn’t end by my writing this!