3 ms·

I don't think this story and the post you're referencing contradict each other. The difference between the magazine's audience and a band's audience at a show i

I don't think this story and the post you're referencing contradict each other. The difference between the magazine's audience and a band's audience at a show is relevance. At a live show, you're selling to a group of potential buyers (whether they will pay or not) who have qualified themselves just by being there. As an obscure musician advertising in a magazine, you're just trying to scream as loud as you can in a crowded channel where there's no reason for anyone to pay attention to you (you definitely don't want to prematurely optimize for this case).

anigbrowl 17y ago
I entirely agree with that. It was just that the concert-CD idea also caries the implication '...and if just 1% of those people play the CD to a friend or come to the next gig...'. As someone else pointed out, we really don't know anything about the ad or the magazine it was published in, which might have seemed very well targeted to the artist (eg the ad was near a positive review/feature of the new album). It's very hard to judge the situation without more context, which is the problem with FOAF stories in general.
- swombat 17y ago
  The huge difference, though, is in how those people are approached. If you've got a good product and you go and talk to the right people about it, some percentage (hopefully much larger than 1%) will end up buying it. If you just send spam to a billion people, however, chances are hardly anyone will buy it. Advertising is spam. Sales is not spam. Giving out CDs as a promotion at an event where you're present, where people can see you, is not a faceless marketing attempt to get that "1%" effect. Finally, the advice in the previous article was intended to make an immediate difference to the band's receipts and, iirc, it did. The fact that some percentage of those who bought the donationware CDs also brought more friends along the next time the band visited was only a nice side-effect.

anigbrowl 17y ago

I entirely agree with that. It was just that the concert-CD idea also caries the implication '...and if just 1% of those people play the CD to a friend or come to the next gig...'. As someone else pointed out, we really don't know anything about the ad or the magazine it was published in, which might have seemed very well targeted to the artist (eg the ad was near a positive review/feature of the new album). It's very hard to judge the situation without more context, which is the problem with FOAF stories in general.

swombat 17y ago
The huge difference, though, is in how those people are approached. If you've got a good product and you go and talk to the right people about it, some percentage (hopefully much larger than 1%) will end up buying it. If you just send spam to a billion people, however, chances are hardly anyone will buy it. Advertising is spam. Sales is not spam. Giving out CDs as a promotion at an event where you're present, where people can see you, is not a faceless marketing attempt to get that "1%" effect. Finally, the advice in the previous article was intended to make an immediate difference to the band's receipts and, iirc, it did. The fact that some percentage of those who bought the donationware CDs also brought more friends along the next time the band visited was only a nice side-effect.