Bands: The long tail vs the short tail
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
by Mark Carras
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The long tail vs the short tail
A couple days ago I was asked why I became part of the team behind the “Tweet #metal Chart“. Well to be honest my entire purpose was selfish. I wanted a way to find my target audience. I have found that the best way to find a ton of people that are in a very small niche group is to provide a free service for that group of people. Give them something that they will really want and they will come in droves. It always works and almost always works well. So I continue to provide tools for the hard rock and metal community. Why? Because it is the best way to find the highest quality people within that category. Now of course they are using me as well. That’s the whole point. If I always do my best to make sure they get the most out of what I do, I get what I want. The Tweet #metal chart can of course be used by anyone who wants to find these high quality people just as well as it can be used by me, but it would not have been as useful of a tool if I kept it all to myself. Helping others helps me more than being totally selfish.
Now there are some that are always trying for the quick and easy. The local bands that are happy to play the same clubs, screw the same local groupies, get paid the same crap door money, drink the same crap beer, and somehow expect a record company to somehow find out about them and hand them the world. There are the promoters that will book bands, put up a couple flyers in a few windows, draw the same crowd, and pretty much go no where. Everywhere in every part of life you will find the status quo. You will find that the majority of people will either just be really lazy or they will go for the quick scam. All it takes is one out of every few million to gain from this line of thinking to keep people buying into it. Look at the lottery. My wife and I call it “The idiot tax” because you are being an idiot if you think you are going to win. We still play, but we at least joke about it being the “Idiot Tax”. So even we are guilty of this small minded way of thinking at times. Almost everyone is, but what can we learn from that and when should we go the extra mile to get out of this rut? How do we get out of this rut?
Well, I have found that just about anything you can do will put you above the majority. Take a look at how far everyone else is willing to go. Then go twice as far to win. If the standard local bands are putting up a few flyers and updating their MySpace page, then you should do that and then some. Buy radio and newspaper ads in the local area. A few thousand dollars investments will put you way above the pack. If your band members are all spending their hard earned vacation time from work to do a mini tour, advertise! You are on a national tour, so advertise as such. 3 grand at FixionMedia.com will kick things in high gear for an entire month. Two weeks before the tour starts and for the two weeks during you will be impressing local clubs around the country. Labels will start to wonder why they keep hearing your name. If you can afford a few thousand to toss at IndieClick.com as well you are getting close to pro level marketing for a tour.
In fact I will make a deal with any band out there. First UNSIGNED band to follow the following directions exactly wins a full year of advertising on all three of the sites I am connected to. These sites are MarkCarras.com, RockMyMonkey.com, and HeavyAsHell.com. I will give said band a banner at the bottom of all three sites (pretty much every page and at least the highest traffic pages) for the term of one year. They can change the graphic of the link connected to the graffic once per month.
Here is what you need to do to win:
1. Buy $3,000 of advertising from Fixion Media, $5,000 of advertising from IndieClick, and $2,000 from Blast Beat with all campaigns starting on the same day.
2. Have this all connected to a two week tour with two weeks of advertising before the tour starts.
3.Contact me before the ad campaign starts so I can track it.
4. Do this before June 1st of 2010 because after that this deal has to die.
Deal? Why am I doing this? Honestly it serves me if a band “makes it” because they followed things from this blog doesn’t it? What would happen to my traffic if some band makes it big and they go around telling people they made it because of advice from this blog? My traffic goes through the roof and my word is then respected. Now I could just go around ripping bands off, getting them to sign shady 360 deals, and probably make a quick buck and get out of town before anyone knew what hit them. This is how the music industry is done most of the time. But that is short term thinking and I would rather do what I love for a very long time. To do that I have to keep it honest. I have to actually help bands. That is the long tail vs the short tail. Call my bluff. I dare ya!