Promotion strategy for selling mp3 releases

[DJ Becka]

Specifically for magazines, what kind of readers would you expect to read your add?

I suppose that would depend on which magazine you are advertising in. If you are putting an ad in Home & Garden magazine, I highly doubt anyone will buy your music or even pay attention to the ad (well maybe they would look at it and think 'why is this ad in this magazine?'). If you are placing the ad in a music magazine that is specifically targeted towards people who are purchasing electronic music - whether it be djs, or just clubbers who like to purchase music for their listening pleasure - then I would imagine these are the kinds of readers who would be looking at your ad. Generally, when you are placing an ad in a magazine, you want to find out a couple of things from them - like how many people subscribe, what territories do they circulate to, how many people read the magazine - things of this nature. Then based on those numbers, decide if it's worth spending the money for an ad. Also take into account that a smaller label, with a smaller budget, obviously wont be paying as much money as what bigger labels do - so it might not be a bad idea to place an ad if the magazine is willing to give you a good rate. Does that help answer your question or was there something else you were curious about?

Other avenues of promoting digital releases - myspace - you now can have a beatport player on your page with a list of your releases and the opportunity for people to buy, which I think is a useful tool. The downside to myspace though, is that I see too much spam coming thru my in-box telling me to listen to people's tunes and buy their music. But, for every one person like me who hates spam, there's always one person who actually will be inclined to listen to and possibly buy the music when they get such emails on there.....

[Ritzi Lee]

* - so it might not be a bad idea to place an ad if the magazine is willing to give you a good rate. Does that help answer your question or was there something else you were curious about?

Yes it does. I was just checking out if we're thinking on the same frequency. In Holland we had magazines like Bassic Groove and Update. Since the upcoming popularity of internet fora and dance websites, these kind of magazines stopped existing. In the world there are still a view mags who survived like in Germany and England. But to tell you the truth, I really don't know now what kind of people would buy these magazines. In my own perception it would be people who are interested in clubbing, fashion and trends. Not people who are really interested in buying the latest cutting edge music. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

Other avenues of promoting digital releases - myspace - you now can have a beatport player on your page with a list of your releases and the opportunity for people to buy, which I think is a useful tool. The downside to myspace though, is that I see too much spam coming thru my in-box telling me to listen to people's tunes and buy their music. But, for every one person like me who hates spam, there's always one person who actually will be inclined to listen to and possibly buy the music when they get such emails on there.....

Yes I've just made one for myself. Soon my whole Underground Liberation collection will be available for digital releases. I've also advised my distribution to think about a good PR plan, beacause it's still relatively a new way of selling music. It's NOT the same as selling vinyl.

I'm also not really into spam. But maybe it's just because 99 of the 100 tracks are not like I want it. But on the other side email lists like Livesets.com are very usefull to reach many techno freaks in Europe and outside.

[rhythmtech]

intergroove germany offer an mp3 distribution service. they have a big name so it could be a good idea.,

[Ritzi Lee]

intergroove germany offer an mp3 distribution service. they have a big name so it could be a good idea.,

I think that would be just for their own labels. At Triplevision we've started a same kinda thing. All labels can be connected through a Triplevision account on all the big download portals.