Cypress Hill is giving away a free song to download. This song can be downloaded at this website. It's a great marketing strategy for artists to do this for several reasons.
1) It gets the artist's music out there for free. Often times consumers are skeptical of purchasing an artists music without prior knowledge of their music. By giving away the song for free, it gives the consumer the opportunity to obtain the artist's music and decide whether they are a fan or not. If the consumer enjoys the song, chances are they may enjoy the entire album. This will then lead to purchasing the entire album. Therefore, by giving away one song for free, there is a potential for selling 9-12 more songs (from the album).
2) Upon visiting the site where consumers are directed to download the free song, you must first sign up for the mailing list. In order to receive the free song, this is a mandatory request by the artist. Consumers are often willing to sign up, in the exchange of free music. The artist then has captured the consumers e-mail information, where they can send further information to consumers pertaining to the artist.
3) Another request prior to downloading the song, is the zip code. This is also an important information for the artist to have as statistical knowledge of their consumer base. Knowing the consumers zip code informs the artist of their strongest markets. Knowing where your strongest markets are will assist when planning tours, and also help focus on where the weaker markets are.
~Abby Goldstein
This is already the third example of an artist/label using free downloads to market their music on here. All three seem to have a different goal or at least a different methodology. Is it possible that musicians and their people have finally accepted the inevitability of illegal downloading and have decided to try manipulate that activity to a make money for themselves? Will it work?
ReplyDelete-K. Wood