Over the weekend I read a very interesting transcript of a presentation by a guy called Seth Godin on ‘The Future of the Music Business’. It was originally delivered to representatives of the record industry to try and open their eyes to a new way of marketing to consumers; ‘Tribal Marketing’.
The presentation is witty, relevant, and has some very intelligent suggestions that I would be tempted to agree with.
This ‘Tribal Marketing’ that he is talking about is a way of marketing to niches, rather than the masses, and getting people to talk to each other and talk back to the record industry, and trying to get the record industry to listen rather than just ’shout’ things at people…because people won’t listen anymore.
People like to have something in return, they like acknowledgement. One very true point that Seth makes is that if he asked the representatives that he is talking to, to name 50, 000 of their best customers, they couldn’t do it. He suggests that the industry should give something back, or even better, that the artist should give something back. If I own every single Radiohead album, or Cure album, and I’ve been to their concerts and supported them for years then I want Thom York or Robert Smith to say “thanks mate, I really appreciate it”, because then I feel involved, I feel a part of that ‘tribe’ and I’ll probably be willing to pay for that persons music even if I can get it for free, because I feel like they deserve it.
Nowadays there are so many avenues for promoting music, and in turn a fair few ways of listening to it, they should be being used to culture these ‘tribes’. If I’m in a tribe, and I’m loyal to an artist, then why not treat me for it? If my favourite band is working on an album and they finish a few tracks then what’s wrong with them saying “Hey! You’re a good fan, what do you think of this?”…and releasing me a mastertone for my mobile or something similar of one of their new tracks? Now that isn’t a full song, it’s just a ringtone version, but I can still get a feel for the track and maybe I’ll give my feedback to the artist, and maybe it’ll be useful, but most importantly I’ll feel valued and I’ll be anticipating the full release even more, and I’ll most likely buy the album the minute it hist the shelves…
Finally, just to relate back to my title of ‘Internet is the new radio’, Seth makes the point that in the past all that record labels did was fight for radio airtime, the top 40 was what mattered because that’s where all the money was generated. This is not the case anymore, no one cares about the top 40 (and the majority of the top 40 sales are digital anyway, i.e. from the Internet), so the industry needs to use the Internet as a way of reaching the people that need to be reached. You have INFINITE airtime, you don’t have to fight anyone for it anymore, so why not use it to develop and culture your tribes? You shouldn’t be restricting the music that people hear, you should be using the net to let the people that matter hear as much music as possible, so they can tell people about how great it is and your tribe can grow and grow.
Tags: mastertone, radiohead, robert smith, seth godin, thom york, tribes