Posts Tagged ‘The Beshers Rapport’

It’s a New Year – 3rd Verse, Same as the 1st

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

By: Greg Beshers
The Beshers Rapport

Seeing as how the music industry is in a major state of flux right now, there are still many people who will gladly take the time and effort to put together a record and release it and think that’s it, they’ve done their part and expect some kind of return.  What makes me scratch my head weekly is the expectations of people that decide to put out records and then sit back and do nothing else.

A lot of people think, myself included for many years, that you get a label or a distributor and you get in the store and because your content is good, then it will get discovered.  But today that is quite the contrary.  Anyone can get into the retail stores these days (iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody etc), but now getting in is just the beginning.  You and everyone else who put out a record is in the store, so now it becomes about what can you do to set yourself apart.

Well that’s where marketing comes in.  Well what exactly is “marketing” and how do you do it?  Well first off, marketing is preparation and organization.  These are two words that I almost never associate with musicians.  This is not a flaw in them, just a fact of life.  Let’s face it, people usually start playing music and join bands because it’s the closest thing to running off with the circus…or the circus freaks at the very least.  They put a ton of effort into recording and playing but feel that once they get their record online it will sell itself.  This is an unrealistic expectation even if you have a label behind you that is putting money out for advertising.  You as a musician, still have to work at selling your music constantly.  A label can only do so much these days.  With diminishing returns on CD’s and the sheer amount of music that’s out there, it’s an uphill battle at every turn.

So back to preparation and organization…..What in the hell am I talking about?  Well first off, you need to prepare for releasing your record.  You need to pick a realistic date for it to go live online.  We at IODA ask for a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks for this process.  While we have a great turnaround for ingesting and delivering content to our partners, usually less than a week at the outside, we are at our partners’ mercy as to when they will actually publish it.  Sometimes it is within a week, but sometimes it takes longer because our partners systems are backed up because, let’s face it, there’s a lot of content being delivered from everyone.  It’s not a fault of anyone’s really, just the nature of the beast.  So prepare ahead of time for the release of your record.

Organization is the next step.  You need to be coordinating the release of your record with a record release show, if you’re having one, or any press you might be trying to get etc.  You don’t want press to come out too early before your record is released or too late for that matter either.  Too soon and no one will be able to buy your record while they’re reading about it, too late and a lot of blog’s won’t want to write about something that’s already been available for awhile.  So while it’s somewhat of a tight time frame you have to work with, it’s not impossible.  And don’t forget to put up Buylinks to your record on all of your band’s pages (Myspace, Facebook, band website etc.)  These will enable anyone to click through to your album and buy it, just like that.

But back to marketing…again, there’s only so much a label or a distributor can do for a record.  I cannot stress enough the fact that the musician’s themselves’ need to be working at promoting their own work.  And they need all of their websites to be kept updated at all times.  Being organized and prepared can be tough things for a musician, I know.  So if you feel you can’t do it, go find someone to work with you who can be.  Because in the long run, without the preparation and organization, you’re just another release sitting on a server, and no one wants to let their hard work and effort and money fly under the radar unnoticed.

Variable pricing @ Amazon: What is it? And how does it work? Why should I do it?

Monday, December 1st, 2008

The Beshers Rapport
By: Greg Beshers

As I’m the account manager for Amazon, I get this question a lot from labels.  Since Amazon is the “new kid in town” in the digital world, labels want to know what variable pricing is and how it works.  I tell them this: First you need to look at IODA’s deal summary in the Rightsholder dashboard, you will see all of the Wholesale prices for each pricing tier and how they relate to Albums, EP’s and singles.

The next question I get is: What do the different tiers represent?  Well, we have 4 basic tiers which are: Frontline, Midline, Back/Catalog, & Special.  Frontline is pretty obvious I think.  This is for brand new titles that are being released.   Midline is for titles that are not quite new but are not quite old either.  I usually tell labels this is for content that has been out for at least 4 – 6 months but usually no longer than a year and that still sells somewhat robustly.  Catalog (or Back) is for catalog titles.  Titles that have been out for longer than a year and that are not new.  The Special tier is for titles that may not be selling as much as catalog titles or even at all, or that have been out for a long time in the marketplace.  Think of these as “budget” titles.

Now, usually after I explain all of this to labels, the inevitable question I get is: Why should I do this?  Now there’s a couple different ways to answer this question, but the simplest and most direct answer is that this is Amazon’s business model.  This is the fundamental idea that their entire store, not just the MP3 store, is based around.  But hold on, let me go further into my explanation.  Amazon is not asking you to lower prices JUST to lower prices.  They’re asking you to realistically price titles that are in your catalog in order to spur more sales.  Now what this means is that they’re not asking you to lower a price of a title that is selling well, on the contrary, if it is selling, then Amazon feels it’s at the correct price point, no argument there.  But what Amazon does want is for labels to lower prices down from Frontline on titles that aren’t selling well or even at all, in order to spur sales at a lower cost to the consumer.  They want labels to find the “sweet spot” in pricing that spurs sales across the board.

Here is a very basic explanation as to Amazon’s logic and how variable pricing can work.  Take for instance a title that you’ve had no sales on whatsoever and it’s at Frontline.  You have earned $0.00 dollars on this title.  Amazon would ask you to lower the price tier.  So you do that, and maybe you don’t lower it just one tier, but you decide lower it two tiers, down to Back/Catalog.  Again, why would you do this?  Well the logic goes a bit like this: You’re not making any money at Frontline, and if the title still doesn’t sell at Back/Catalog, you’re not making any money there either, BUT, more importantly, you’re certainly not losing any by marking it down and trying the lower price tier.  NOW if you do happen to sell some copies of the record at Back/Catalog, you’ve just made some money on a title that’s never earned before.  So just think, someone saw this title at a lower price and bought it.  Thus in finding the “sweet spot” in pricing, you’ve just spurred sales on a non-selling title.  That’s Amazon’s goal, to find the sweet spot in pricing.

So if a title is selling at Frontline, why change, there’s no need.  But if it’s not selling at Frontline, take an honest look at what the title is (Midline, Catalog/Back, Special) and mark it down appropriately.  And the great thing is, is that you can go in and change these prices just for Amazon in your RH Dashboard and an automatic XML update goes out to Amazon and the pricing change is reflected as soon as they ingest it.  (usually about 1-4 days max.)

Now this is the part of the conversation with labels that they usually ask me this: “so will I get featured if I mark down titles”?  Because let’s be honest, at the end of the day it’s about getting featured someplace.  I answer that question by saying that I can guarantee that they won’t get featured if they don’t mark anything down and have their entire catalog at Frontline.  That much I’m sure of.  And Amazon is more apt to feature titles in their pricing modules that are marked down (these modules are the “Featured albums for $6.99, $5.99 etc that rotate throughout the store).  But I also tell labels that even if they do mark down titles and they don’t get featured but those titles sell, they’re making money on stuff that maybe didn’t sell before.  So they win.  But at the end of the day, if labels don’t make any money and aren’t getting featured, then I tell them to go ahead and mark everything back up to Frontline.  No fuss, no muss but more importantly, nothing lost.   So go ahead, try it.  You know you want to.

Give the Gift of Giving All Year Round

Monday, December 1st, 2008

The Beshers Rapport
By: Greg Beshers

My motto for the past 4 years or so has been: FREE SELLS.  Why do I say this?  Is it because Radiohead gave away tracks?  Or NIN?   Or even Coldplay?  Nope, nope and nope.  I say free sells because when I worked at eMusic, they had just come up with the free track icon that you could search by.  So I put my own record up with a free track on it.  Now this was a new record at the time (early 2005) from an unknown NYC band that played on the lower east side and in Brooklyn only.  And to be fair, we did get some press locally, but nothing more outrageous than a mention in TimeOut NY or some online blogs.  And as much as I would like to think that we were “on the verge” of getting known, or breaking out of the “scene” and getting a record deal of some sort, the truth of the matter was that we weren’t and we never did.  Now, fast forward almost 4 years later and my record has sold consistently every quarter.

How is this possible you ask?  Well of course it’s because it’s a work of staggering genius unequaled by any of his contemporaries that scintillates the……….oh wait.  That’s right, it is MY record we’re talking about here.  So why does it sell?  It’s because of the free track.  And why do I say that?  Well, there’s an album, from an unknown band that has long since broken up or even played a gig, that barely has an online presence save for a MySpace page, BUT it does have a free track.  So people download it because it’s free.  Some people like it, some don’t, but the ones who do are the ones that download the rest of the record and keep it selling consistently for the last 4 years.  (thanks people!)  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be able to retire to the French Rivera anytime soon off of my eMusic royalties, but it does give me some nice mailbox money 4 times a year.  So that’s pretty good.

But how does this story relate to you the label?  Well in a nutshell, I’m talking about PromoTracks.  Those tracks which are royalty and publishing free that are marked off in your Dashboard on the release level.  Stores like eMusic and Amazon have a vibrant community of users that actively search for new music and are willing to try things out, but with a free track marked off on a release, it makes the users trying new material just a bit more easy.  Having Promotracks also help out for all of the users of Promonet.  You know, that big searchable website that houses IODA’s entire catalog that has podcasters, bloggers, internet radio stations, promotional websites and retailers subscribed to it that are all combing through it (even as I write this there are new songs being discovered!).  And if you as a label want someone to write about your release, then tick off a PromoTrack so they can get “a little taste” of it.

12 1 08 givethegiftofgiving Give the Gift of Giving All Year Round

So back to my original motto, Free Sells.  Why?  Because at the end of the day, you want to make the music fan have the easiest experience in finding, digesting and most importantly, BUYING new music.  And you can’t make it any easier than giving away a free track in a retail framework that the buyer can easily purchase the rest of the record.  Not everyone may like it, but those who do will buy the rest of the record.