If Sam Walton, creator or Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, was a an independent recording artists he we would cut out the the major record labels. Why? Walton bought his products directly from the manufacturer/wholesaler. Who is the wholesaler for independent recording artists? THE INDEPENDENT RECORDING ARTIST!! Every independent recording artists is a manufacturer/wholesaler. You’re the one making the music, you’re the one supplying the goods.
Location, location, location. Walton looked at demographics and numbers to pick the location of his stores. He built his first store around 1950, before the Internet existed. Sam Walton’s first customers HAD TO BE within a five to ten mile radius so they could get to the store. A lot of people could not afford cars, there were no cell phones, and there was no Internet.
Today independent recording artists have the Internet. Just open your OWN STORE online and have customers ALL OVER THE WORLD. Sam Walton would have loved to have that technology back in 1950. If Walton was alive he would ask the record labels “Why Do I Need You? What Is It That You Do For Me?”
The better question is why aren’t more independent recording artists asking this question? Consumerism is a mindset that thrives off of dependency. Companies try to get you hooked on their product and make you think you cannot live without it (dependency). Record labels do the same. Sam Walton would not take this or believe it and neither should you.
Walton was a visionary as well as realist. As a realist he would acknowledge the weakness of the independent recording artist and FIX IT. Marketing is the weakness. He would fix this problem by using Strategic Marketing as opposed to Mass Marketing used by major recording labels.
Strategic Marketing is as it sounds. You look at demographics, numbers, and other data to predict where, when, how, and IF you should advertise.
Mass Marketing is the opposite. Just throw a whole bunch out there and see who buys the most. Whoever buys the most is your market. If nobody is buying simply make people buy it by getting the idea stuck in their head (play it over and over again on the radio).
Major record labels have used mass marketing for years. However, mass marketing is less effective in the new digital era. For example, more people listen to their CD players and Mp3 players as opposed to the radio. True, many people enjoy the morning talk shows, but now they can download the podcast and avoid the commercials. Creators of online communities like FaceBook are opting not to sell their companies the way Tom sold MySpace to Google. Refusing to sell the companies means less advertisements and mass marketing.
Customers Must Come To You
We’re all sick of advertisements. Everywhere we turn something is being pushed on us. Ironically, Wal-Mart does not put much money in advertising. Here is another reason I use Sam Walton as an example. He made his name brand name so big, customers look for his stores. Wal-Mart does not have to go looking for customers. This is what independent artists must do.
Independent artists, you’ve got to get people looking for you. When you go on vacation what is one of the first things you look for? A Wal-Mart! You want people looking for you. My dad played football at Hamilton College and used to listen to one record before every game. Indie artists when athletes are about to take the field or somebody is just having a bad day you want those people looking for music.
Make Your Music Easy To Find
For independent recording artists, it’s not about mass marketing. It’s about two things. Strategic marketing and accessibility. We already went over strategic marketing. Accessibility means your music is easy to find. I should not have to go through thousands of MySpace pages to find your music!
Accessibility is one of the biggest problems that plagues Indie artists. They often follow the hottest trend, like MySpace, and get buried under millions of other artists. GET YOUR OWN WEB PAGE. You can have the MySpace, but you need your own web page i.e yourbandname.com.
Search Engine Optimization
This is extremely important to independent recording artists. You can find a Wal-Mart on every corner. I should be able to find your music on most Google and Yahoo searches. Sounds extreme and impossible. It’s not. Search Engines like Yahoo and Google are evolving, meaning they are becoming better. If you did a Google search three years back you’d get lot more unnecessary information than if you searched today.
As the search engines become for efficient, so do the search categories. Categories are becoming more specific. People no longer Google ‘Buy Car’ instead they Google ‘Buy Hybrid Car’. People are becoming very specific with their wants and demands and the search engines are as well.
Pretty soon we will see Google searches designed specifically for independent music. Currently Google has the following types of searches: Web, Images, Maps, News, Shopping, Video, YouTube, Groups, Books, Blogs and a few others.
So if You’re looking for a specific video, do a Google video search. If you know that video is a Youtube video. Don’t do a video search, do a YouTube video search. See how the search engines are getting more specific. Pretty soon people will not just search music, they will search music from independent artists in North Carolina or music from independent Neo Soul artists in Raleigh, North Carolina. Search engines get more specific everyday.
Get your own domain name and web page. Make it easy for people to find you. Take me for example. My name is Jamille Luney and my webpage is jamilleluney.com. I have a MySpace page the address is myspace.com/jamilleluney and I linked it to my web page jamilleluney.com. This makes it easier for people to find me and it helps the search engines fined me as well. I also have a blog. Jamilleluney.wordpress.com and I combined the blog address with the website. Again this makes it easier for search engines to find me. Search Engine optimization baby.
Search Engine Optimization is the best Strategic Marketing for independent recording artists.
By Jamille Luney
Music Analyst
