Black Friday

     We're all obviously aware of the Black Friday deals and how everyone scrambles to get the products they love for the best prices they'll see all year. But in checking up on Apple's deals, I was surprised to find out there were none. I hadn't looked into Apple during Black Friday before, but in doing a little research, I found out that they've never been big into Black Friday deals. They don't do much more than offer minuscule (in comparison to their prices) gift cards with purchases.
     I've really been wondering why this is, and my first thought wandered to the fact that they position themselves as a premium brand. Maybe having their products discounted to such a degree as those products around them would "de-value" them or something? I'm not entirely sure. Or maybe, it just makes more sense to give away software (these are app store/itunes cards), which is extremely cost effective to make and sell, as you only have to write the software once, and there are virtually no production costs beyond a programmer's salary unless you package dvds for installation.
     Apple has really done an excellent job position their products (especially their laptops) as premium devices. Their computers are often status symbols. Contrast this with Google, who makes their largest amount of money from delivering targeted advertising on behalf of businesses world wide, offers many of their products for a fraction of the price of their competitors. Take Google Fiber for example: it's high speed internet for a price that no one could even hope to match. I think that Google seeks bring in as many users to their products as possible so that they have a larger audience for their targeted ads.
     These two businesses have very difference business models, each a different approach to their products. This has really gotten me thinking about our product. I've given a ton of thought to how we offer value to promoters looking to book us for shows, but I haven't thought much about how we can do things differently to give our music a unique appeal to consumers in general. After all, the consumers of our music are who drive the demand for our concerts, hence the interest of promoters.

Moments of Misery

     I went through this very thing with Nine Lashes. We had launched a facebook merchandise store in the effort to generate more revenue. But we were not ready for that in the slightest. We weren't exactly the most responsible group of individuals to begin with. Eventually, we found ourselves behind on orders, out of items that were being ordered, refunding frustrated customers left and right.
     There is simply NO WAY we were growing through all of that. This video really confirmed what I was feeling at the time. I eventually took the store down because of the impression I was worried about it making on our fans.
     But this concept really goes beyond just our merch store. Sometimes, I wonder if there is anything we can do differently than other bands? I wonder if there's a model we could adopt that allows us to sell our albums for cheaper than anyone else AND have them be ultra rewarding? How can we make people cherish our albums, beyond making awesome music? An interaction of some sort, maybe? A puzzle with a prize? In any case, I really like the idea of capitalizing on the "moments of magic" concept.

Distribution

     In a conversation between bands, distribution tends to mean that a band has signed a contract with a company that will put their music in stores. But in this digital day, there's so much more to this. We really need to do some serious research on when and how people are discovering our music. Then we need to double down on those "places" as well as get creative with new ways to expose new people. Most of my new music discovery is from people I know listening to something that catches my ear. Maybe we lower the price of our music at shows, so that more people buy, and word of mouth increases.
     Maybe it doesn't look like that at all. Maybe, like Dropbox (which I use) we make a video that will capture the attention of people that aren't necessarily looking for us. And I think that is one way that we fall short. It seems that alot of our marketing, even the part that comes from our label, is geared toward people who are looking for music like ours. This isn't bad, it just doesn't lead to great growth. I am of the opinion that the world is full of people that just don't know that they want a Nine Lashes album, yet.
     I think I'm going to post a poll on Facebook asking how our fans discovered our music.