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analog4

New member
Hi,
It's snowing outside and my day off, so I thought it a good
time to open this thread.

I ran into a couple of guys from Alberta some time ago
who basically do home recording but use the following
marketing plan.

They basically run a small co-op of artists in their area
and record old time country and gospel music.

The artists market their own products and those of the other
co-op members at shows, fairs,what have you.

This may seem old fashioned, but in four years these guys
now sell 80,000 units a year for the co-op members.(approx.9
members).

Not bad in a small market with no air time push and no internet
capabilities.

I can feel the frustration many of you feel trying to establish
yourselves(ourselves) in the field that we love, but sometimes
simple and direct approaches work very nicely.

The big players in this industry want to continue to run a cartel
and as with most cartels, maintain control using fear and greed.
The most effective way to carve out a niche in a cartel controlled
market?

Simple-----Co-operation and trust.

I may be new to the music business, but I'm not new to
kicking a little ass!

My hat goes off to those guys in Alberta.
 
You hit on something here that shows why they are successful. They actually go to fairs, etc. and SELL their products.

Over the Christmas holidays, I noticed a couple kiosk (sp?) vendors who were selling CDs. I talked to one of them and it was a young man selling his father's recordings. They were packaged well and not too expensive. Nice background Christmas type music.

The kid had a booth set up with sound and was really hustling the product. I watched for a while, and in the course of about 15 minutes, he sold four or five CDs.

The thing we need to think about is that we spend all our time learning how to play and how to record, but we don't spend the same amount of time learning how to sell. In reality, we can have some great songs, but if we aren't out pushing our product, then we will never be a marketing succes.

If you look at the big acts, how much of that is really good music and how much is marketing?
 
Sonic Misfit,

These guys in Alberta take it one step further and not
only sell their own tapes, but also the tapes of the other
co-op members.

I suppose this gives them an oppurtunity to sell a CD/tape
even if the customer doesn't like their music.

I suppose there is some sort of honour system and revenue
sharing agreement. That stuff is not very hard to work out
if the participants are on the same page.

Thanks for your post.
 
Good points being made here. In today's changing market I don't see why an upcoming artist would want to sign with a major label. Doing so puts you into a system of endentured servitude with a better than 90% failure rate and you'll generally end up oweing them money...especially if you tour.
 
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