As we prepare each issue of Jazz Improv we are in touch with hundreds of musicians and major and independent record labels. We get to hear many different perspectives about marketing pre-recorded music (compact discs and tapes). Some of these perspectives reflect a clear understanding of business in general, the record and music business in particular, and other areas including marketing, advertising, promotion, distribution and more. Still other perspectives we hear on these subjects are quite amusing. The most amusing perspectives have been dished up by some independent artists who have naively spent thousands of dollars to record, produce and manufacture (or to have others record, produce, manufacture) their own CDs or, without having first created a business plan to define who their market is, where their customers exist, and how to reach and influence them to buy the product. Some of these individuals either do not understand or refuse to believe that their CD album, their music - regardless of the magnitude of artistry (real or imagined) with which they themselves characterize their product - is competing for the same attention and dollars as numerous other pre-recorded jazz products.

Oh - and one other little thing. This lack of planning is frequently capped off by the fact that, after completing the whole process of making the CDs, no money at all was budgeted for sufficient (or for that matter, any) advertising and direct-mail or other types of marketing to enable consumers who might actually buy the product (if they knew it existed) find out about it.

Marketing Your Own Jazz CDs - A Real Life Introduction

Some True Business Stories

Recently we received an e-mail message from a European artist, and this communication was typical of the perspective many jazz musicians apparently have.

It read: "hi, I probably would like to advertise , if my records were available in the USA.... and would stand in every shop.... not only in catalogues.... regards."

Waiting to advertise until you have distribution in every store in the U.S. is likely to be a long wait, especially if you are not making any kind of vigorous effort to reach this goal. It usually works the other way around. You advertise. You get people to know who you are and what you do. Then there's a reason for stores to stock your products.

Advertising Is An Ongoing Thing

An independent artist who recently released her own CD approached Jazz Improv to request a review about it. When we also informed her that it might be advantageous to advertise the product, she said that she already ran a one-eighth page size ad in one of the other jazz magazines...once! Since she didn't get any response, she said she will not be advertising anymore!

I didn't see her ad, so I'm not sure if it had any method to make it easy and convenient for people to respond, such as an 800 number, or a direct-response coupon. I'm also uncertain as to where the ad appeared in that other magazine, how it looked visually, or what it actually said. But chances are it could have been a stronger ad, or easier to respond to. And our caller clearly didn't understand the nature of advertising, or she would have known that *ONE* ad in *ONE* media outlet rarely draws an overwhelming response.

Advertising is a dance of repetition.

Direct-response Advertising vs. Image Advertising

Space advertising alone - that is, image advertising - the kind you see the major labels do - the kind that generally has no order form or other direct-response option, like, for example, an 800 number - works to promote new recordings by such well-known artists as Herbie Hancock or Joshua Redman. Many fans have heard their music or heard of them. Space advertising of this nature (it's usually called image advertising) lets fans know that the new album exists and is available at stores. The image ad keeps the name of the already well-known "name brand" label or musician in the minds of the consumer. Many people won't even need to hear the album to be influenced to buy it.

But, space advertising alone for lesser-known artists is not as effective.

That is why you obviously need to have as many people as you can hear your music.

Direct-Response Advertising Makes It Easy For People To Buy Your Products

Even if people hear your music, they need to have a way (and preferably an easy, if not mindless way) to buy copies of your album. That is why direct-response advertising, such as space advertising with a direct response coupon, for example, is effective. In Jazz Improv magazine, advertisers can run a space ad with just such a coupon to supporting their sound that they may be featuring on the Jazz Improv CD. Similar to the way that people may hear you perform at a club or concert and then want to buy your albums, when listeners hear your sound on the Jazz Improv CD, they will have a direct way to respond to you to order.

Just as important as getting people to hear the music and purchase an album, is the possibility that if even one educator, musical artist, producer, promoter, or club-owner were to hear you, you may generate educational clinics, gigs, or recording opportunity which may pay for the price of the ad.

Needless to say, the most powerful sales tool you have to sell more of your product is your actual product! Isn't that why record labels invest so much time, energy and money to generate airplay?

Of course, to get people to hear the music and hopefully purchase the product.

Getting People To Hear Your Music Is Your Best Marketing Tool

Getting people to hear your music, either on the air (or in the case of Jazz Improv Magazine, when jazz enthusiasts listen to a track on the Jazz Improv CD), or when you perform live, is precisely what will most help you sell recordings. Most artists I speak with report that they sell and have the potential to sell even more product at their performances than at any other time. Sadly, some of the artists I know who are signed to labels can't get sufficient, if any, quantities of their own product to take with them to gigs! Every time they get a few hundred CDs from their label and sell out at events they are proving how powerful a sales tool their performance is in helping to sell their recordings. Astonishingly, these artists still can't get much product from their label even after presenting the evidence. Do you think that because it actually might take a few minutes of work, and maybe require someone to actually THINK. Could this possibly be the reason that *THE OBVIOUS* is not acted upon to increase profits?

Distribution For Your CD

For many artists, the distribution they are seeking is to get their CDs into independent record stores and chains like Tower and HMV throughout the USA and beyond.

When you get your product into those stores, your CD will be among hundreds or even thousands of other CDs - including those by well known, less well-known and unknown artists. Your new issue CD will be competing with other new issues and essential reissues by influential artists with lifelong career accomplishments.

Even If You Get Distribution For Your CD - Who Will Actually Be Looking For It?

So getting your CD into retail outlets really only means that your CD is simply there, on the shelf, in the bin, in the store. Some jazz fans - like myself - are curious, and we meticulously rifle through all the CDs, alphabetically by artist. And, some fans, also like myself (I'm pretty sure we're in the minority) also seek out CDs by as-yet unknown or lesser-known artists - especially when interesting players whom we recognize are on board.

I might buy some of those albums that fall into the category of "less well known" or "unknown" artists. I may not ever have heard them. I'm gambling. Sometimes the result is that I'll get something good or great... and sometimes I'll wind up with something not so good or great.

In any case, YOUR CD may actually be in a lot of stores, but who is actually looking for it when they get there? Do they (customers browsing the store) know it exists beforehand, or is there a "barker," wearing a sandwich sign screaming about your album to everyone who walks in the store? Or is there a point-of-purchase display or a big sign in the store alerting people to your product? And how many numbers of people comprise the group of those that are seeking it out?

What About The Competition?

I'll just give you an idea about the specifics of the competition....

I frequently receive calls and albums from a publicist who represents several well-known jazz labels, performance and festival events, and artists in the jazz industry. Recently, she told me that she constantly runs into the problem of getting attention for the products she represents. She experiences these problems routinely....but not because her products are not good. They are actually among the very best, by some of the most influential and well-known jazz artists today. The problem is shear numbers. She told me that the albums she represents and sends to the press are competing with the approximately 50 to 75 jazz albums per week (over 3,000 new and reissued albums every year) that are received both from independent artists and labels, by the media (jazz magazines, radio stations...). There are actually over 30,000 CD titles released per year if you add all genres of music together.

How, then, do you distinguish yourself?

Anyone and everyone who plays a musical instrument, and who can come up with a couple of thousand dollars, is making a CD these days. So, although a CD can provide credibility, there is an abundance - an overload - of products from "not-ready-for-prime-time" wannabes. College jazz programs are growing and jazz education at all levels and from all directions is producing more aspirees than ever, simultaneously with the opportunities for such candidates experiencing a downsizing, it appears, in inverse proportion.

The good news for experienced artists with something to say is that a whole lot of those 50 to 75 albums per week that are received by the press range from not very good to OK - the improvisations are pedestrian or even just bad, but at best, they're just OK..... the arrangements or compositions are similarly just OK or less, and in many cases the packaging and recording quality are questionable.

The really big question is, even when you have better distribution (with your CD in more stores around the country), what is it that will drive people to those stores to buy it?

The answer is getting people to hear your music - via airplay, live performances and promotional distribution of sample recordings and compilations.

The Dreaded Closet Of CDs

I'm aware of scores of musicians who have recorded and manufactured their own CDs and are not selling them. In each case they have a basement or a den closet full of beautifully manufactured and packaged compact discs. The discs are just sitting there.

In many cases, these musicians (and thousands of others that I am not even aware of) were not ready artistically to make records. They needed to develop more, to have something meaningful to express. But even the artists who are ready and prepared for a breakthrough (artistically, financially, emotionally...) and even those who have sterling recordings featuring internationally known artists on them (obviously with the hopes of creating credibility and high visibility to increase sales), may find that there are several reasons why they may not sell expected quantities of CDs.

Sadly, many album recordings (even the really good ones) were created without a written business plan or even a thumbnail promotional sketch to market the product following its production - when it is ready for release to the market.

Many musicians actually haven't even considered this approach and do not plan for marketing their albums. In fact, I'll bet most don't.

Most musicians either do not have the time, or do not want to invest the necessary time to research and to be able to successfully market their product. There is a false sense of security that develops, particularly after the magnificently appearing (and perhaps even magnificently sounding) product is received by the artist. It's the kind of thinking that goes: "Wow, it looks great! It sounds great. It's meeeeeeeeeeeeee! It's gonna sell!"

But, then there's....REALITY!

The successful major labels, and indeed many (if not most) successful businesses in any and every industry, necessarily and expectedly take an entirely different approach to their own manufacturing, marketing and the ultimate release of their new products, than do independent musicians and artists.

That is, they create the product following some research, and the creation of a sales and marketing plan.

Waiting For Distribution - But Why?

If you wait around to get distribution, it may not come until a time when you already could and probably should be recording your next album for subsequent manufacturing and sale.

Why wait to get distribution to begin marketing? Follow the successful leaders. Do your marketing to drive people to your product, to create awareness, and to get them to act - Yes, you need to get them to act - you need to ask them for the order! - to make the sale.

As we've seen, one of the ways to get people to act is to ensure that people to hear your music. If you follow the activity of successful major labels, you'll observe that the greatest effort goes into generating airplay, giving away promotional or sampler recordings to get people to sample the sound product, and creating or supporting tours where enthusiasts will hear the music. Airplay, live performances and distribution of promotional recordings works to generate interest in the music, name recognition and much more.

Airplay for jazz recordings (other than "smooth jazz") these days is derived heavily from the college radio stations across the country. About a year ago WRTI 90.1 FM here in Philadelphia promoted the fact that The Gavin Report said that the radio station was the Number One jazz station in the country. That means that a college radio station - Temple University's station - was more highly regarded than any commercial jazz radio stations. The station used to broadcast jazz 24 hours a day. In the interim, earlier this year, the local classical station was sold. Temple University absorbed the programming of the formerly independent classical station it into its own activities, reducing the jazz programming at WRTI - from 24 to 12 hours - for the first time since I began listening in the late 1960s.

The number of live performance venues for jazz has significantly decreased. The night club opportunities that do exist pay hardly enough money to make it worth packing up your instrument, much less spending the money on gas, tolls, and parking to get to the job, if it's in or near a major city. And yet, if you're going to take advantage of some of the opportunities to meet people and get heard, you have to do it sometimes.

Also, while performance opportunities have decreased, the number of musicians competing for the available jobs has significantly increased. Perhaps due to the low barriers to entry that exist to play a night club date, we find that established, highly experienced jazz players are competing for the same dollars as those that really would benefit from being (and certainly deserve to be) in the audience learning from local and regional musicians rather than being on the stage.

The decision-makers who hire jazz musicians at clubs are not necessarily themselves capable of discerning quality. They may have alternative agendas other than booking the best musicians. The booking person at the venue may make a decision to book a certain ensemble or performer simply to feel a sense of power over other people; or because he wants to help a friend, or because someone has some behind-the-scenes deal with him for products or services. So some quality jazz musicians distinguish themselves by virtue of their educational credentials - being on the music faculty of a university, for example. There are certainly many jazz programs around the country these days - but fewer venues to perform in, much less earn a living from.

Anyway, once you are able to negotiate an arrangement with a distributor for your recordings, part of the job is done. There is a much more glaring obstacle that you'll face once your records have been out there in the hands of the distributors for awhile.

How and when will you get paid?

Getting Paid For Your Recordings By Retailers and Distributors

When stores stock your CDs, how soon do you expect that they may pay you?

The big chains and distributors pay the majors and large independents first. Why? They want to be sure they get as much as they need of the products by the most highly advertised and promoted well-known artists - products that retailers know are guaranteed to sell....and sell A LOT! That's the stuff that makes up their bread and butter.

Afterwards (maybe 3 months, 6 months, even 12 months is not unusual), you may be fully and properly paid.

Maybe!

By the way, the distributors or retailers may, after a period of time, simply return all your merchandise that hasn't yet sold. Or, worse, they may not!!!)

A small-to-medium size independent U.S. label with which I have contact shared with me that they just wrote off over $25,000 in expected and deserved revenues. Apparently, one of the industry distributors that handled their products just folded (declared Chapter 11 or 13 bankruptcy). The distributor, which was shipping and getting the record label's merchandise into scores of retail outlets across the USA and internationally, hadn't paid the record label for months. My contact at this label told me that the good news is that the label may get back some (notice, I said some) of their recordings that still remain in the warehouse of the former distributor. Creating Your Own Success

I hope that by this time it is clear that making your own CD will not help you earn a living or develop your career unless you actively market and get people to hear your music. Yes, there is an off chance that you might get lucky. Someone really special and important might hear your CD and say to their secretary "Mildred, get this guy on the phone quick so we can get a distribution deal - I want his music on every station and in every store worldwide - and sign him to a ten record deal!" Be grateful for good luck, but don't count on it.

Successful companies research, plan, and actively market to generate high visibility. As a successful musician, you'll need to start thinking of yourself as a company, and your recordings as your merchandise. If you intend to plow ahead, chances are you'll need to model your approach after the leaders.

Copyright (C) 1998 E.S. Proteus Inc., Jazz Improv Magazine.

A continuing series of articles about marketing CDs has been written for publication in upcoming editions of Jazz Improv Magazine. The next edition, which features Miles Davis on the cover will be published in late February.