I am a Blue Rodeo fan and have been for 21 years. I think that whether or not you are a fan, you can learn a lot from them. Before you protest and say "but they have a team and I don't" - stop whining, read this, think about your career, and start copying!
Blue Rodeo has a new double CD (and double vinyl) due out next week. I am like many of their fans - we tend to like the older songs more than we like new releases. Why? Familiarity perhaps. I also admit that I haven't even purchased many of their recent albums even though I am a devoted fan. But I am very excited about this new album and I can't wait to have it in my hands. What's different? They have done two key things to make me interested and engaged. And you can easily copy and adapt these to help promote your next album or promote your music.
What has Blue Rodeo done? First, they have streamed the new album on their website for the past several weeks. Not the whole album at once - one side of the vinyl per week. The music player launches in a separate window and I admit that I have let it play the 4 or 5 songs over and over while I do other things. The result is that I am quite familiar with the new material and I love it. Do I love it because it is better than their other recent albums? I don't think so. I think I love it because it is already familiar to me. And I can't wait to have the new songs in my hands so that I can play what I was listening to two weeks ago!
The other thing that engaged me (and many others) was the acoustic show that Jim and Greg played here Monday night in a small venue. This promotional tour was about showcasing their new material. They played songs from the new album and told stories about the songs. The stories made me intrigued to listen to those songs again ... particularly the two songs about the same subject (Jim and Greg each wrote a song about the same incident without being aware the other was writing about it). Again, can't wait to have the album in my hands!
What does this mean to you? Recognizing that "Hear, Like, Buy" has always been the rule for selling music; you need to engage people in your music by having them hear it. I say 'engage' deliberately because I would add "engage" to the spot in between "like" and "buy" because I don't think we buy everything we like. We buy that with which we become engaged. So, think about what you can do and in my next post I will write about some ideas that I have on what you can do.
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I would like to support the statement that Blue Rodeo is worth copying. They are a class act. They have a boutique management company and booking agent who know how to maximize the brand of Blue Rodeo, keeping the band fresh and relevant over many decades. They have won a Juno for Group of the Year five times, starting in the late eighties and as recently as two years ago. They treat their staff and crew like family, they are extremely supportive of up-and-coming artists, and most of all, they get it: it's all about the fans. They are a model of how to make fans and keep them. Just tool around their website to find out about Best Seats presale tickets for members, One Degree of Blue Rodeo for the discovery of new artists, the range of fabulous merchandise available, etc. Blue Rodeo rocks, and more than just musically.
ReplyDeleteExactly Shauna. It is about building relationships for the long term. As I said at the Alberta Music Industry night on Tuesday - many musicians want to build their career on a 'home run' but building a music career is more than that. It is a series of 'base hits' (to continue the baseball analogy) and that is what I will write about. Building a career ... step by step with an eye to the long term. And if musicians do that - great labels (like yours), managers, and booking agents will take note.
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