Using Price Points As A Promotional Tool
Once again this month Amazon.com has made available 50 country albums for only $5, and once again, they’ve put titles from independent artists and legends right next to the more popular artists (see below for titles). Of course your average consumer will take whatever they can get for however cheap or free they can get it, but the conscientious music consumer (of which I’d like to think the majority of the traffic to this site consists of) wants to make sure that their favorite artists get paid, and that the most music dollars possible get directly into the artists’ hands.
The best way to do this is by buying from artists directly whenever possible, but when Amazon made Merle Haggard’s newest I Am What I Am available for $2.99 last week, or Justin Townes Earle’s Harlem River Blues $2.99 on its release date, it created additional interest in a project that may have not been there otherwise. In other words, they used price points as a promotional tool.
Radio used to be the primary promotional tool for music, but as radio consolidation and the advent of iPod’s etc. have marginalized the effectiveness of radio for many artists, price points is another alternative. Radio might be becoming irreverent, but music charts are not, whether it is Amazon’s proprietary sales ranks, or Billboard’s industry standard charts, and lowering the price to stimulate sales can cause a snowball effect, rocketing albums up the charts, stimulating additional sales and press coverage.
We’re moving into an era where the majority of an artist’s money will come from live performances and merchandise. That merch may include creatively packaged CD’s and LP’s, but they will sell them to people who already have the music cheap or free on a digital format.
Clearly Apple’s $.99 a song format is not working to stem music piracy. Amazon seems to be the only one involved in the music industry that understands where we’re headed. The industry must attempt to discover what price point the market will bear, and it may be $5 per album, and $.50 a song, with cheaper or free music used for promotion. Yes, $5 digital albums would mean less revenue, but with the current system, revenue is heading toward zero for digital music. At the current rate, in 5 years nobody will pay for digital music. It will be given away, strictly for promotion.
October 13, 2010 @ 10:20 am
Oh I don’t know that it will be GIVEN away. It is good to see Amazon setting what’s hopefully a trend here. I remember reading an article about a year or two ago that covered some other music download service where prices were staggered on an almost individual-track level. I don’t remember the name of the service but the CEO had a point in his comment (paraphrasing here) “Why should it cost the exact same amount of money to buy a brand new track from an album that came out today, as it does for some forgotten track from a shitty Bread album that came out decades ago?”
October 13, 2010 @ 10:37 am
Yeah, that is a really good point. And there’s a lot of music that is totally unavailable. I thought this was the age of information. Larry Jon Wilson, Willis Alan Ramsey, John Hartford like was discussed here last week. Not every song should be worth a dollar, and not every album $10.
I do think it will be free. It so many ways it already is. Unless the aggressively set the price points and a more reasonable level.
The music industry is going to have to shed their bloated infrastructure and deal with the new reality.
October 13, 2010 @ 3:27 pm
I’m curious to hear more on this theory that it will all be free.
It’s good regardless that at least a few corporations have realized that yes, it IS possible to compete with free (illegal) downloads by offering a better, more secure platform.
October 13, 2010 @ 3:13 pm
Man, I’ll pay $.99 to NOT listen to Bread any day of the week!
October 13, 2010 @ 3:26 pm
Well then you owe me some money sir. 😀
October 13, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
Bread is the staff of life.
Its music you pretend to like if you’re trying to get laid, and it’s 1974.
October 13, 2010 @ 9:56 pm
Any way you slice it, it’s still Meat Loaf.
October 14, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
I’m a baker professionally, so I’m all about bread. But Bread is one of my least favorite bands of all time!
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October 13, 2010 @ 10:39 am
[…] Saving Country Music reminded everyone that Amazon is currently offering 50 different country albums (via download) for only $5 each. Click here to view the full list. […]
October 13, 2010 @ 7:33 pm
Last week I got a letter from Arbitron with a one dollar bill in it. They said I was “chosen to tell radio stations what you listen to.” and it is not important if I listen a little, a lot, or not at all. A Nielsen’s for Radio. Today I got my phone call survey and Wayne and I will receive a package in the mail to keep up with, along with a
“small token of appreciation to buy donuts or cup of coffee”
I told her I have lots to say about radio….looking forward to it.
October 14, 2010 @ 7:24 am
Please don’t tell me you’re becoming a radio cop
😉
October 14, 2010 @ 10:05 am
it’s funny because we don’t ever listen to radio and i can’t remember the last time i did. i use cds in the vehicle…always. i wondered where they got my name from, but i’ve got a lot to say to their “inquiring minds” about what sucks!!!
October 14, 2010 @ 3:32 pm
bad news, im a radio major guy and arbitron dosnt care at all about what you think they just want you to record how long you listen and what radio stations you listen to. so they can sell the numbers back to radio stations so the stations can adjust their prices for ads.
October 14, 2010 @ 3:45 pm
if there is one station that you like just write down that listen to it for 12 hours a day while you are at work. then that station will get a better ranking when the numbers come out and then they get more advertisers which equals more money.
October 13, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
THANKS ASSHOLE <-(anti ass kissing comment) I am a material person that appreciates the hard plastic/vinyl in my greedy little hands but I appreciate the list of 50 because it made me aware of some stuff I didn't know was out there. Got'em ordered now though.
October 14, 2010 @ 9:04 am
I hope that there will always be a place for music on a physical format, and I think there will be. But instead of being the primary way people will listen to music, it will be a secondary thing, for serious fans and collectors.
October 14, 2010 @ 5:46 pm
I’ve only been able to download for a month or two, and while it’s nice to save money and for the instant gratification (I wish the mailman would hrry the fuck up with my Whitey Morgan CD!), I have found myself really missing liner notes. I like to know who played on an album, who wrote what songs, and yes: the physical copy in my hands. I’ll always prefer that.
October 14, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
A lot of bands are setting up where they have full liner notes online. Sometimes they are even more involved than on the physical copies because they don’t have to worry about production costs. More bands should do this for albums, past and present.