Case Study: Clinton Curtis Connects With Fans And Gives Them Good Reasons To Buy His New Album
from the 2nd-avenue-ball dept
Matt Stine, who runs the music company 27 Sound, wrote the following about an artist he's working with, Clinton Curtis, and the creative ways they've tried to connect with fans and provide reasons to buy for his latest album, 2nd Avenue Ball.
Ever since Mike introduced the concept of CwF + RtB,
he has been confronted time and time again with the argument that this concept can only work for well-known artists with large established fanbases. And time after time Mike has provided evidence that CwF + RtB can work for any band or musician at any level. Clinton Curtis' latest release campaign for his new album, 2nd Avenue Ball, is a prime example of how a new artist can use the concepts behind Mike's formula to build a foundation for a successful career while earning money along the way from a small group of "super" fans.
Clinton Curtis' 2nd Avenue Ball comes out today, March 22nd but it has been available for Pre-Order since March 1st. My company, 27 Sound, has been responsible for every aspect of the campaign, from producing and recording the music, to designing ClintonCurtis.com to developing the marketing and promotion strategy. Although technically this is Clinton's second album, Clinton is still very much a new artist, and we treated this latest release as if it was his first. Clinton had been playing a lot of shows locally and regionally over the past year, and acquired a decent amount of email addresses at those shows. We knew that a small percentage of those fans would likely support Clinton going forward. Our goal was to offer something unique to those fans already in Clinton's network and at the same time create ways for Clinton to connect with potential new fans.
In designing Clinton's website, we wanted to make sure we were giving Clinton's fans a reason to return to the site on a regular basis. We created two new elements -- CC Radio and CC Connect. CC Radio is essentially a bi-monthly live show, broadcast directly to clintoncurtis.com. Each episode features members of Clinton's band, guest musicians, friends and even Clinton's fans, getting together at 27 Sound Studios to perform a solid hour of music. Powered by Ustream, it's really simple to use, easy to integrate into the website and shareable across all major social networks. In fact, Clinton's album release party will actually be a CC Radio episode (9:30PM EST tonight, Tuesday March 22nd) which is a much more effective use of time and money than trying to throw a big party at a NYC venue. CC Radio is an exciting way to keep fans coming back to the site and a great way for Clinton to connect directly with his them. It has been a huge success in only it's first two months. The fans love it, and the easy sharing capability brings more traffic to Clinton's online store.
Once fans reach Clinton's Online store we wanted to be sure that we gave them plenty of incentive to buy directly from us. We created CC Connect, Clinton's "VIP" fan club, to add value to all of our direct-to-fan offerings. Any package purchased through clintoncurtis.com comes bundled with a lifetime membership to CC Connect. CC Connect members get free download packs each month featuring exclusive previously unreleased music, live recordings, studio demos, audio from CC Radio episodes and more. They also get ticket and merch discounts as well as an entire fully-produced album recorded exclusively for CC Connect members each year. By doing this we add a tremendous amount of value to each package we offer through the site, giving fans a good reason to buy.
For 2nd Avenue Ball, we worked hard to come up with a variety of packages that we think will please Clinton's fans and drive their support. I won't go into too much detail here on each one, but there are a couple of noteworthy items in the biggest, Super Fan Deluxe Package that I think might interest Techdirt readers.
Each of the 50 Deluxe packages come with gatefold vinyl packaging but the vinyl record inside is not Clinton's album. We don't yet have enough demand among Clinton's fans to warrant manufacturing and selling vinyl, but we wanted to showcase the amazing album artwork we had from an incredible young artist, Matthew Burrows. We planned on putting high quality art prints of his work inside as an insert where the vinyl record would normally go. But then we had the idea to also include an actual LP from Clinton's personal vinyl collection. Along with the LP, each package comes with a note about what that album meant to Clinton and what significance it had to his musical upbringing. We thought this would be a cool way to make each package completely unique.
Then we thought to return the favor.... If people get a piece of Clinton's favorite music, we should give them back some of their favorite songs, too. So anyone who orders this package gets an email from Clinton asking for their favorite song, and then Clinton records that song and sends it directly to their inbox. Yes, it will be a lot of work for us to put this together, but it will give each of these 50 fans something special that they really want. And who knows, maybe some great recordings will come of it! (In fact, almost all of these Deluxe packages have sold out at the time of writing this, and the song requests have been really cool, including one person who requested an original song that his 9 year old son wrote.)
These are just a few of the things that are unique about this campaign although there are many others (including the "Turn This CD Into A Coaster" Kit that comes with each disc!). Have a look over at clintoncurtis.com to see the package offers in more detail and explore around the site to see more ways Clinton is actively connecting with his fanbase. I would love to hear people's thoughts and ideas on what we could be doing better. I always keep reminding our team that this is all an experiment and we need to adapt and change every day as we learn from the feedback we get from our fans. So visit the site and help us out!
How can they beat this?
Do you think this could be the beginning of the final decline for these conglomerate labels? Or will they find enough good lawyers to wriggle away from this somehow? Any thoughts?
(untitled comment)
So Mike, you're even more right then maybe you know. Instead of worrying about silly cocktail names and pouring cash and resources into ridiculous lawsuits, they should be focusing their efforts on promoting what actually makes their brand distinct and valuable. If they were selling really cheap and crappy rum that would be one thing, but knowing how good this product actually is, it's even worse to see them resort to silly trademark disputes in an effort to protect their brand.
(And no, I swear I have absolutely no connection to Pusser's Rum other than I really do love it...It's one of my favorites!)
Recap
I can't make it to this but definitely wish I could. Will you be doing a recap post of the interview here on Techdirt? Please say yes!
Thanks,
Matt
Re: Re: Re: Only $55?
Re: Topspin label?
But as far as I know, Topspin isn't a label and does not have plans of becoming one.
Re: Only $55?
It may seem impossible that we were able to keep our costs down enough to allow for a good profit margin on these, but the truth is, if you are creative and work hard enough you can find ways to get what you want cheaply. It takes a lot of hours of research, but thanks to the internet we were able to find cheap ways to produce the items we wanted.
Would I have liked to charge $200 for that package? Of course. And one day Clinton will charge that much for something.... But at this stage in his career it was important to build the foundation for direct-to-fan sales through clintoncurtis.com. We don't want to scare people away with a big price tag, we want to provide huge value for a surprisingly little amount and make clintoncurtis.com a place people want to come back to. And we found a way to do this and still make some dough!
Re: Re:
Re: Re:
Re: Re:
Yes, time will certainly tell the tale, but the bigger question to ask might be how do you measure "effectiveness"?
Money earned is not always the best measure of an effective release campaign. In this case, Clinton has almost sold out of the Super Fan Deluxe Package ($55/each) which means that we were effective in coming up with an offer that his die hard fans really want.
But most of those came during the pre-order period. Now that the album is released the campaign is just beginning. We can use the money earned in pre-order to help fund new experiments going forward. And most of those experiments will be designed to bring in a new audience. New fans.
That's where CC Connect, CC Radio and the offer of Free downloads come into play....Hopefully we will see a significant increase in Clinton's network over the next couple of months. We have already seen CC Radio viewership increase with each episode and we expect tonight's show to be a BIG one!
Every artist is different and each campaign must be approached with different expectations. Sometimes knowing "how" to do something is the most important step. Just do it the best you can and learn from each step you take.
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