Ignore The Hype

• Don't charge for overnight spots
• Either don't sell them at all or provide them as free bonus spots for people who buy a longer schedule. I can't emphasize enough how worthless overnight spots are. Selling them to indie musicians who don't know any better is not much different from outright stealing from them.
  
• Require a minimum purchase of 10 spots
• As I outlined in my original post, the nature of reach and frequency is that a message isn't going to get across without being heard numerous times. That would require more than 10 spins, but at least 10 would be a minimal start. Selling less than 10 spins will have a marginal impact and is pretty much a waste of money.
  
• Give the artists more time to customize their spot
• The current AirSpun template includes a brazenly self-serving ad for AirsSpun.com that is part of the required 15 second tag at the end. Why are you advertising your service in an ad that the artist is paying for? Sure, you need to include a legal mention at the end of the spot that states it is a paid commercial, but that doesn't need to be more than 3 to 5 seconds, and it certainly doesn't need to include AirSpun self-promotion.
• Give the artist 50 to 55 seconds of time to include either more music or a co-op ad with a local venue or record store.
• Require radio stations to define spot schedules using exact language
• Is it too much to expect a station to tell an advertiser that the spot is going to run 3pm-7pm Monday-Friday? No, it's not. So why do they use undefined terms like "prime" that potentially can be twisted to mean a wide range of times if the station has oversold its inventory?
• Use a paid monitoring service to verify that ads aired
• Radio stations are infamous for filling out affidavits swearing that they ran advertisements only to have never run them. And why not? Outside of sitting by the radio all day long, there's no way to know for sure.
  
• AirSpun can--and should--get around that by using a paid service like RCS's monitoring subsidiary or somehow convince BDS or Mediabase to monitor the commercials.
  
• The irony here is that this problem would be solved if Mediabase or BDS monitored the commercial spins, but AirSpun has taken pains to point out that they don't want that to happen.
  

Labels: Airspun, Google, radio airplay, radio promotion

Posted by Jack at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

Labels: Google, Internet, Promotion

Posted by Jack at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

A few days ago I blogged about Airspun, and one of my criticisms was that Airspun doesn't air songs, they air commercials. I followed this up by positively highlighting how you can do a more effective job buying commercial time from Google's dMarc subsidiary. But these are commercials, too. How can commercials be bad with Airspun but good with Google? The answer comes down to expectations and effectiveness.

I daresay that most indie artists would buy showcases via Airspun and think of them as good as regular airplay. This is an unrealistic expectation, and I think one of the main problems with Airspun--it preys upon every artist's dream of commercial radio airplay. As I mentioned, it's an enticing concept. After all, your song (at least 45 seconds of it) is getting played on the radio. However, my point was that you have to separate the expectation of "radio airplay!" from the reality of what you are purchasing. The bottom line is that this spin will not be as good as regular commercial radio airplay for all the reasons I listed.

Now note that this doesn't necessarily mean the commercial showcases are bad, but you should consider the context of how they are being presented when you decide whether to buy a schedule through Airspun or Google. The absolutely worst thing you can do is get excited about the possibility of getting 10 spins on a major radio station in Seattle at only $30 a spin, and pay for it, telling all your friends that you have "major market airplay." This may make you feel good and impress your friends, but it won't be an effective use of your dollars.

Which leads me to Google. One of the main reasons that Google and dMarc is a better option is that there is no illusion that this is radio airplay. These are commercials pure and simple. The good news is that Google's approach provides you much more flexibility: You can actually leverage the power of the "commercial" aspect of songs purchased on the radio. Not only is there legitimate demographic targeting and accountability, but you can utilize things like co-op advertising, which are critical for your marketing plan if you buy airtime.

Perhaps the ultimate irony is that you can present more actual music in a Google spot if you want, making it more like an actual song play than Airspun.

Labels: Airspun, Google, radio airplay

Posted by Jack at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

The company is called dMarc, and Google bought it to connect its Adwords advertisers with commercial radio stations. What does this mean for you as an aspiring recording artist? It means that Google has just streamlined the same process that Airspun uses, only its service has hundreds more radio stations, more accountability, more creative control, and is quite likely cheaper. After all, Google purchased dMarc for the simple reason that the system is designed to be affordable and easy-to-use for their long tail of advertisers.

• Contact dMarc and create an advertiser account

• Figure out what cities and what demographic target you would like to reach
  
• • You should know your audience. Pick a demo that would be similar to them.
    

• Figure out what time of the day you would like your spots to run

• Prioritize based on the most-listened to dayparts: Morning drivetime, afternoon drive time, middays, nights--in that order. Don't pay a penny for overnights, and avoid weekends unless they specifically exclude overnights.
  

• Estimate the cost of a reasonable number of spots to run
  
• • Remember from this post that you want a schedule that will reach each listener at least three times. So purchase at least 30 or 40 spots. I know, it's expensive, but anything less than 20 spots will be a waste of your money.
    

• Put together your 60 second spot via the production resources that Google provides or do it on your own

• Google uses professional radio people, so that's an enticing option, but it won't hurt to do it yourself. Be more economical than Airspun, which takes 25% of the airtime for talking and sponsorship announcements. Succinctly give the name of your band and the song title at the beginning and then close by again giving the band name/song title, along with where listeners can get more information
  

• Buy your airtime!
  

Here are some other ideas:

• Try to leverage your newfound advertising muscle with local clubs or, as mentioned, music stores.

• Odds are that many of them aren't savvy enough to know about dMarc and thus assume they can't afford radio advertising. You are literally approaching them with free advertising and a legitimate marketing plan based on radio airplay. That would certainly get you a second look from a store buyer or a club owner.

• Approach the station program director (not the music director) about augmenting your schedule by giving away some CDs or something similar on the air.

• This is a long shot, but worth the attempt, especially if you also...
  

• Have your friends work the phone lines and station email addresses. Have them request the song and leave emails about how much they love it.
  

• All of these things help create that cause-effect connection between the airplay you are getting and a listener response/community excitement. That is a very powerful selling point to radio programmers.

The bottom line is that radio exposure is an incredibly powerful tool, but to really get the most of it, you need to leverage the power across multiple points of attack. How much impact would a 40 spot schedule run on a station have? Well, think of it this way: If you purchase 40 spots on a rock station, in all likelihood your song will be receiving more airplay than the biggest rock song in the country on that station. For that week, your song is the number one hit song in the city. Now go market it like one.

Labels: Airspun, Google, marketing, radio airplay

Posted by Jack at 3:37 AM | Permalink | Comments