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Good Reviews But No Sales?

Thoughts from the IndieBiz list

Six possible reasons why:

- Wrong timing:

Coordinate your marketing/promotion program - Usually people need to hear or read more than once how great your music is until they buy it.

Do everything at once for each local market - For example: They read about in the paper (Pick the right paper(s) for your music) and in the article it also says that you are playing a gig next week in their town (Pick the right place for your music)- They hear your music played on the local station(s) (Pick the right station(s) for your music) - While their walking down the street the next day they see one or even more of your flyers, posters, ...

The night before the show you have a live interview on the local station and you mention again that you will play tomorrow night at this and this time at this and this place and how to get there (If you have some popular local band playing on the same night make sure you mention that) - If you do all these things, and you pick the right outlets, in most cases you can expect more people to show up and better sales.

- Wrong time:

Some places/towns are just plain dead in certain seasons

- Lack of information on where to check it out / Lack of possibility to check it out:

Some people gamble with this - They don't give the people all the possibilities, the chance to check it out hoping some will buy it who actually wouldn't if they had more possibilities to find out about it/ check it out before they buy it - I'm absolutely convinced that they lose in the end - They lose more on the ones who would have than the ones who wouldn't have and besides you would have a much more professional image.

Always give the best and most professional service, accessible in the most easiest and comfortable way and tell them that if they order it they will get it within ... days (as fast as possible - They love it right now and they want to be able to listen to it right now (or within the next few days) "You can get the CD from the store round the corner from you / order it by phone / on the web / mail order / you can check us out next week at the venue in your neighbourhood / we have samples on the web and all other information / if you have more questions you can reach us this and that.

Get back to everyone right away / if possible personally / always let everybody know what's going on and what not ... and so on. - [I wish the 95 % of people in the music biz who don't understand this would - A lot of the most unprofessional people in the world are in the music biz - Don't get back to you - Get back to you a couple of weeks later - Don't let you know what's going on / Can't reach them / ... (I guess almost anyone on this list knows 7000 % what I'm talking about) - I always try to avoid to do business with anyone who's like that (their attitude goes into most other levels of what they do, too - Totally unprofessional] (Everybody got that ??!!!! (In case I'll get into business with one or the other of you someday ... !)

- Lack of information on where to buy it:

Now, I already kind of talked about it before - But make sure everybody, no matter where they are located or what possibilities they have, know exactly the easiest and most convenient way to get it and make sure they know they will get it very soon.

- Lack of mentioning your selling points / qualities (obvious ones and hidden ones) and qualities that differentiate you from the competition:

How many times have you read an article about a musician/band and it sounds great but it also sounds like any other review you've read - Tell them very specifically why you're great and why you're not just a copy/like every other band that does the same kind of music (A great, creative, unusual story always helps big time) - Try to get all this into the material you send to the press/radio/...

- Wrong audience/readers/listeners/... :

I call it "It doesn't make sense trying to sell meat to vegetarians" - If you get the greatest review in a paper that's read by people who are not into the kind of music you create you won't get any sales (unless you have a very smart marketing strategy, meaning one that builds a bridge between them and your music / Giving them a reason why they would want to buy your music)

My music got played on WQXR (The station of the New York Times) - Now, this station has listeners who are mostly into classical music, my music is not classical, though - I didn't detect any results from it even though the DJ said some very nice things about it (Actually, he also came up with this funny thing of making a connection between my last name (Mahler - Like the great classical composer Gustav Mahler) and classical music - I don't think he did that for marketing purpose but rather to be able to get my kind of music into his kind of station - Guess he just liked it and figured out a way on how to do it)

Hope this helps,
Marco Mahler
http://www.marcomahler.com

They're connected, just not directly. Press can pave the way for better shows and larger audiences and can dramatically improve radio play.

A lot of radio PDs & MDs subscribe to some music mags (comsumer as well as trade) to stay up on whats happening. You get some good press that they see and your Rotations will increase. Usually when your rotation increases, your sales increase.

Also “prestige” venues will have an easier time booking a “name” act. This also leads to increased sales. Without press this stuff is possible, but only in theory. Press adds to sales, but indirectly - at least until you become a household name.

The smaller the act (aka what label you are on and how big of tour you are capable of), the less reviews will affect actual sales. For instance, a self released disc may amass a few thousand reviews and still not sell a more than a dozen copies because of those reviews DIRECTLY (this is a very extreme example, but mathematically possible I suppose) unless of course most of those reviews said stuff like "Better songs than the Beatles hits and the Beatles fantasies" or something like that.

If every review (and thousands of them) was saying stuff like that, you don't have to worry about selling albums on your own for long because every label on Earth will be after you. Larger acts (Smashing Pumpkins for example) can actually rely on reviews to up sales (or kill them) quite a bit (but only to an extent).

For the smaller acts, I did say that reviews probably won't have a great “direct” effect on sales. However, it does add some snow and putty to the snowball that you are trying to perpetuate. Good reviews in the local indie mag that everyone looks at for upcoming shows (Creative Loafing in Atlanta, for example) will add to your name recognition, which will probably add to your audience that night. If your show goes well, then the people who saw you will talk about you. The people who missed you will hear about you, and the people who wrote you up at the mag will hear/talk about you. Because of your writeup, the college PD (or a few DJs) who had your CD lying around and the kids haven't given it a shot yet might have them throw it on after hearing about/seeing your great show.

Once people are hearing your great disc on the radio, reading about it in print, maybe seeing you live, and/or hearing about your great record from a friend who bought it, you can bet your sales in that area will increase. If you can get the steam rolling everywhere you play you will have quite a buzz! If you achieve this type of buzz, it is your camp's (you or your publicist/manager/whoever) job to keep your name in print as much as you can.

These areas will be warmer for you the next time, so you better follow up with a second effort. Thats why a lot of up and coming acts will book a tiny tour to play as the record comes out and a bigger one a few months down the road to hit all the same spots a second time. After the label (or you) stop “working” your album as hard, getting your name in print and playing more shows will directly add to the sales if you work it intelligently and diligently.

But it still comes down to 3 things: The songs (and your performance of them), strategy/timing/karma, and having the budget/manpower to pull it off.

If the music sucks you'll fail entirely (or you'll get picked up by Warner and get blasted on “Modern Rock Alternative” radio 50 times a day, sell mulitplatinum and end up broke and working at Sears). If you don't market yourself intelligently and stylishly your chances diminish. And if you try to do it all without a budget, your album is already one foot in the grave (unless I guess you are a Punk band or a Breakbeat DJ - these audiences are often so tightly knit that you can almost expect support even if they have no idea who you are).

-Nathan Davis
Butterfly Messiah
http://listen.to/butterflymessiah

Same situation here. And the simple explanation is: reviews and sales just aren't connected.

What drives sales is familiarity. That's why the big labels get their artists on commercial radio and MTV. And that's why most indie bands sell most of their CDs at their shows. Plain and simple... that's all there is to it.

The main purpose of good reviews is to encourage you to keep at it. Of course it's also nice to pad your press kit, and a thick wad of great reviews (from national or major regional or industry publications) can impress certain people in the industry, but won't do anything for sales. That's pretty much it!

Jon
The Halley De Vestern Band

The availability of the CD is not an issue. I have it for sale at several of the CD Vendors, large and small. It is also available from my website, which has e-commerce set up. I even did gave the exchange from Canadian to US funds because I thought maybe the price, which was listed in Canadian dollars, was scaring off the American and International customers.

I have MP3s set up at all the usual places, as well as my own site (I also have Real Audio versions there). I maintain the site on a daily basis, trying to make it as comfortable as possible for visitors.

Thanks to the reviews that are starting to appear, at least now I know I have a good product in the eyes of some. So that's something to build on.

My original hopes were to make enough off the sales of this CD to record another one. That's changed, to say the least. I still believe that it's possible to sell enough CDs to at least break even (which is a long piece away) but I'm not sure how? I certainly plan on touring at some point, but it's just not realistic at this time. There has to be other ways to stimulate interest other than touring?

David Wimble
Big Meteor

I think you start playing the open stages as soon as possible. Have your CDs available for sale at the venues in a prominent position and mention your CD several times during your performance. The revues should help to get your foot in the door to these places.

Paul Ewing
Wings Music

I think Marco and Nathan have posted some excellent answers so I'd just like to comment on a few of these and add a little bit of TagYerit's experiences.

The key word is exposure. It's not necessarily how good the review is but how many places and times the potential fan/customer sees your name. And it's not the size of the publication either.

How many reviews have made you want to buy a record? Probably not many. If there's a particular reviewer you like, who is always “spot on” with your tastes, then you may take a chance, but usually it will just whet the reader's appetite. They will need to hear the music on any of the following media: radio, tv, movie soundtrack, live, internet ... and the song will have to have enough similarities to what you already like, and enough differences to what you've already heard.

On our first CD, I labelled our music “quirk rock” and reviewers liked that. But even when they found bands to compare us to, it didn't generate any sales that I know of.

Here are the only direct responses I've gotten from people that identified their sources.

By the way, I am in no way slamming the power of print, which I believe is invaluable. But it is only one part of the equation.

I do have an untested theory that the one demographic where this might be different is in Teen magazines. But I haven't been able to get reviewed in this area yet. Still working on it.

Rich from TagYerit
TagYerit's second CD Tubeman is now available at http://www.tagyerit.com/orders.htm