Doing
Your First Record Tip #8 |
| Period of 6/18/99 to 6/27/99 |
| HOW
A HIT IS MADE WITH PROMOTION |
| BY TOM GELARDI |
| I recently read an article about an independent artist hiring a promo
person that promoted a product to 25 states. After 14 weeks of the artist shelling
out $400-$500 per week for fees and promotional give-a-ways, the campaign ended with
"minimal results" but with 29 stations having played the record. Pretty
expensive campaign to get an average of one station per state playing your record. |
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| Before you try something like this, you should realize how
records become hits though airplay. The fundamental formula is that the
record starts somewhere, often one station. From there it is
spread to other stations, in the same region. You get it good and hot in
one region and then spread to adjacent regions and finally to the nation,
the world, etc. |
| The above is true for first records that are put out by
artists and also true for superstars. The difference is that this process often
happens very quickly for established national acts - within hours or days; and the process
happens much more slowly for new acts - often over months. This is one of the
biggest challenges of handling a new artist because the record peaks in one area before it
can be spread to other areas. As a result, a second or third record has a much
better chance of becoming your hit, because it will spread more quickly (assuming you had
some success with the first record). |
| The region you begin to promote in must be big enough to have
both "primary" (big-city) markets and "secondary" (smaller) markets.
You start with the secondary markets and spread to the primary markets. If
your region is too big you will get "scattered" play which will result in very
few sales. Sales are generated by the listener hearing the product repeatedly - much
like advertising. Stations like to know that the record is successful on other
stations and is starting to generate sales. They will then "jump on the
bandwagon." Stations in other regions are impressed that it is hot in the
original region, on several stations doing well. They are very unimpressed with only
one or two stations in a region playing a record. |
| The size of the region should be about as big as the state of
Michigan, where you have one primary market (Detroit) and several secondary markets
(Flint, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Traverse City). If we tried to
promote to Michigan, Ohio and Indiana at the same time, the results could be only 10% of
what we would get if you concentrated on Michigan alone. |
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