The Ripple Effect Blog

Ted Turner is one of my heroes. My first encounter with Ted, or shall I say his persona,  was while driving through Atlanta’s Peachtree Plaza en route to a national sales meeting for Rollins, one of the South’s media giants back in the 80s. I glanced up from the taxi window at a towering 40 foot billboard displaying a bold declaration: “I WAS CABLE BEFORE CABLE WAS COOL.” Signed, Ted Turner.

“Who would do that? Who would have the gall to think they invented a whole industry and publish their bravado on billboards scattered throughout their own home town?” I asked myself. A few years later I learned the answer. Only Ted would do something like that. Why? Because back in those days only Ted had the courage, insight and legitimate ownership rights to a field that would swiftly turn the entire entertainment industry on its ear.

Cable King Ted Turner

In the mid 80s I temporarily left behind my executive sales career to stake my claim of fame and fortune in the direct marketing industry, a relatively obscure business back then simply known as direct mail (the ugly step sister to the glamorous advertising industry). My plan was to briskly hop three stepping stones–the first to the drab DM industry, then to the emerging cable business, then into the sexy world of entertainment advertising.

Little did I know that first stepping stone, direct mail, would one day become the mother lode of marketing, the true darling of today’s fast-morphing interactive, social media, direct response marketing industry. As luck (or fate) would have it, I was blessed to hire on as an Account Supervisor and assistant to the iconic Freeman Gosden Jr, one of the pioneers of modern direct marketing as we know it, and chief architect of the legendary 40-40-20 Rule (the de facto formula for direct marketing success).

For several years I was Freeman’s shadow. He took me everywhere–from the boardrooms of Hilton Hotels, to Universal Studios’ executive lunchroom, to the publisher’s penthouse at Architectural Digest. He even sent me to New York one time with the expressed purpose of meeting John Yeck, the brilliant copywriter and founding chairman of the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation.

Anyone who ever worked for Freeman owes him a debt of gratitude. He was brilliant, a mad scientist trapped in an ad man’s body. A simple glance of those piercing eyes over the rims of his reading glasses could set legions of AEs aflight. He was a tyrannical perfectionist, yet merciful to a fault when you cost the company $20,000 due to a simple proofing error or missed drop date. “How else are you going to learn?” he would often say to those of us mistaken-prone AEs who were moving at mach speed in the West’s largest direct marketing agency.

To this day I have the utmost respect for those who have graduated to the fast-pitch league of social media, email marketing, “two-step” landing page strategies and the like from the hallowed halls of direct mail.

Want to create the perfect order page? Take your queue from a well-designed reply card. Looking for the ultimate hook in a subject line? Search no further than a clever outer envelope teaser.

Note to hiring managers: On the lookout for the most talented direct marketers to help you win the war on branding and customer acquisition simultaneously? Hire direct mail specialists—the foot soldiers of direct marketing. You can never go wrong.

One day soon we’ll look around and see precious few of the founding fathers of direct marketing among us. Yet in my dreams I see a 40 foot billboard along the Santa Monica Freeway sporting a familiar headline in quotes…

“I WAS DIRECT MARKETING BEFORE DIRECT MARKETING WAS COOL.” Signed, Freeman Gosden Jr.

Except Freeman would never do that. First because he doesn’t own a billboard company. And second because he’s just too humble a guy.

Hats off to our direct marketing forefathers whose tried and true techniques help us serve clients in the digital world to their most strategic, profitable advantage.

In the wake of my last blog post (Beating The Digital Download Devil) I got a flood of emails protesting my position on the evils of digital music. I want to be fair to the protesters. And I want to balance my indignation over the gobs of money sifted through the hands of hard-working artists, writers and composers and funneled into the pockets of the late Steve Jobs and company.

And so I want to focus on a beacon of hope for today’s topsy-turvy music business—one of my favorite digital music brands.

Pandora.

First–What’s not cool about Pandora. To start with, the increasingly disruptive ads. Then, the fact that over 100 million subscribers get to have the notion that we’re beating the “pay for play” system by devouring an uninterrupted stream of free music seems delightfully naughty. And as subscribers we have instant access to over a million groovy songs representing over 80,000 artists.

Look more closely at the data.

Last year alone Pandora served up over 4 billion music listening hours to aficionados like you and me. To date, Pandora’s delivered over 50 million mobile app downloads in the U.S. alone. Here’s the best part—they’ve compensated music professionals with over $200 million in cumulative royalties to artists, labels, master copyright owners and the immortal SoundExchange. Sounds like redemption doesn’t it?

Personally, I think the coolest thing about Pandora is its hip founder and CEO Tim Westergren. Aside from the fact that (post-IPO) he’ll never need to work again, he really loves and understands music. It’s written on his heart, it’s etched into his mind, and he’s devoted his life making fabulous high-fidelity sonic entertainment accessible to the masses. Free of charge, albeit with a few gratuitous ads sprinkled in each music set.

And Tim knows what I want. What’s that? Customized music based on my favorite artists, genres and musical eras. Where else outside the digital world can you listen to a playlist of LMFAO, Kelly Clarkson, Barbra Streisand, The Bee Gees, Eisley, Death Cab, The Andrews Sisters, Glenn Miller, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Paul Baloche, Lil Wayne and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir—in that order, or shuffled, whenever, wherever I want?

Exactly one year ago to the day I received a nice email from Matt Nichols, Pandora’s VP of Marketing (and two days later from Tim personally). Both responsed gingerly to the constructive criticism I offered after hearing a poorly executed sponsor ad on my 70s music setting.

Here’s what I wrote…

“I was disappointed to hear an ad that came on while listening to a Beatles music set today up here in Seattle. It was a tasteful ad for Godiva Chocolates and was beautifully timed the day before Valentine’s Day. But the ad failed to include a call to action which you could help every one of your sponsors develop by adding a 10 second tag to EVERY ad from every partner/sponsor, like…”To get your exclusive “I Love You” Pandora/Godiva Chocolate Gift Set click on the banner ad now or go to Pandora/Godiva.com and use promo code PAN at check out to redeem your discount and get three free months of Pandora One (credit card required).”

Then the PS. “Sorry if I sound pushy and maybe I am a bit. It’s only because I love Pandora and the whole notion of the music genome project—that of profiling music, dissecting and categorizing sound and style elements within—is incredibly technologically innovative. Your marketing should be every bit as innovative. Even more so. And that means continually testing, validating and rolling out new messages and offers that optimally engage and activate your listeners. My two cents anyway.”

Want to know their reply?

Their words might surprise you. Learn what they said in my upcoming post “Why The Music Industry’s Titans of Tech Spell Trouble” for more ups and downs in digital music from the likes of Rhapsody, Spotify, Grooveshark and other category leaders.

In the meantime, keep filling your heart and soul with great music. It’ll soothe your spirit during these uncertain times. BTW, do check out Spotify when you get a minute. It’s one of my other favorite music portals.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Ph

Want to know how much of the pie some huge songwriters or artists are getting on a 99¢ download? How about 18¢.

That’s correct – a paltry 18% of every dollar going back to the artist who either invented or popularized the song.

Actually, like many things that are both a blessing and curse, we can all thank Steve Jobs for doing more to put music into the ears, hearts and souls of nearly everyone on the planet — more than anyone on the planet.

But the problem, 3-D. The Digital Download Devil (my term). If he’s not going away, how do we do an end-run and beat him at his extortion game? Simple.

Remember that saying, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?” So let’s join ‘em in earnest. Why? So we can start building one-to-one relationships with the ones who pay the bills—not the record label, digital music portal or satellite radio outlet, but your fans.

For starters, here’s a primer on what every recording artist should be doing today (if they’re not doing so already…and keeping a sharp eye on it every day henceforth) to start building true “friends with benefits” connections with fans:

1.  Blog – WordPress will get you up and running in less than an hour, and for only a few bucks. Plus, it’s so easy a caveman can do it. Tease your fans with clips of your new songs, links to your YouTube posts, announcements of upcoming appearances, groovy thoughts, all the stuff your fans want to hear and see. The more “insider/gritty” the better.

2.  Feed your blog posts simultaneously—often—to multiple social media outlets and your main site. Pay a junior high kid $50 to activate the RSS feed from your blog to flow your updates into Facebook, Twitter and your home page, to start.

3.  Post your videos and photos to YouTube and Flickr. Actually, if you’re not doing at least this by now you really need to ask yourself whether you still have the passion to be an entertainer. I would question it, frankly. Why? Because it’s not the smart people who do social media and connect directly with fans who love the music and who love their loyal followers. It’s the passionate artists. Passionate people are productive people who have kept the dream alive and are making it happen. No more “I’m an artist not a marketer.” Keep saying that and you might as well stay home and start exploring a teaching certificate online to make a living.

It’s freaky out there, we all know it. But at least for music fans there’s never been a time in history when great music and the people who create it was so ubiquitous, so high-fidelity, so available to instantly reach out and grab.

Now it’s time for artists to shake off the dust and start grabbing, too. In their case, a bigger piece of the music money pie. It’s there for anyone’s taking.

In our next post we’ll talk about…

1.  DTF – Direct To Fan commerce. Specifically, we’ll look at the four levels of fan relationships—from friends and family core supporters to the ultimate loyalist/evangelist fan, and what to offer each based on their level of commitment.

2.  Loyalty Programs – Later we’ll blog about how bands—sports and lifestyle brands, too—can apply the marketing practices of airline and hospitality industry loyalty programs that have deftly engaged over 2.1 billion loyalty club members, all in an effort to “connect fans to brands for life” (my term). : 0

Stay tuned to your cell phone or iPad…

Ph

PS — Special thanks to my friends at www.vibrantcreative.com in New York from whom I slightly lifted their social media cheat sheet. Nice white paper, guys. : 0