Music Marketing

What technologies and marketing strategies do institutions use to target and distribute products to audiences?

• Post case studies of specific artists on your blog using key terminology.
• Detail what your selected record label does and why they use this particular strategy

Music Industries use the Internet to distribute their music globally, for example using a 'facebook' page, a 'myspace' page or perhaps a twitter page.
Also they use newspaper or magazines that include features of Artists and Bands that they produce.
Viral Marketing -  This is, using social networking, a global Internet version of word of mouth. using the Internet to get their music across, commonly for free, which is then passed from person to person through social networking.

Case Study:

Xtra Mile Recordings produce lots of artists and bands, who are known mostly for producing alternative music. One Artist that they produce is 'Beans On Toast' this is an artist who is small time but is still marketed using many methods. On Xtra Mile Recordings official website: http://www.xtramilerecordings.com A banner which is shown at the very top of the page is an advertisement for Beans On Toast's third album. By having a big banner that advertises a single artist on the main home page for the entire recording label shows that they market this artist to the audience even if they clicked on the site for another artist. Xtra Mile have used this so that they show their audience that they specialise on a particular genre of music and advertises it to the fans of any of the artists of their label.
Also Xtra Mile have mentioned that 'Frank Turner' has produced the album that they are advertising on the banner. Frank Turner is one of the biggest artists Xtra Mile has produced and became a massive hit. This is product endorsement as it is showing that Frank Turner not only gave his approval of the album but trusts that it will be enough of a success to produce it. Product endorsement is a clever marketing technique and Xtra Mile has used it because they know that fans of Frank Turner would trust his judgement.

On Beans On Toast's official web page: http://www.beansontoastmusic.com/ there is also another banner alerting fans that the new album is out then underneath is a video from the site 'youtube.com' of a song that is on the new album, as a free taster to make the fans want to buy the album. Underneath the video are four links to individual sites; 'Facebook', 'twitter', 'youtube' and 'itunes' which are links to his individual pages on all four of these sites which is multiplatform' social media' which gets the word across and allowing fans to 'like', 'subscribe', 'follow' or buy music from Beans on Toast. Again underneath these links is a banner saying 'Free Download' and then a link to download a track for free. This is called a 'loss leader' because seeing as Xtra Mile are giving Beans On Toast's tracks away for free but they will be doing this as it will entice fans to buy the whole album after hearing a free taster.  After the 'Free Download' banner there is a list of live shows that Beans On Toast will be performing, this includes the venue, date, location and an opportunity to buy tickets for the event. This is to get the word out and give opportunities to see Beans On Toast live and create a larger fan base as they would have physically interacted with the artist. Another marketing technique used giving Beans On Toast official artist e-mail account, allowing the fans to engage Beans On Toast directly through the Internet and perhaps book him for a gig.