The Musician can not longer afford to be unsavvy when it comes to marketing themselves. They have to truly care about where they play their songs and who gets a copy of their latest EP or full length CD. Giving something of worth out for free is saying that you have 250 typewriters that nobody will accept and you’re here at a festival let’s say (with their favorite band) and you wanna waste their time by akwardly plugging your new album.
So we as artist promoters, budding composers, and photographers need to realize that the model in which we deliver the goods is based on the format in which we do it. And also, “what got us here (in our current reality) isn’t always going to get us (there), to the place we want to be.”
A perfect example is genuinely befriending other like-genred bands and asking them to walk towards your merchandise table. BUT! – there has to be incentive there. They can’t just waive their hand like a Jedi Master and have it be so.
Another way to approach this is that you have a new song that they’re recording tonight and there’s a part where the crowd can yell back and interact with the band. THAT will be a huge selling point for wanting to buy their CD. It would naturally lead to what you should already have at your table; an email listing and beyond that would be a manned kiosk of some sort for them to win a contest by signing up with a texting program.
CWF+RTB business model explained:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njuo1puB1lg
This is a great discussion with Michael Masnick on his: Trent Reznor case study for the above principle.
recordingforposterity 