It's common knowledge that iTunes, and its a la carte sales model, is killing album sales. And, honestly, why would (or should) fans buy a full album's worth of music when they're only interested in one or two songs? You'd have to be kind of dull to spend more for less, right?
This truism is being put to the test—with solid content and coordinated marketing, artists and labels are finding that iTunes can deliver album sales.
Billboard (Yahoo) reports that in recent months labels and artists have begun releasing multiple tracks in advance of an album's street date to promote new releases, relying in no small degree on Apple's iTunes Music Store's Complete My Album (iTunes) feature to convert them into full-album sales.
"For artists that have multiple tracks out, if the album is solid and there's an offer that makes sense to consumers, they will use it," said Cameo Carlson, senior vice president, digital business development, Universal Motown. "Traditionally, there's been some concern about how much content gets out there [singles]. Complete My Album definitely helps alleviate some of that concern."
The concept, according to this March, 2007 press release from Apple, is quite simple: [Complete My Album] allows customers to turn their individual tracks into a complete album at a reduced price by giving them a full 99¢ credit for every track they have previously purchased from that album.
Since its introduction, according to Apple, Complete My Album has been responsible for 52% of the album's sales and conversion rates have averaged around 10%.
But those rates could start climbing now that acts like Lil Wayne, Jason Mraz, the Cure and the Jonas Brothers are using the feature as a marketing tool. Rather than just releasing singles digitally in advance and leaving fans to figure out for themselves how to fill in the blanks when the full album is released, these acts are encouraging the practice by explaining how it works via their iTunes profiles, MySpace pages and personal Web sites.
In mid-May, Insanely-Great Mac reported that digital album sales in the UK grew 69.3% in the first quarter over the same period last year. Likewise, IGM also wrote in January that US digital album sales were up 53% in 2007.
Editor's note: Solid content plus coordinated marketing leads to higher sales. Who'd have thunk?
M. Sharp,
the record companies must have been the first to think of the concept behind the "Complete My Album" method to increase sales because, well, it's their job to come up with such innovative strategies, ones that would promote their artists' wares, but, according to how the article is composed, it looks as if the record companies did not use this strategy, so they must have relied on Apple -- you know, the company that makes better computers and...now apparently makes better music delivery stystems -- to once again do what one would think would be their job, but which is now becoming Apple's job and it seems that Apple is doing good work for most music artists.
Also, looking more broadly at the computer manufacturing industry, specifically at Apple, vis a vis the music industry, the unexpected success of this computer company that formerly designed only computers, after it tackled an apparently unsolvable problem in another area not formerly in its competence, but then making it so, offers a contrasting insight into the egregiously lower-than-expected competence the music industry as a whole has had, and continues to have, regarding the music industry's promotion, sales, and distribution model.
Looking at Apple's success from the opposite angle and the music industry's failure from that same angle, one can't help but to speculate to what extent a CEO in any given music company, with the vision, fortitude, and future-view similar to what Steve Jobs has employed to better Apple's fortunes, would have had at transforming the music industry from a plodding, self-righteous, and insular spectacle of mediocrity to a fast-moving, democratic, and more innovative model of excellence. I can't think of one. Can you?
And, given this contrast, it's apparent that Apple's and Steve Job's astounding success in an entirely different industry is breathtaking.
I am sure that record companies thought of Posted by Vito Positano on 06/28/08 11:43 AM
Complete my album has been around for more than a year and the record companies and artists seem to have just noticed it. Given their utter lack of innovation in the digital space to date, I sincerely doubt they're the ones that came up with it.
Posted by Guest Poster #2 on 06/28/08 11:56 AM
(Please remove my previous version of this post)
M. Sharp,
The record companies must have been the first to think of the concept behind the "Complete My Album" method to increase sales because, well, it's their job to come up with such innovative strategies, ones that would promote their artists' wares, but, according to how the article is composed, it looks as if the record companies did not use this strategy, so they must have relied on Apple -- you know, the company that makes better computers and...now apparently makes better music delivery stystems -- to once again do what one would think would be their job, but which is now becoming Apple's job and it seems that Apple is doing good work for most music artists.
Also, looking more broadly at the computer manufacturing industry, specifically at Apple, vis a vis the music industry, the unexpected success of this computer company that formerly designed only computers, after it tackled an apparently unsolvable problem in another area not formerly in its competence, but then making it so, offers a contrasting insight into the egregiously lower-than-expected competence the music industry as a whole has had, and continues to have, regarding the music industry's promotion, sales, and distribution model.
Looking at Apple's success from the opposite angle and the music industry's failure from that same angle, one can't help but to speculate to what extent a CEO in any given music company, with the vision, fortitude, and future-view similar to what Steve Jobs has employed to better Apple's fortunes, would have had at transforming the music industry from a plodding, self-righteous, and insular spectacle of corporate mediocrity to a fast-moving, democratic, and more innovative model of corporate excellence. I can't think of one. Can you?
And, given this contrast, it's apparent that Apple's and Steve Job's astounding success in an entirely different industry is breathtaking.
M. Sharp, Posted by Vito Positano on 06/28/08 12:01 PM
>album's worth of music when they're are only one
>music when they're are only
>when they're are only
>they're
This article fails at grammar.
Posted by Guest Poster #4 on 06/28/08 9:20 PM
No, the grammar used is fine as long as the reader understands it Anything more is as useless as looking at a 2300pix image on a monitor.
Grammar is fine is one can understand it. Posted by Vito Positano on 06/28/08 10:20 PM
ITunes like totally rocks. I dont know how I would get by without it!
JT
www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
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