Be careful not to become spam

Whilst there was a Q & A with Roger Sanchez and an interview with Pedro Winter of Ed Banger going on in the other rooms of Felix Meritis, we went to the top floor, where the ways of digital promo were being discussed. Before we actually went there, we had a little pre-discussion about the fact that too much follow-ups are pretty annoying, that having to comment before being able to download a track is pretty annoying and that having to log in on different platforms is pretty annoying. Guess what the subjects of the debate were? 

By DjBroadcast

Well, those where the subjects. The moderator of the debate is Dave Clarke, who obviously is being washed over by a tidal wave of promo’s every day. “I’m not counting in numbers of tracks anymore, I count in terabytes.” No way he’s able to listen to every single one of them. The people he’s speaking with are Philipp Hofmann of PullProxy, Jonas Stone of EPM, Dave Haynes of Soundcloud and Brigid-Anne Gilbert of Serato.

Dave Haynes say that the ways of promo have changed hugely. “There’s no more waiting for faxes with comments from the deejays who you send some promo vinyl to. Back in the days of you were on the look of new tracks you had to wait in the corner in a record store to catch a glimpse of the promo stack. Or you had to read reviews in magazines. Nowadays everyone could do promo, and promo’s are available to a lot more people.” Maybe not strange to hear from someone who works for a streaming media company, but Dave thinks streaming media is the way to go for promo companies. Sending stuff via Yousendit or Mediafire is only annoying to most people. But everyone agrees.

The other thing some promo platforms require you to do before being able to download a track is giving comment. Jonas thinks that’s a bad thing. “People are only giving some comment like ‘hi, I’m Dave Clarke and I just downloaded it’ when it is mandatory. When it’s optional you might get fewer comments, but the ones you might get at least are honest.” Philipp says that he rather has loads of comments. That we you can at least show labels that you’re working on something. One comment is more than nothing at all. “Publicity is about showing results.”

One question that pops in mind of Dave Clarke is why there isn’t one huge promo platform. The other Dave answers that promotional actions used to be more specific. There were only a handful of promocopies, so you used to carefully select the people you were going to send them to. Nowadays, with digital promo, you aren’t limited to the number of people you can bother with your track. One platform would make it even less personal. But, at the same time, you can block people and follow people on Soundcloud. That way you can kind of control the stream of promo material coming your way. And of course, one platform is easier to use then al different services offered by promotional companies.

Consensus is found in the fact that you rather not want to become spam. One should carefully select who to send promos to, and one should try to get to know the other side personally. Build a relationship. Philipp also adds that you should have a good starting point. “When the receiver doesn’t like your first email, he probably won’t read your second.” Let alone the tenth. After all, you probably aren’t the only one sending out promo’s. “And you don’t want to follow up to aggressively. If someone doesn’t want to comment, he just doesn’t. And if someone is interested in what you do, they will find you anyways.”

Dave from Soundcloud adds that it could actually work if you try to find someone who probably doesn’t get that much promo’s. Rather choose someone on twitter with 20.000 followers then someone who’s editor of a magazine, or a Laurent Garnier.

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