Rec-Ignition

The internet offers an unprecedented opportunity to connect your music with potential buyers and a uniquely powerful sales environment, however, it remains an esoteric and complex world. Rec-Ignition knows that successfully marketing and selling your music on the web requires an intimate understanding of your music, technical expertise, a thorough understanding of the new rules of internet marketing and PR and lots of hard work.

The rapid pace of change on the net and the knowledge accumulated from each project necessitates an on-going process of refinement and improvement to our campaigns. However, Rec-Ignition has a tried-and-tested strategy that has generated excellent results for past campaigns and provides the framework for future campaigns.

Fansites- Content at the Core

At the core of Rec-Ignition campaigns lies an interactive, content and media rich Fansite which acts as a hub for all online activity around your release. Providing a range of audio/visual and informational tools, Fansite users can consume content related to your release in their preferred way. Here your press reviews and quotes can sit aside your official press release, footage from live performances, samples of your music, photo albums and a myriad of other collated content. Once users are at the peak of their interest they can follow links to buy and/or use the viral facilities to spread the word further.

Restricted to a single release or series and with their own URL, the Fansites have an authentic ‘fan’ voice which labels’ own sites are unable to replicate. This is important for initiating the release into the relevant web communities where authenticity is a precious commodity. The specificity of the Fansites also ensures their relevance and consequently results in users spending extended periods, undistracted, on the site.

Rec-Ignition Fansites are Search Engine and Key Word Optimised to make sure that your release has the best chance of reaching the top of search engine results when users search for it after their curiosity has been piqued by your offline activity.

Your potential buyers can now discover and learn about your music in a powerful selling environment which can make the transition from browser to buyer or viral marketer almost seamless.

Say it Loud

With the Fansite in place, it’s time to let the world know about it. By networking and posting in relevant wikis, forums and communities and by creating a flow of information to relevant opinion-formers and in the blogosphere and beyond we are able to generate a stream of very relevant prospects to your Fansite. These people are a focused group who are proportionally very likely to buy or help spread the word further.

Fundamental to our techniques for generating traffic is the notion that we are promoting a fansite and not a product. This distance means articles, links and comments may be established in areas previously out of bounds to advertisers such as Wikis, forums and blogs. Here fans/writers are often music community thought-leaders who not only tell friends but who act as respected points of reference for journalists and TV/ Radio researchers. Increasingly, mainstream media coverage follows an online buzz created by an active and opinion-forming minority on the web. We monitor, interject, and stimulate this buzz through informing people about the fansite.

As a supplement to the networking Rec-Ignition also email over 4000 selected Jazz and World Music DJs (Club & Radio), journalists and opinion-formers both in and out of the music industry. Previous mailouts introducing recipients to Fansites have resulted in offers of distribution, airplay, or simply warm messages of thanks.

The Viral Effect

When possible, Rec-Ignition provides content in formats that will facilitate viral campaigns by allowing web users to spawn copycat sites, integrate content into their own sites, and spread the word in their music communities. With the onset of Web 2.0 and the transition to the general public becoming publishers, huge amounts of PR and word of mouth can be generated by fans. Fans provide the best marketing possible- word-of-mouth recommendations to their peer group and can enable your fansite marketing to reach ‘The Tipping Point’ where your marketing goes ‘viral’ reaching many new listeners as fans becoming your salespeople.

Economics & Accountability

Most remarkable though, is the economics of a web campaign- not only its affordability but its accountability. As web campaigns can be both responsive and highly accountable it makes assessment and improvement more viable than in a conventional web and marketing campaign. Web Statistics allow a real-time assessment of which aspects of the campaign are working, and consequently, changes to be made to optimise results while the campaign is in progress.

At all stages precise information can be obtained about everything from how long people spend reading about, watching or listening to your music to how many sales this resulted in and where (it can also be a great help in reviewing the impact of any other offlinepromotional activity).

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