iTunes

Do Albums Drive Track Sales? +$6.93

by dldamore

Listening to Groove Salad on SomaFM is something that really makes my ears happy. A few minutes ago I was listening and the song Desert Storm by Nor Elle came on. It sounded good, so off to the iTunes music store I went. This song came back as being on the album Slapstick. Well, I decided to see what kind of vibe the other songs on the album gave off. Actually, I ended up buying 8 of the 14 songs. If these were not on an album it’s very unlikely that I would have bought more than just the song I came for.

Total Sale = $7.92

$6.93 in extra sales as a result of songs being part of an album collection.

Album

 

Questions & Thoughts:

Will more artists release albums that have songs with a theme or connected sound? Could envision albums containing between 5 and 8 tracks.

Will people buy the entire album if they like just over half the songs? Perhaps they will buy to have the whole thing. Maybe they will buy to see if the songs that didn’t strike them on first listen grow on them. Perhaps more important is do albums get people to sample extra tracks and make a buy or not buy decision. Extra samples are like having more foot traffic in a retail store. The more traffic, the more sales.

Notes:

Track numbers purchased were: 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 13 & 14

Free Music – “SXSW Offers Free Festival Sampler on iTunes!”

by dldamore

Many bands played at the SXSW (South By SouthWest) festival in Austin, Texas. There is free music from twenty or so artists via the iTunes store.

See the post on the SXSW blog.

Below is a screenshot from iTunes as I downloaded all the tracks. believe I did this as the album and not as individual downloads. You can preview all the tracks and just download the ones you like too.

ScreenClip(35)

Rent a Movie – Before It’s In Theatres – iTunes

by dldamore

As I was checking the weather radar this evening I noticed an ad at the bottom of the page, see banner images at the bottom of each of the images nearby. Apparently the iTunes Store from Apple will rent movies before they hit the theatre. There is a bit of a price premium, but if more than one person was going to the theatre, the $9.99 price to see it early is cheaper in most cases.

This could become an interesting play on exclusivity. The question I have is, is there a limit on the total number of households that can buy in on this deal? Some amount of exclusivity might drive word-of-mouth especially if there is a number that continues to fall towards zero as people buy the offer from iTunes.

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What if people could buy in on this even after it is in theatrical release for the same price …

  • Would total revenue be higher because of this unique distribution model?
  • Will more seats be sold in theatres because this distribution model starts a conversation?

Hopefully this is an issue to revisit in April as the movie is in theatres.

NOTES:

Movie: Ceremony via IMDB.com

This bottom banner as was seen in the AccuWeather app for iPad on March 10, 2011.