The Idea
I was at a show not long ago selling shirts. I sold a design that came with 3 CD's to a couple of people that night. A young guy came back to the booth a bit later and made a profound statement. He said that it was a pain in the ass to have to carry around 3 CD's because he obviously wanted to enjoy the show and party a bit. This opened up the whole idea to selling or giving away download cards vs physical CD's at shows.
CD's are obsolete in my opinion. While I enjoy reading liner notes and credits, I don't need to have a physical copy of them now that we are in the digital age. I have about two hundred physical CD's ,which never get looked at, buried somewhere in a crawlspace. I have over ten thousand songs on iTunes Match though, the majority were bought digitally, ripped or shared from friends, or "found".
The Data
According to a report conducted by The Nielsen Company and Billboard, physical copies of music (CD's) were still the top selling format in 2012. That being said, total sales of physical music dropped about 13%, while digital sales are up 9%. Check out the report for more details, but it supports what I say about CD's being a bad format these days.
Digital music on the other hand, specifically download cards, are a really great alternative, especially at venues. Imagine doing your set and the place is jumping. You make mention that you have albums for sale and you'll be sticking around to check out the rest of the lineup. Somebody approaches you for a CD and shows you $5. You reach into your pocket and slide her a custom download card with a unique code. The card is about the size of business card and printed on good quality card stock. On the card is an image of you, the artist, the title of the album and of course the download code. Also on the card is a website address that links to your album artwork, liner notes, images, and anything else that supports the project. This way the person purchasing the album has access to everything and more than someone who picked up a physical copy.
The Best Laid Plan
So that sounds great right? Digital download cards with custom artwork and a link to all of the info, and more. So how do you go about getting this done? What does it cost? And where do we order from? I've done a little research into this, and here is how I would go about it.
I would go the do-it-yourself route and use CardIncluded.com. This service is genius. Basically you upload your project to their servers for $.01 per 20MB, upload or design your card and pay for the service. You get a PDF version of your cards, and a text file of the codes sent directly to your email. Check out the FAQ for more details.
Next, I would design my card in Photoshop or some other image editor rather than using their designer. I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with their designer. I am just more comfortable using Photoshop for design. I suggest grabbing something like this to get started.
Then, to finish it off I would purchase as heavy a card stock as you need and print your newly acquired cards as needed. A heavier weight screams quality. If you create a beautiful design, and put it on a heavy card stock, it could be something worth keeping. People like unique things and something like this might be worth keeping.
In conclusion...
For less than $40, you can have custom designed, unique coded download cards to hand out or sell at shows, or anywhere else you might find customers.
When compared to places like Kunaki (which offer great prices on duplicated, not replicated CD's), the overhead cost can't be beat. On top of that, you may increase listens of your project as people in venues will most likely place the card in their pocket, wallet, or purse. This hopefully translates into them not leaving the card on a table after they drop their last Jager Bomb of the night and actually listening to it with a clear(er) mind!
Good luck with your projects, and feel free to leave a comment below!
Peace
