Lots of bands give music away free, but few superstars do it. Coldplay did and did it right. This guest post from Australian music industry veteran Nick Crocker shares some lessons learned.
Earlier this year, Coldplay gave away a free mp3 of "Violet Hill", the first single from their album "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends". By delivering genuine value to fans in an original way, Coldplay generated press coverage worldwide. It was the act of a band at the top of its game and extended Coldplay's fan database, almost overnight, by 300,000.
A Coldplay single in exchange for an email address and a postcode is a fair swap. But the true value of the exchange lay in the connection Coldplay made with those 300,000 fans. From that initial exchange, the challenge was how to use email to turn that list of email ad-dresses into a global tribe of passionate Coldplay advocates.
Read the top ten list at the Coldplay forum here
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