THE COYLE REPORT

NoiseTrade Deep Dive - Part 3 of 5: The NoiseTrade Mailers and Paid Promotional Opportunities. 

Every week NoiseTrade features a handful of artists in their mailers and on their website homepage. They also have 12 albums that are deemed New & Notable. These placements can essentially be thought of as advertising into the NoiseTrade community, except that in all cases there is a level of curation involved. That means that NoiseTrade carefully selects which artists and albums are picked for these placements to make sure the material is both high quality and relevant. NoiseTrade wants to make sure that any artist that is paying to be featured will have a successful campaign. 

THE MAILERS
Logistically, here is how the mailer schedule operates currently:

• First, keep in mind, again, all features and New & Notable spots are curated
• Every Tuesday and Thursday a music mailer is sent out to the 1.3 million strong NoiseTrade mailing list
• Each mailer has 2-3 featured artists. Each artist is usually promoting an album they are giving away on NoiseTrade, sometimes an artist may also be coordinating the feature with an upcoming tour, album release, or even a direct-to-fan campaign launch (like a PledgeMusic campaign for example).
• The 2-3 featured spots are really eye-catching and drive a lot of traffic from the mailer through to the NoiseTrade album. I've personally seen a single mailer feature drive at least 1,000 downloads to over 20,000. Each feature's potential will vary depending on its particular situation.
• Each mailer also has 6 New & Notable albums. Right now it is a simple listing of the 6 albums, but I'm told the layout will be changed to improve the visibility in the near future. I've seen a single N&N generate at least 400 downloads, with some generating as much as a few thousand. Again, performance will vary depending on the particular situation.

Here is a link to a recent mailer with the primary feature being of the Hamilton, ON based band Arkells.

RELATED WEBSITE PROMOTIONAL PLACEMENTS
Artists and albums featured in the mailers get further impressions by being showcased on the NoiseTrade website:

• Every feature and New & Notable artist/album gets featured on the homepage of the NoiseTrade website for one week.
• Featured artists have big images included in the slideshow carousel up at the top of the page
• The featured artist images stay up for a week, but newer ones get featured first in the slideshow
• New & Notable albums display in the New & Notable section just below the featured artists carousel. 
• Each Tuesday and Thursday the New & Notable section is updated with the 6 new albums, while the oldest 6 drop off.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y....MORNING MAILER
Sorry, Woody, but NoiseTrade schedules their Saturday mailer in the morning. ;-)

• A somewhat new development, NoiseTrade now sends out a mailer every Saturday morning which is a combined effort including features and content from both the MUSIC and BOOKS sites (yes, NoiseTrade has a sister site called NoiseTrade Books).
• The mailer also includes some wonderful editorial content from writer Will Hodge
• I've been told the Saturday mailer will be evolving (getting new and improved) which will only increase the exposure for any artist or author lucky enough to get included.
• Don't discount the exposure a Saturday mailer will get, how much new mail does your inbox have in it when you wake up and grab your phone? Not much, very smart Mr. Webb and team, very smart.

MAILERS AND PROMOTIONS CRYSTAL BALL
I asked Chris Moon of NoiseTrade to comment on what they have in store related to these mailers and promotional placement options, here is what he shared with me:

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"We're rebranding our features under NoiseTrade Artist Services within the month, and we'll be offering a combination of main features and New & Notable features, both paid and sponsored by brands."
For more info on FEATURES and NEW & NOTABLE placements please click here to contact Chris directly.

"We're also offering direct ad sales as well (often bundled with main features), which add an additional impression (allowing you to drive folks directly to your store, iTunes, PledgeMusic, etc...)."
For more info on direct ad sales please click here to contact Sean Doyle directly.

"Artist Services will also focus on direct to artist initiatives, offering up a variety of opportunities, such as the discounts we've run recently for both Berklee Online and New Artist Blueprint, and we're also running a Holiday campaign with HGTV where we'll be compiling a playlist from artist submissions, which both NoiseTrade and HGTV will be sharing this holiday season.  HGTV will also be choosing music from this playlist to share on air as part of their programing this season as well (with the artist getting on-screen credit)."

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Thanks for sharing what's in store, Chris!

Stay tuned for NoiseTrade Deep Dive - Part 4 of 5: The NoiseTrade Widget
 

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