It seems that some of the smarter kids in the music industry are really starting to embrace the way in which their fans access music online.

Coldplay just unveiled a new single to blindly faithful (and possibly deaf) audiences by giving it away for free.  Despite the nearly intolerable, high-pitched wailing from Apple’s daddy that make me suddenly taste the food I ate an hour ago, Web site visits to Coldplay.com jumped 1800% after the single was made available online.  According to a Hitwise report, most of the traffic came from an email service provider, which leads us to deduce that Coldplay has a sizable email contact list and is using it well.

Radiohead enacted a similar strategy with the release of “In Rainbows” back in October.  Fans could pay what they wanted to download the album a few months in advance of the CD release date.  Radiohead loyalists were required to visit the band’s Web site and name their own price.  It doesn’t sound like capitalism, but the band made $3 Million.  Hopefully Radiohead captured some emails too.  :)

There have been other creative attempts to sell records traditionally still - like the sales “battle” between 50 Cent and Kanye West.  But, perhaps the most business savvy of the new group of talented performers is Flo Rida.  Yeah, that’s right - Flo Rida.  The reason this guy is famous for one song (”Low”), is because that’s really all he’s made. He’s cut production cost involved with making a full album, made one amazingly popular track, and watched the currency pile up from itunes downloads and ring tone sales.  Flo Rida has it taking place.  Dude is my hero.

While musical talent reigns supreme and the truly great artists who maintain longevity in the industry still need some serious chops, intelligent, integrated marketing strategy certainly helps boost music sales.  Thankfully, a lack of harmony between talent and ingenious promotional execution ultimately results in seeing the talent-less for what they really are.

I recently received an e-mail from a colleague that had this written in large type, as if like a headline:

“Cat Fight Between Top NY Times Video Bloggers David Carr and David Pogue Exposed on DSSimonVlogViews“

Then there is a link to a blog, with a video on it. This plays out a “feud” between two video bloggers who, frankly, I haven’t heard of before.

This video is interesting in that it manages to repeat the phrase, “top video blogger,” as well as “cat fight” several times. My guess is there is much more search volume for “cat fight” than for the much more dignified, “feud,” but that’s just me. The point is there will now be a “cat fight” between “top video bloggers” where there wasn’t anything before.

The message goes on to instruct readers to, “pick their favorite” between these two cat fighters. This is where the ultimate brilliance of the e-mail campaign is found:

1. People know that video is “big” these days, and getting bigger all the time.
2. They also know they don’t know very much about this new, big thing.
3. By e-mail blasting a video that says, “Which do you like? Coke or Pepsi,” people are informed that in this new, big world of video blogging, there are two champions at work, and we should all be aware of their greatness.

If you don’t question whether or not either gentleman is a qualified candidate for this “top video blogger” honor, then both of these gentlemen must be pretty darn important video bloggers. I mean, if it is up to us to pick, these guys must be neck and neck! Since many people will gladly vote on something, but tend to prefer making an educated vote if it is easy to do so, the door has been opened for readers to now seek out these two gentlemen and get to know their video blogs better.

This is a great “push” mechanism for search. With the real growing importance of video, and the relative inability to properly index what those videos contain, this really is a brilliant tactic.

On Thursday morning of this week, a few of us here who have Netflix subscriptions received an email from the online movie rental giant - “We’re lowering your monthly charges”. Not only that, but Netflix was good enough to fork over 14 hours of free downloads of movies and/or TV shows. In addition to making a name for themselves via ubiquitous online advertising, viral marketing, and targeted direct mail campaigns, Netflix has also given customer retention and corporate good will a shot in the arm with this new move. Meanwhile, they are exemplifying the right ways to go about email marketing and customer service in general. Here are our thoughts…

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The folks at Marketing Experiments have been up to quite a bit lately; including a recently released study on what exactly makes email marketing effective. This study is certainly warranted, as U.S. firms alone spent more than $400 million on email marketing in 2006. In comparison to direct mail, the cost of email marketing campaigns is minuscule, coupled with data that arrives nearly immediately. While being cost-effective is great, the greatest benefit to email marketing is the continual testing that you’re able to parlay.The study has narrowed down 5 factors which determine the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns. Among these, copy writing is said to have the greatest impact, thus receiving the focus of their studies.

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