Unless you’ve been living with a Head Like A Hole, you’ve probably heard of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. They’ve been around since the 1990s and, I would argue, kick-started not one but two gigantic musical movements: Modern Industrial Rock and Digital Recording.

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These guys are so influential that Marilyn Manson is said to have started his musical career after meeting Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor.

But I’m not here to tell you how cool Reznor and NIN (that’s cool kid street slang for “Nine Inch Nails”) are for reinventing a rock genre that had grown stale with post-grunge lameness in the mid 90s. Instead, I want to show you why Reznor is a marketing god, and how you can apply his techniques to your own projects, regardless of if they are heavy metal bands or church charities.

I should point out that I’m drawing the meat of this post from an article published by Aweber called How To Market Like Nine Inch Nails. It’s definitely worth a read. (Aweber is a an email marketing company – if you’re into list building you’ve probably already heard of them. If you haven’t, you will, because I plan on discussing list building in the not-so-distant future).

Why NIN’s Marketing Deserves Your Attention

Because it’s out of the box. Actually, it’s so far out of the box that it’s in an entire different universe. If you put “the box” on a street corner in Denver, NIN’s marketing techniques would reside somewhere near the Alpha Centari star cluster.

Not to mention that NIN strategies are insanely successful. I don’t have income tax records for proof, but I’m willing to guess that Reznor and friends aren’t enduring any financial hardships.

But the real reason why even the most educated, been-through-it-all marketing executive should should study Nine Inch Nails is because the band has bucked the traditional music marketing system and prospered tremendously as a result. Chances are there is a “system” in place surrounding your business/brand – it might not include smelly roadies and truck loads of pyrotechnics, but I’m willing to bet that there is a “this is just the way things are done” culture in your market.

Embrace New Viral Technologies

Remember when some of the biggest names in the music industry were crying foul as a result of music downloading software? Labels and bands seemed to join together by the thousands pleading with fans to stay away from “illegal” programs like Napster because it was “stealing” and ultimately driving them out of business? Guess who actually encouraged his fans to download his music? That’s right, Mr. Reznor himself.

Why? Why not. Instead of wallowing in self pity with the rest of the industry, Reznor looked at the glass (or in rocker terms, “vodka bottle”) as half full. So he sat down (“drank”) and thought: “How can I use this to my advantage.”

The result was an increased knowledge of the NIN band, brand, songs and style. And fans loved the fact that NIN was willing to give them music for free. Reznor was already a sub-major player, but this move catapulted him to the A-list faster than Mel Gibson’s drunken rant catapulted him to the S-list. As fans grew weary of anti-song-sharing bands like Metallica, they embraced NIN’s willingness to “give music to the people” and as result began following the group like a bunch of emo teenagers.

Did NIN lose potential dollars as a result of these downloads? Probably. But everybody was. It was inevitable. But what NIN didn’t lose was fans. The group’s fan base grew exponentially as fellow bands lost theirs.

Pop Quiz: Who do you think had more successful (financial and otherwise) concert tours, NIN or Metallica?

Change The Rules

“If you have nothing in common with American Idol and you don’t want to be the Pussycat Dolls, then you don’t really want to be on a label.” – Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails (source)

Several years ago, Reznor began providing fans raw instrument clips from his songs and holding remix competitions. Music recording-savvy NIN-heads (is that what you’d call a rabid Nine Inch Nails fan?) went to work right away, churning out hundreds, if not thousands, of high-quality remixed versions of the band’s popular songs. The fans loved that he was willing to share what was normally considered “sacred source materials.”

Nine Inch Nails embraced these remixes and, ultimately, complied them onto a CD. The disc was made available to purchase through the band’s website, and was quickly gobbled up. Not a shabby way to make a couple of bucks, eh? Engage your fans, help them create NIN-licensed materials, compile them, then sell them (albiet cheaply) back to the same fans who have come to devour anything NIN-related. I’m seriously not trying to sound sarcastic, I’m just wondering why other bands haven’t embraced this.

I’d be willing to bet (again) that you could incorporate a viral game like this into your business.

A Worthy Exchange

In 2008, Reznor literally gave the new album “The Slip” away for free – straight from the official Nine Inch Nails website. All a fan had to do was enter his or her email address and BAM! An instant, free, legal, high quality electronic version of the album was now residing on his or her hard drive.

Sound crazy? Sure, if you’re a major music label executive.

Some of you might have caught the ingenious part of the download process in the earlier paragraph. If you didn’t, I implore you to reread it and see if you can find it. Seriously, I’ll wait…

Still stumped? I’ll give you a hint: “Email Address.”

That’s right. By downloading the album, you gave Reznor your email address. What’s the big deal about that? In a word: Profit. Reznor estimates that the band makes more than $100 per year on average for each email address it compiles. That’s $100 PER YEAR, as in RECURRING INCOME. Compare that to a one-time “loss” of a $15 CD and, well, you get the idea.

How does NIN make this much money off a simple email address? It’s simple. Reznor is known for keeping his fans up to date on what the band is working on, and does so through email. So when the group begins working on a new album, he let’s his fans know. When they announce a new tour schedule, he lets them know. When they roll out a new line of NIN apparel, he lets them know.

The result is eager fans gobble up concert tickets, new albums and merchandise like Cookie Monster at an All-You-Can-Eat pastry buffet.

Obviously there is a fine art to “selling to your list,” whereas you can’t shove sales pitches down people’s throats and expect them to stay loyal. The key is balancing such pitches with relevant, non-sales information that fans are dying to know.

Go Get ‘Em

Reznor has succeeded through creativity. He’s obviously a talented musician, but by tapping his creative juices into marketing, his band’s popularity has soared – so has his checkbook, I would imagine.

Now it’s your turn. Take the lessons you’ve learned from Nine Inch Nails and become a self marketing genius.

“Marketing” is the one word that drives businesspeople into an instant brain freeze. Their eyes glaze over, they break into a cold sweat and they get a look on their face that reads, “I just swallowed an entire spoon full of frozen ice cream.” Mention it sometime, it’s entertaining and oddly addicting.

If you really want to rub it in, boast that you – as a savvy Internet aficionado – successfully market your own product or service online. By yourself. I’ll explain how to do so without lying later, but for now let’s get back to the back story:

The reason most business folks – from big-time CEO’s to start-up entrepreneurs – shudder at the mere mention of the word is because they don’t truly understand it. Sure, they know it’s important for the success of their business, but beyond that… it’s like most people’s understanding of the universe: we know it’s out there, and it’s important, but we don’t know jack about it.

Business people see marketing as a gamble. Without a marketing strategy you’ll never build a customer base (how are people going to buy your goods or services if  they don’t know you exist?), but it costs money  to market. So in the eyes of the corner-office folks, they see a marketing plan no different than a game of Blackjack: throw some money on the table, maybe you’ll make a profit, maybe you’ll lose it all.

What Is Effective Marketing?

Profit. That’s what defines effective marketing. If you get more out of your marketing efforts (financial or otherwise) than you put in, then you’re doing pretty darn good.

Let’s say you’re a killer drummer and decide to start a metal/bluegrass band called “Pig Feces.” You and your fellow band mates write and record a 10-track CD called “Puking In The Pig Pen” and you want every CD player in the world spinning your disc. So you each pitch in some money and start a full-fledged marketing campaign. In the end, your results will fall into one of three categories:

Complete Loss: You barely sold any discs. Not only did the marketing money go straight down the crapper, but you’re also out the production cost of studio time and CD pressing.

Break Even: You sold enough discs to more-or-less cover the marketing and production costs, but you didn’t really make anything either. You’ve got albums distributed to random corners of the globe, but you’re still dumpster diving for dinner.

Success: You sell enough CD’s to cover your marketing costs and your production costs with enough left over to eat at Spanky’s Sawdust Steak House every week and pay your brother rent for the couch you’ve been living on. Life is good.

See how that works? That’s the easy part. It gets a little more complicated as you start drilling down targeted demographics and testing conversions, but nothing that can’t be overcome by some quality time behind a keyboard.

Why Online Marketing?

Because your stage is huge! Approximately ten kajillion thousand people are online at any given time (hopefully reading SearchEngineViking everyday). That’s a lot. Get your message in front of this group and you’re in business.

I read somewhere that an average Superbowl advertisement cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million per 30 seconds (don’t quote me on that, I have a tendency to make up 82.7% of all statistics). Regardless, millions of dollars for 30 seconds worth of advertising is pretty expensive. So why do companies pay it? Because of the huge target audience. The Superbowl pulls in a gigantic viewership – which means eyes are glued to the TV. You throw an ad up in the Superbowl rotation and you’re guaranteeing it’ll get seen by millions of Americans.

Makes sense right? But what if I told you that the amount of Americans online at any given second massively eclipses the Superbowl TV audience? The Superbowl happens once a year and costs millions. The Internet happens continuously and can cost nothing but your time.

Which would you pick?

A Buyer-Ready Audience

When we watch TV, do we really care about the commercials? Same for listening to the radio or reading magazines or newspapers. I know I don’t. Every once in a while an advertisement catches my attention, but not often.

Off-line marketers live for this. Their whole mission is to create those “once in a while” ads.

That’s tough. Not to mention expensive.

But think about this: When you surf the web, how do you do it? Most people use search engines. They’ll type in what they’re looking for. Now imagine if your product or service matches what they are looking for? You’ve got a ready-to-buy customer before they’ve walked into your website.

For instance, if I want to know How To Get Tomato Soup Out Of Yellow Dog Fur, I’ll type that whole key phrase into my browser and see what comes up. Imagine if your site comes up in the Search Engine Results? Am I likely to buy? Darn right!

If this makes it sound like potential customers actually seek out places to spend their money online, it’s because they do.

Not too shabby, eh?

In later posts I’ll show you some simple and advanced ways to take advantage of this. But for now I’m going to go yell “Marketing” at a local business owner, I love watching his face.