Publicity Campaigns and Your Business Goals: Lessons learned from Joe Satriani vs. Coldplay.

You have an idea that will get your business or persona a lot of attention online either as a direct result or by-product. You’ve cooked up a contest, promotion or publicity stunt that will incite the desired result of increased website traffic. But is that really the desired result? Although a good scheme may get you a spike in website traffic, will it get you more sales, contracts or donations? Will this new found fame be sustainable or short lived? When the traffic gets to your website, what would you like for the users to do?

When considering a campaign as a means to increase website traffic, a business should think through the following steps:

1. Know your audience well enough that your campaign will drive searches that can increase website traffic in a positive way.
2. Since publicity can lead to web searches, make sure your site is search engine friendly.
3. Make sure that your website is architected in a way that walks users to a conversion.

A recent example of a publicity campaign, whether intended to be a campaign or not, which resulted in increased website traffic was the highly publicized lawsuit between guitarist Joe Satriani and the band Coldplay. According to Billboard.com, Satriani’s copyright infringement suit, filed on Dec. 4, 2008 in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song “Viva La Vida” (tied for 1st place as the most downloaded song of 2008, reaching over 3 mil downloads) incorporates “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental “If I Could Fly”. Satriani, a 52-year-old guitar virtuoso, is seeking a jury trial, damages and “any and all profits” attributable to the alleged copyright infringement.

Perhaps this accusation is based on merit or perhaps this was merely a publicity campaign to reclaim a piece of the spotlight. Regardless of the verdict, we will probably never know Satriani’s true intention. However, for the purpose of this article, this act will be viewed from a “publicity campaign” point of view due to its very public nature.

What does this have to do with my business goals?

As you can see in the Google Trends (measures search query popularity) graph and associated online articles below, regular press for Joe Satriani (A) didn’t quite increase search queries the same way that suing one of the most popular current bands* did (B, C).
*Popularity determined by download data.

A. Musician’s Friend Announces Grand Prize Winner of Joe Satriani Sweepstakes and Launches New VIP Swee
Melodika.net – Aug 12 2008
B. Coldplay denies copying guitarist Joe Satriani
NEWS.com.au – Dec 10 2008
C. Joe Satriani to serve Coldplay at Grammys
International Business Times – Feb 6 2009

Whether intended by Satriani as a publicity campaign or not, the controversial lawsuit resulted in increased instances of searches. Thus, this stunt gained public attention and curiosity and drove web users to query for more information. If your business has planned a means to gain similar attention and curiosity, read on.

How did this increase in Searches affect Satriani’s website traffic?

Compete.com, which compiles estimated website traffic data, notes that as of February 2009, website traffic to www.satriani.com was up 52.7% from the first of the year. If his inevitable goal, other than the possibility of getting royalties from Coldplay, was to increase his web presence, he accomplished it temporarily. Users made their way to his website via direct search and links from articles about the lawsuit.

What did Mr. Satriani get out of this?

Other than the possibility of Satriani winning the lawsuit as his primary goal, a secondary goal could be to get more users and/or fans to buy his music. This goal could be accomplished through his website which gained a significant increase in searches and traffic by way of this public act of intellectual property rights declaration.

Was this possible secondary goal accomplished? Since download data is not easy to find (last.fm provides good data but a user can’t manipulate the date range), I wrote to Gary Trust at Billboard Magazine. This is his response: “Just as you note that your research showed increased interest online, consumers responded to the story’s buzz as well. Satriani’s 2004 track had never before sold in triple digits when news of the lawsuit broke in December. At that point, the song vaulted to consecutive weeks of selling 3,000 digital downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Though sales totals then curtailed, the track still sold close to a thousand downloads as recently as February of ’09. It has sold 18,000 downloads to date. Approximately 75% of that sum has been logged since its December spike.

Will this be sustainable for Joe?

After a sharp increase in website traffic, there has been a subsequent sharp decrease in traffic as well. According to Compete.com, monthly data reveals traffic is down 40%, justifying a “temporary” sentiment to the perceived stunt. In addition, as Gary Trust revealed, sales slowed as well.

What is the takeaway?

For Mr. Satriani, I would say that if his plan was to generate more sales through publicity, he accomplished it temporarily. However, it could have resulted in something more sustainable had he considered a better strategy. Perhaps he should have timed the lawsuit with a new CD release or new website content (if, indeed, the lawsuit was a publicity campaign). A visit to www.satriani.com looks as though the most recent content was from April of ’08.

Regarding this application to your business goals, the lesson learned from this would be to have a plan. Whatever you do for publicity, if it gains attention or curiosity, you should be prepared for website traffic as either a primary intention or by-product. Joe’s saving grace was that users can listen to the songs on this CD on his website and purchase through a link to Sony. The by-product sales that Satriani experienced may not have happened if the downloads and link to purchase were not available on his website. However, if he timed this publicity with the release of a new CD, users or fans may not only have downloaded the 2004 song, they may also have listened and/or purchased new material. As a result, the fame could have been more than a very short lived blip on the web-dar. Your business needs to be prepared for any and all scenarios that could result in your blip and use them to your advantage.