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Maximize Your XMAS Sales

From the Editor:

Call it Christmas Creep or crass commercialism, the holiday selling season now begins some time between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. For the Record Industry, tired of lumps of coal, this is a make or break period when a year’s worth of work is on the line and the pressure is high.

While overall record sales are down, according to Nielsen SoundsScan reports, 20 % of all album sales occurred during the last six weeks of 2006 - and The Top 200 albums sold a combined
13.1 million copies during that period - up more than 40% from the 2005 XMAS season.

With numbers like these, labels can’t rely on impulse shopping and must prepare products and marketing programs that will deliver the goods -which is why you won’t see many new releases by unknown acts on the holiday shelves – only releases with mainstream appeal make the cut.

And though it may seem that the industry is scrambling to do away with everything from last century, the major & indie labels we spoke to are mostly sticking to the tried & true this holiday season: special packaging, holiday-themed releases, greatest hits & re-issues.

TIED TO THE TRIED & TRUE

This holiday, Putumayo will be re-issuing last year’s “New Orleans Christmas” and just one new record– “Celtic Dreamland” on the Putumayo Kids label because according to Marketing Director Mary Alice Grant, “Celtic music seems to go hand in hand with the holiday season every year.”

Yep Roc Records hopes to entice music fans with “Oh Santa! New and Used Holiday Classics” – a genre-crossing selection that includes contributions from its roster including: The Apples in Stereo, Reverend Horton Heat and Los Straitjackets (who released the holiday themed
“’Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets” in 2002).

The package, according to Steve Gardner, Yep Rock’s Director of Promotions & Publicity, is an eye-catching illustrated digipack featuring “Santa on top of Yep Roc's world headquarters high-rise, swatting down planes and helicopters a la King Kong.”

EMI North America SR. VP of Corporate Communications Jeanne Meyer agrees; tis the season for deluxe packages, box sets & greatest hits. EMI’s catalog division is busy preparing its holiday offerings, which include the 50th anniversary release of “A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra”; “Christmas With The Rat Pack” & other re-issues of holiday classics, which might be re-mastered or have new packaging with some previously unreleased material.

Surfdog also has a pair of releases that sell well year after year, including Brian Setzer’s “Boogie Woogie Christmas” and “Dig That Christmas” releases and the 2005 DVD “Christmas Extravaganza.” “He’s become like a franchise for us,” says Surfdog Records GM Niels Schroeter with a laugh. “Our little company has sold about 700,000 units of his Christmas stuff in the States, not including Japan and Europe.”

That kind of success, though, doesn’t come without a smart plan.
Whether a label is looking to break a new release from a well-known act or re-release a holiday staple, label executives have a short window to make it happen.

THE 6-WEEK SELLING PERIOD

“You have six weeks to sell,” reports Surfdog’s Niels Schroeter.
“In six weeks you’ve either made it or you didn’t." Says Schroeter:

“Christmas promotion has to happen at a certain time of the year to be effective. Doing anything before Thanksgiving we’ve found is pretty much pointless. The real meat of the opportunity to promote your album and get the most bang for buck and the most sales, is pretty much December 4th through December 19th, because that’s when people are in the Christmas buying mode.”

Considering all of the pressure that timeline infers, it’s not surprising that the planning for this season starts a year in advance.

Says Mary Alice Grant, “We start planning for our promotions, particularly if we are going to do anything differently, in January and we are constantly brainstorming new ideas, which we try to integrate as quickly as possible.”

“If we have holiday releases, they are usually in the planning stage at least a year in advance," agrees Steve Gardner of Yep Roc. “By the summer, we usually have our release schedule locked down and we are starting to mention it to retailers, press and radio. The big push to consumers begins right around Thanksgiving.”

According to EMI’s Jeanne Meyer the label’s holiday releases get months of prep, which begins while the artist is still in the studio. New artists are introduced to retailers & the public at least 6-12 months in advance of the October-December selling season.

GETTING IT RIGHT AT RETAIL

“It’s really about retail where you have to start dealing with things very early” confides Schroeter:

“Stores will stock Christmas records at different times, but a lot of them roll them out mid-October, but some won’t even carry anything until the first week of November. “And,” continued Schroeter, "the numbers for a lot of the big accounts like Wal-Mart or Target are determined in May for catalog pieces so you have to start really early for stuff that you are
re-launching. Plus you’re selling in August for an October street date. You’re trying to get promotions set up in December, but the bookers don’t want to talk to you until October or November. So a lot of times you have to step out and commit to big co-op programs to show them that you have the confidence that you’re going to sell through by stepping up with real price and position dollars.”

And Schroeter shared this lesson learned from Brian Setzer’s
"Boogie Woogie Christmas," originally released in 2002. He recalls:
“We got caught short at retail. Had we known what we had at the time,
we would have been able to ship a lot more and we would have sold a
lot more as a result. So, what we decided in year 2 was to make it better
- why don’t we give Wal-Mart their own bonus track and we’ll give Target and K- Mart their own bonus tracks and Best Buy their own.”

While most labels are scrambling to make up for dwindling record shops & shelf space, world music label, Putumayo enjoys a bit of a cushion & an edge. The label sells well at traditional record shops and excels at moving its product via alternative, lifestyle channels such as kids clothing stores, indie book & gift shops & other outlets that “cater to the cultural creatives.”

Yet, according to Mary Alice Grant, Putumayo is not immune to the industry’s overall downturn and, as a result has become “a little more focused and we are constantly looking for more innovative ways to spread the market."

BECOMING AN XMAS BEST-SELLER

While you can’t count on a white Christmas or peace on earth, special XMAS ads & promotions have become dependable season staples.

A well-developed customer database once again places Putumayo ahead of the pack. Each year the label sends out direct to consumer offers for their popular calendar - the carrot in their “buy two get one” promotion. You will also see a multi-channel approach consisting of print ads &
co-op retail programs such as in-store displays & complimentary gift envelopes in their CDs.

Yep Roc’s “Oh Santa” release will be supported at retail with a co-op program & print ads, plus working it to blogs, Internet & traditional press outlets. Radio promotion is expected to yield results by Thanksgiving.

Ads, promotions & extensive planning, however do not guarantee huge returns on the investment. So, how do you move 700,000 units of your holiday release?

For Setzer, Schroeter says, the key was to get him on television in 2002, the first year “Boogie Woogie Christmas” was released. The singer performed at the Rockefeller Center tree lighting and then appeared on the Today Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “He then became the Christmas guy and they wanted him back the next year and the year after that,” Schroeter says. “And he’s also been doing a Christmas tour. We’re in the sixth year of that tour and it’s been getting better every year.” crows Schroeter.

It was radio however that created the label’s second holiday franchise, Gary Hoey. Hoey’s “Hocus Pocus” was a minor radio hit in the early 90s & Hoey had nurtured close relationships with the Rock radio hosts during that promotional tour.

Surfdog’s owner Dave Kaplan suggested that Hoey cover a handful of Christmas classics with an instrumental hard rock vibe and “Ho! Ho! Hoey!” came out in 1995. Says Schroeter “we revolved the entire campaign around him doing morning radio and these stations loved it and he’s become an institution where 12 years later he’s put out 'Ho Ho Hoey 1, 2, 3,' 'Best of Ho Ho Hoey' and 'Ho Ho Hoey, The Complete Collection.'”

BOTTOM LINE

Plan for success and pray for a miracle.

David John Farinella has been covering the inside of the music business since 1989. His first book, “Producing Hit Records: Secrets from the Studio” is now available in bookstores around the country and at the website producinghitrecords.com.

Editor’s note: In our next installment of Maximizing Your Holiday Sales, we will be asking retailers & distributors how they’re planning on moving your product throughout this critical period.

If you have a holiday selling story or plan, contact Jude@MusiciansAtlas.com.