Are record store sales of your CD lagging behind? Are you frustrated that Celine Dion and the City of Angels soundtrack are getting all the prime retail display space?
One solution is for you to start creating low-cost bin cards for your CDs.
I was in a Borders store recently and couldn't help but notice quite a few of these cardboard promotional cards popping up among the rows of CDs. You've probably seen them yourself. The cards are the width of a CD jewel case, but they're about one and a half times the height. So when they sit in the sales bins, there is a three or four inch space that pops out above the CDs.
Of course, this space is used to hype the CD that the bin card sits behind.
Many of them feature the CD cover artwork and/or a glimmering quote from a review. A little investigating revealed that major label sales reps simply come in and slip them into the sales bins on their regular promotional visits to the stores. Most store managers have no problem with them. They look good and help spur more sales of CDs.
Why should major labels be the only ones who benefit from this tactic? The stores that already allow this bin card practice would surely allow local bands and smaller labels the same priviledge. By using computer graphics and affordable color copies, you could easily create bin cards that look good, grab attention and won't cost you much money.
Whether your CD sits in the local music section or mixed in alphabetically within its proper genre, you should be creating promotional bin cards and offering them to retailers to help them -- and you -- make more money.