five things to learn from nine inch nails.

1. When selling a product, offer options that will appeal to your different types of consumer.  One offer, at one price point, is a massive number of potential consumers disappointed.
2. Offer an experience that goes beyond just the music – the music is essentially a digital file, a non-rival good.  It’s hard to convince people to pay for something that is infinitely copy-able, and therefore objectively valueless.
3. Offer both instant gratification AND a reward for investing.  If you’re competing with instant gratification (piracy), then that is your bare minimum offer.
4. The most mainstream products are both the most important from a promotional standpoint, and the most likely to be pirated.  Accept this, and use the mainstream product as a promotional tool, and the experimental product as the collector’s item.
5. Adapt your business model not to the differences in distribution, but instead to the differences in consumer behaviour and interests that those changes have enabled and created.

These points are examined at length in posts here, but I figured a quick refresher would make everyone stop and think about Trent Reznor’s recent contribution to figuring out how established acts can make money in a digital music marketplace.