EMI is my favorite record company. They got that position when they stopped using DRM on their music back in April. The marketing value of that move was probably worth millions.
Yesterday I did a presentation for the nice people at EMI Norway and during my preparation I did a Google search for “buy high quality music“. And guess what. The EMI press release about leaving DRM in iTunes is hit number one.
The press release was linked to from thousands of web sites. The page with the press release has Google Page Rank 7 while the home page of EMI Music has page rank 6.
Meaning that they are hit number one on several searches. Like “superior sound quality downloads” and a couple of others.
In other words. That page will get traffic for years. Traffic from people wanting to buy music etc. And this is where EMI (and I guess most companies that publish press releases) miss something important.
What’s on that page? That valuable page with a very high page rank. The press release. And some site navigation.
Companies should plan for this. When they have a press release that will get some attention they should think about what they put on that page. They should think about what words they use. And how they can lead people further into their web site.
So for EMI this page is very valuable. And they still have possibilities. As long as they don’t change all the content they can add stuff to this page and keep their Google Page Rank.
EMI, what are you waiting for?
eirikso 
I think so-called press releases should be taken out in the back yard, and dug forever. It’s something people did 200 years ago when you sent journalists letters to tell them about a product. 😉
Today, companies should make something that looks like the internet, not like a paper letter.
When EMI had news THIS big, they should have made a minisite, called “musicwithoutdrm”, “EMIonSteroids” or some other clever name. And put up links there to their artists, the bestselling tracks, technical info etc. Not just a press release.
And if your company don’t have the resources to to that, at least put up a blog! If you hate the blog word, call it News, make “whateveryourcompanynameis/news” and post the “press releases” there. With comments, trackbacks etc.
And make sure all valuable content related to the things your are talking about are to be easily found in the sidebar or in the blog/news-post itself.
Why comments and trackbacks? Because the net is about conversation. And even EMI bosses surely would like to read how much people love their DRM-free tracks. If they had comments/trackbacks on that press release, they would have gotten thousands, maybe 10 000s of comments. And people would have come back five times as much, justto check in on the conversation.
You’re completely right. This is the kind of comment that deserves to be moved into the article itself.
Good post, and very good response from Øyvind too. Producing juicy news that attracts the journalist is crucial, unless you can afford millions in advertising for your product. But sometimes it is difficult for å company to come up with news.
I am never ever going to hire a traditional marketing bureau. I want a crazy artist or any other corky creative soul to play ball with and think out of the box. Like the guys at Blendtec, wich produce kitchen blenders. They will never ever make anything worth mentioning, so they had to do something completely different. And they did. Their campaign is maybe one of the most brilliant marketing campaigns I have ever seen. I recently bought a blender e few months ago, but after googling iPhone and stumbling upon http://willitblend.com I only wish I had a Blendtec …
Slashdot today:
“Sony seems to think we should not be allowed to rip CDs we own to our iPods. In fact, doing so is stealing, and we should all re-buy songs, preferably one copy for each device. Says Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG: ‘When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making a copy of a purchased song is just a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy’.’ I guess somebody should tell Sony about all the devices Sony produces that allow this stealing to occur!”
I’ll quote Engadget, and their conclusion about the fantastic new “Ringles”-format. “See you in the funeral boys.”
These people will actually manage to destroy their own market completely. Musicians will keep making music, companies will still help them with distribution and marketing. But it will probably be people like the ones behind amiestreet.com, iTunes, iLike, Last.FM etc…