How MetalReview.com Journalists Embrace Digital Promos

With a writing staff of 18 people, 40,000 unique readers per month and non-stop physical promos coming in the mail, the adoption of digital promos was hard at first for the ezine giant, but has now become a smooth and essential part of the review publication process.

Here is how digital promos fit into the equation:
Traditionally, promo packages would come in the mail in homebase Woodbury MN. Hundreds of those packages would then get mailed to Goshen KY, where they are entered into the system database by a staff member. A normal box of 100 promos costs approx. $250-$300 to process from mailbox to database and then to published review.  There is also a 3-4 week timespan for this processing to take place.

Now introduce digital promos. Staff member in Goshen KY gets an email invitation to download a promo. Staff member downloads it and inputs the album information into the database. Part of this information, is a publicist contact email address.  A journalist staff member logs into the system, views a screen that displays all albums in queue that are ready to get reviewed.  Upon the journalist reserving the digital promo that just got entered, he will see the contact email address.  He then emails the publicist and requests an invitation. The publicist replies with an email invitation and the journalist downloads the album.

The record label feels safe in knowing that all tracks are watermarked and the journalist gets instant gratification in being able to download the album and transfer it to their iPod immediately. Time spent mailing out a physical package is eliminated, processing money is saved and hail the "green" movement, there is no physical waste. Even with the journalist spending a week listening to the downloaded promo (taking it with them wherever they go), the review publication turnaround is must faster.

The journalist reads the promo's biographical information sheet, views the photo gallery which has images for each page of the CD booklet that ships with the final product, and watches an attached teaser video. They have had the entire album for a week now and with all of the combined information, they feel good about writing their review. They submit their review to the system and it goes into a holding tank.  A staff editor gets an email notification that a review was submitted, logs in, and proofreads the review. The review is then published to the world and an automatic email is sent to the record label's publicist and the artist, informing them of the newly published review.

REPEAT.