SMM strategy for Cakewalk

[Will.]

FWIW: There's millions of teenagers that are famous on TikTok, Vine, Youtube, that does music. 14 to 19 year olds (a k.a "TEENAGERS") that have little studios in their bedrooms. Billy Eilish is still one.  

[Lord Tim]

20 minutes ago, Will_Kaydo said:

You're taking my words too literal. 

I already said it here. 

You literally said:

2 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

If Cakewalk should get a mac version of the DAW i guarantee you, it will rocket to the top in studios OVERNIGHT! 

 

No, it won't. As I explained in my last post that I don't think you actually read.

If you ran a commercial studio with all Mac based software, what incentive do you have to adopt a newcomer to the ecosystem? Not a real lot unless there's a sustained marketing push to convince you that you need to do it. There is NO WAY this could happen overnight, not in any reality.

Anyone who has done any kind of work in marketing knows this. I run a record label and a good 80% of the returns we get is purely from the effort we put into marketing, and knowing that you need to play the long game if you're competing with an existing industry that has a lot of money to burn. Our last couple of releases have literally hit #1 on the charts here, so we must have a bit of an idea.

Plus, as I said, if all of the new bright shining stars are all buying Macs, and it already has an upgrade path to Logic, why get anything else? There's a reason Microsoft faced a bunch of antitrust drama for bundling in Internet Explorer by default - there were better browsers, but that was literally right there in front of people - why look elsewhere?

But ultimately, all of the foot stamping and flag waving about a Mac version is entirely moot. There isn't one, there likely won't be one. Refer to the good ideas in the OP.

[Will.]

6 minutes ago, Lord Tim said:

There is NO WAY this could happen overnight, not in any reality.

 

Like i've said: You're taking my words to literal. OVERNIGHT success does not exist. It is but only an expression we all use. 

There's also the keywords "Should it" that I had used in the quote. 

[Starship Krupa]

I'm not of the opinion that Cakewalk is losing share in the overall DAW market. Compared to 4 years ago, there are now multiple YouTube channels dedicated, or largely dedicated, to Cakewalk tips and tutorials. There's a good balance, too, with, for instance, @Xel Ohh and @AdK Studios covering hip hop/EDM methods and @Creative Sauce leaning more toward the traditional "recording studio" approach. There are others, too, and they're all very good, I've learned things from all of them.

As for why there's not more coverage in traditional print media, I think that's down to the aforementioned zero budget for marketing, and, unfortunately, the free license model. BandLab don't buy ads, period. Now whether magazines are biased toward companies who do, I'll be charitable and say that it helps keep them off the radar, because the magazines' staffs don't pay attention to the product. There has always been a certain amount of quid pro quo in publications: buy our ads and we cover your products. BandLab are outside that loop, despite owning multiple music publications. The magazines know that even if they did a cover story on Cakewalk, BandLab wouldn't buy an ad in the issue. I think REAPER has the same issue: Cockos don't spend money on advertising, and consequently are never featured in SOS or CM or Beat.

The fact that it's Windows-only, IMO has little to do with it, as Logic is regularly covered and only made for a much smaller platform. Mixbus and REAPER even run on Linux and you never see articles about them either.

As far as hardware and other integration, sadly, our cherished freeware licensing model likely impacts that, as companies may see users of a freeware DAW as being either broke or cheapskates who don't like to spend money on music making tools. Something that also impacts it is that there are no staff dedicated to selling other companies on the benefits of integration with their products. The way it works is that at the very least, someone reaches out via phone or email and pitches the other company on how popular their DAW (or whatever) is and how their users are clamoring for better integration with their devices, how they'll both benefit from the companies being able to advertise (oh, that word again) the integration. This is one of the things that going to NAMM in Anaheim is great for, it lets companies be visible to each other and the press, and gives them a chance to stop by booths and schmooze. But we've lost the NAMM Show due to the pandemic. It used to be a good way to catch headcolds, so the caution is well-founded.

That's my take on why Cakewalk gets so little press.

What's worked well for REAPER is grass roots advocacy by an enthusiastic user base. That can be annoying at times, as it can come across as proselytizing. But suggesting it when someone on a forum or IRL or wherever asks "what's a good DAW?" helps. Also mentioning in notes on your Bandcamp or SoundCloud page that you made it in Cakewalk. I try to do my part and "give back" by helping people out on this forum (and occasionally on Facebook), creating multiple themes for public consumption, and submitting thorough bug reports, and the aforementioned Wikipedia editing. Remember, anyone can edit Wikipedia. There are entries for Sonar, Cakewalk, Inc., and the original program called Cakewalk. They were a mess before I edited them; grammatical errors, factual errors, timeline errors, missing information. The current program is still waiting for its own entry.

So I think that for now, at least, grass roots promotion by the userbase is all Cakewalk can get. The dev staff are all industry veterans who know their way around, but they were really hired to develop, not market. Noel does keep the KVR entry up to date with each release.