Marketing: 21st century technology; 18th century pr

This is old news, but, Richard and Sandy Teraci, owners of a Clean Flicks-style DVD/VHS editing company, will soon launch a Web site offering downloads of music by LDS artists and hymn ring tones. Mac News World has the story (hat tip to LDS Review and LDS Today).

Richard Teraci is billing it as "iTunes for saints" and says he has signed "exclusive contracts" with several LDS artists. Downloads will be sold for $1.

In addition, the Teracis are launching www.safemp3.com. "The site will have lyric offensive-free music available for downloading," Teraci explains in the Mac News World piece. "We will have thousands and thousands of songs and there won't be any language or offensiveness in it."

Although neither is to my taste (well, okay, so maybe an "If you could hie to Kolob" ring tone would be cool), they both seem like business ventures that are good for the LDS market.

However, this is yet another example of a Mormon-focused venture jumping the gun with its pr/marketing efforts. The site for www.safemp3.com doesn't even exist yet. And check out the site for Latter Day Tunes. It's basically a digital handbill. It's a dead page -- no links, no interactivty, not even any contact info.

If you are going after press coverage and don't have at least some semblance of a Web site ready with a minimum of content to offer, then you're putting the cart before the horse.

This is not to say that they should have had the whole site up and ready with their entire e-commerce system set up.

But at the very least, the site should have:

1. The option to add your e-mail to a list to receive notice when the site goes life as well as other news and offers.

2. Two or three free sample ringtone and mp3 downloads -- or if they didn't want to give anything away, at the very least a couple of streaming versions of their products.

3. A contact e-mail (and if they're really serious a phone number) for consumers and LDS artists who want to reach the company.

4. Some mention on the artists they've lined up and hymns they've created ring tones for -- not an exhaustive catalog but 4-8 examples of each.

5. Been copyedited.

It's not too late to do all of these things -- and they'd take less than eight hours to accomplish. And as always, A Motley Vision offers this up by way of instruction and for the benefit of all and not to criticize. Or to put it another way -- I'm giving away marketing advice absolutely free. I don't see all the lawyers in the Bloggernacle giving their expertise away for free (or at least not on practical matters -- abstract, esoteric legal issues is another matter) [wink].