Looking For Help, Opinions, Thoughts, Suggestions, Recommendations On A Good Promoting Plan

[Aliz Gillian]

First of all, sorry for the long topic!

Ok, so thruout my time on the net, researching and reading up about music promotion, I found out ALOT of sites, services and other things that can help with promoting one's music or band.

So much that its mind boggling. I've come to a point where I think I made a decent enough plan to do this, I just thought I share with everyone and see where I may do it wrongly, or left out some important stuff.

1) I've set up our band website using Bandzoogle. good service. Been deciding for awhile between this n bandcamp. decided to go with Bandzoogle. This is to establish a web presence. Facebook page and youtube channel is on its way too.

2) signed up with the local PRO here in my country (singapore) called Compass. I'm not sure if I should be in other ones. there's Soundexchange and Songtrust. pls, if anyone have experience on these two, help me out!! thx!

3) I've signed up with cdBaby for selling of albums. I think cdBaby handles most of the legal stuff already, and more.. (if I'm not mistaken, they will handle those bar codes? sync licensing with youtube) Please point out anything that I may have missed.

4) For exposure of music, I've decided to go with Jango radio airplay and Last.fm. with Jango, i'm thinking of getting my music up there, getting potential fans to come to our facebook page or site to find out more, interact with them, maybe using emails too. music will also be promoted thru all of our own personal fb profiles.

5) get some professional reviews done for our music with ReviewYou. i think this will help the sales somewhat, especially if the review are put up in our cdBaby page.

6) other stuffs like, blogging, posting on our fb page and engage fans, record my band playing cover songs and posting on youtube.. i'm also thinking of using the indiebible to further let out my music, but not really sure how it works. (somebody help.??)

Well, thats basically it.. pls do tell me your houghts and opinions.

Thank you everyone!!

[Kel]

Hi Aliz,

 

I'm in a similar place with you, trying to figure things out, so don't look to me for advice, yet, except for one little idea I've used.

 

Subliminal marketing!

 

No, I'm not talking about submitting a "buy this CD" or "this guy is hot! Hot! HOT!" stealthily embedded into your music (note to self, talk to producer about this idea!) but:

 

I am just starting on my journey, and I'm not a performer. The advice you'll read everywhere about playing live shows isn't available to me. I can't even sing in tune! So the only people I have to work with at this stage, are people I already know. In some ways, my making this songwriting journey public is akin to somebody coming out of the closet. I fear that if I use the term "songwriter" everyone will think I'm loopier than they already think I am. However, being in my 50s I don't really give a damn what anybody else thinks it's only what I think of me that matters! True friends will be supportive, others are acquaintances and not worth worrying about anyway.

 

I have devised a simple little ploy that has so far enjoyed a smidgin of success. I emailed my "friends" with a link to my professionally produced demos on my soundcloud account, asked them to listen and answer 3 easy questions.

 

1. Does the song sound familiar in any way, and if so, so what by whom?

    eg... "It really chugs along like a CCR standard", or "Man, you got that Johnny Cash train ride sound down pat!"

 

2. How would you describe the "feel" of the song?

    eg... "It made me go outside and kick my dog!" or "Buddy, you brought a tear to my eye!" or "I just wanted to dance."

 

3. Can you imagine an established artist/performer singing this song? If so, who?

 

Now a couple of points... none of my songs sound like either CCR or Johnny Cash, which is why I used those examples. Don't give them an answer. Give an example that is so far from what you think about your song, that they won't even think about that artist at all. But I found if you don't give them an example, they won't think of anybody!

 

Hopefully nobody will go outside and kick their dog when they hear my songs, though other emotions are possible. I felt I had to put something way out in there to balance things.

 

And not written here, I also acknowledged the songs may be outside of their preferred genre, and specifically asked them not to think about the performer (unless it's you, of course) but the song itself.

 

One reply I received was he immediately thought of the band Black 47, an Irish-Rock band out of NYC that I had never heard of. So I checked them out and yes, he was right. Cool!

 

So why am I doing this? One piece of advice I am reading over and over and over again, is that when you submit your work to anybody, give them an idea of what to expect. Don't tell them you're the next Elvis, though! They will probably be disappointed. I want to know what other people think my songs sound/feel like, and how they feel when they hear them, so I can tell A&R people, radio people, or at least have a ball park idea of who I should be pitching to.

 

One more thing, I sew the seed about them passing the email along to their friends.(This is the subliminal Marketing part..)

 

Hi, I am wondering if you can do me a favour, and it won't involve sending this email to ten of your friends in the next 24 hours or your ears will fall off! (Though by all means do so...) When you've got a few spare minutes would mind clicking on the following link, have a listen to the song, and answer 3 easy questions?

 

 

I don't know if it's a good market research strategy or not, but it's better than not having one, I think! Best of luck with your own journey.

 

Cheers,

Kel