Marketing Challenge #3

[john]

Hi Gang

 

Ok so the first 2 challenges are about basic promotion with no real breakdown or focus on specific activities in the first challenge and the second challenge is about basic motivation and persuasion.

 

This 3rd challenge we will begin to focus on some key steps for music promotion. It will require you to set up a few assets (if you don't already have them), and then learn how to use them within marketing campaigns tied to releases and then use the campaigns within an overall strategy. It focuses on Guerrilla Music Marketing, ie what you can do for nothing or next to nothing in cost.

 

So, lets set up some resources that you can use over a number of challenges. A bit further down the line I will get you to set up some additional resources, but for now the resources below would be good to get started.

 

What you need:

 

• The ideal would be your own site, but I get that most of you wont be likely to stump up for that. Yet. lol An artist account would be a close second. Soundcloud, reverbnation are ok, but Bandcamp has some great features that I think blow the others out the water. Soundcloud doesn't really have mailing list support so, it's not really suitable for where we are going.
• A blog dedicated to your music (on your own website is better but you can create one here, or on blogspot, wordpress.com or Tumblr)
• Artist Social Media Accounts (Facebook Page {not your personal FB account}, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest)
• Youtube Channel
• An account on Bit.ly

 

If you are serious about your music I recommend getting your own site at some point and using it to run wordpress, but I appreciate this is not free. You may have tried your own site before, but if you don't know what you are doing I appreciate it will feel like you are just wasting your money. That said, if you don't have your own website you miss out not only in the flexibility of what you can do, but also in a number of critical tools that you just wont get elsewhere. When I say critical I mean make or break.

 

For example your mailing list. Sure Reverbnation and Bandcamp give you access to a basic mailing list, but it misses some key components that really make it almost impossible to use your mailing list effectively. Your mailing list is a vital part of managing buzz and have a more predictable way of building your fanbase and motivating them to play your songs, download your songs, buy your songs, buy your merch and a lot more besides. So to have your mailing list holed below the waterline is a REALLY bad idea. Still, we will start with Bandcamp or Reverbnation because we can always export your list and import it to a new mailing list provider later.

 

Other features that you only get in full on your own site are: metrics and analytics, full product versatility, A/B testing, content scheduling, member area, sales funnels, a whole bunch of useful Google tools and a lot more besides.

 

Some of these will take some time to build up. So we can focus on each area a bit each time. If you already have a killer Twitter account for your band, don't worry there is still stuff to learn, plus that just gives you extra time to focus on building what you don't have.

 

To get started, create all those accounts. Don't add music to your page just yet. If you already have it, that's ok. If you create new social media or Youtube as part of this process, go ahead, create the page, add your styling or branding ( check out the series of posts we will be adding about branding to the music marketing and promotion club blog).

 

As part of this process you need a decent biography. So, without any guidelines other than length, go ahead and write your biographies and post them up, we can then review them and re-work them to improve them. Note I said biographies, plural. That's because you want several biographies. It's good to have them in the bag so you have them to hand. It pays to be prepared in the music industry, if only because you can respond faster.

 

Write 4 biographies:

 

• 100 words
• 200 words
• 400 words
• 800 words

 

Pick 4 photos, good quality. If you read my posts on branding you willl see how integral having a good image is and a huge part of that is... dun dun dun... how you look.

 

Post up your biographies and photos. Don't be shy. Grab the bull by the horns.

 

I am not giving guidelines other than length and general comments about branding because I think it will be interesting for all of you to see common mistakes. It will also be interesting to see how you shape how you pitch yourselves. I won't even offer comments on what person to write it in, or what to include in each... yet!

 

So... deep breath, be brave. It doesn't matter how old you are, how much hair you have, your weight, your gender.... and remember, we all start at the begining!