Just created a new video detailing what you need to have before marketing your music to Program Directors at radio stations. It’s a quick 8 minute video with a lot of great tips!

Music Marketing – Radio Promotion Essentials

I blog a lot about the importance of planning your music marketing and promotions campaign before spending one dime, exerting any energy, or thinking about any one strategy. The planning stage is the most important part of marketing independent music. It is when you determine the how, what, when, where, and how much it is going to cost to get your music in the hands of potential fans. Planning is what separates the “wanna be’s” from the successful artists, musicians, producers, and record labels. Really! I have seen many, many people that have plenty of money fail and waste their money trying idea after idea with no plan in place. I have also seen people with very little money, that follow a plan, become very successful!

The best tool I have found to plan your campaign is called mind mapping software. The tool I want to share with you today is called MindMeister and it is free to use, available as an online application, and really, really helps you look at the big picture as well as drill down to specifics. Let’s take a look at how to use MindMeister to effectively build your successful music marketing and promotions campaign…

(I am not going to go into detail about how to use MindMeister as they have great tutorial videos available on their website and I would only be duplicating their efforts. Check out the videos to get started on your mind map!)

I am currently working with a Christian Artist, Jeremy Ledgewood, and I will use the mind map I created when determining how I would market him to the world:

The first step to planning a total music marketing and promotions campaign is to look at the entire picture and forget about the details. Often times this is called the 30,000 foot view because it’s like being in an airplane and looking down at a city from the window. You can see that there is indeed a city below, that there are roads, and that the city is laid out in a grid. But you can not see individual road signs, cars, business names, etc. As you start to create your campaign you need to stay at the 30,000 view level and simply think about the big picture items of a music marketing and promotions campaign. Examples would be online marketing, offline marketing, publicity, radio, video, and live show/tour marketing. As you start to use the mindmeister software you need to put the artist or campaign name in the center and then add your big picture concepts to the main heading. Here is an example:

As you can see, I have Jeremey Ledgewood as the campaign title in the center and each of the big picture categories coming off as individual marketing and promotion campaigns.

The second step is to “brainstorm” ideas and specific strategies within each campaign category. This is still not the time to get too specific. Let’s take online as an example. This is a huge category in marketing independent music. What you need to do at this point is decide all the available strategies online marketing offers you – opt in email lists, social networking, awareness, etc. Here is what I did with Jeremey during this stage:

Again, I am still looking at the “big picture” or 30,000 foot view of the entire campaign. Let’s look at online marketing again. In this category I have awareness, opt-in email, and social networking. But I have not drilled down intoany type of specifics like what social networking sites I will use, what I will do in specific sites, how often I will work on social networking, etc. This is because I am simply trying to get a full, big picture, idea of what it is I will do to market Jeremy Ledgewood’s music. As you continue with this process you will get down to the finite detail of your entire campaign. Let’s go another step further….

Now you can see that under the online category > Social Networking, I have expanded out specific social networking sites used by potential fans to find new independent music. Again, I still have not gotten into specifics of each of these site. I have only listed them as a tool I will use in my online marketing campaign.

Your next step is to start drilling down each of the sub categories in each category. Here is an example:

Using our “Online” example and expanding upon it, you can see that now myspace, twitter, and ourstage have sub categories. Myspace is going to be used for the 13-21 year old demographic marketing and promotion efforts, uploading music vidoes, fan club communications, and outstage contest promotions. Again, each of these categories are the “big picture.” The actual steps and action items needed for a successful outcome have not been determined yet. Looking at the big picture as a whole allows you to see the entire campaign. It allows you to see where you can promote the ourstage contests across the entire campaign. When you look at only one peice of the puzzle or “strategy” you get lost in the details. Details slow your music marketing and promotion engine down to a crawl. Plus, if you look only at online > myspace for example, and don’t think about the other areas, you might miss that using myspace to promote the ourstage contests would be a great tie-in marketing strategy.

It is always best when creating your campaign to start at the 30,000 foot view and continue drilling that view down for the entire campaign as a whole until you are to the finite details. Meaning, even after you figure out each of the categories off the main headline, don’t get caught up and “run with the ball” to complete one of the categories – in our case an example would be online. If you only drill down online in our example you would totally miss that you need to place links to radio stations on your myspace page so potential fans can listen to your music or better, request your music at the radio stations you have rotation! Or you might miss that you need to place a link to sign-up for your opt-in email list on your myspace page as well. You see, you have to start very broad, then look at each category and only drill down to the next level as you consider all the other categories as well because they each work together to form your entire music marketing and promotions campaign.

I think you are starting to get the point. This blog post really was not intended to be a blue print for creating a music marketing and promotions campaign…. It was to hip you on a cool, free, tool to help you do the work. I will go deeper into detail over the next few weeks here on the blog and in articles at I am Music Network‘s main site. Go check out the software, start working on your campaign’s 30,000 foot view, and if you have a question or get stuck reach out and comment or ask your questions here on this blog posts comment section and I will try my best to keep you moving forward!

Click on this link for detailed instructions and action plans for creating successful music marketing campaigns and promotions!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

As most of you know from reading my blog or visiting I am Music Network, I am a big fan of awareness campaigns to kick off any marketing or promotions for independent music. Why? Because they are pretty cheap, they create a lot of good buzz, and they build a rock solid background – all important when program directors and the press begin researching an artist, musician, producer, or label to determine if they are going to give the music a shot at a review, radio rotation, press mentions and beyond. Awareness is the backbone of music marketing and promotion!

Here are the top five tools I use for my clients when starting an awareness campaign:

1. Jango.com

Jango radio is one of the coolest tools you can use to get your music in front of a massive amount of potential fans in a very, very short period of time. It does cost, but what you get for your money far out weighs the money spent. They have several plans to choose from ranging from about $30 – $150. I highly suggest the $100 plan. You get 4000 plays of your song and this is huge! I am not going to go deep into how Jango works because you can get all the info on their site and it is well described! But I will say that if you work the Jango awareness you will come out of a $100 buy in with a massive amount of real fans, a steady increase in your social networking activity, and most likely a good number of merchandise and CD sales. Click on the Here to visit the site and see how it can help you now!

2. MusicSubmit.com

In my opinion, Music Submit goes hand and hand with Jango. These two tools together simply create killer buzz,  demand, and attention from press, radio, and potential fans. Before I used Music Submit for the first time I did what any good independent should do and did my fair share of research to see what other users were saying. I have to admit that I did find a lot of negative posts from unhappy users. But being in the business of marketing myself, I had to dig a bit deeper before I made a decision to try them out. What I found was that a good majority of the unhappy users were also people that you could simply tell did not do their part of keeping their websites updated, take an active role in social networking, or regularly visit any online radio stations that might be considering adding their music to rotation. Basically, by simply following what these people did online for themselves showed me that they simply wanted a hand out. They wanted to pay for something and do nothing and become huge stars. I then did my research on the artists that gave good reviews of the Music Submit service. Not surprising, these artists were all active online in user forums, radio station websites, they kept their website updated and actively worked their social networking sites. My point… If you are not ready to actively work for yourself and do the leg work to keep any potential fans, radio, or press  involved with your music and activities – GIVE UP NOW! Walk away, go take a 9-5 job with a tie, and forget you ever had a dream of making it in the independent music industry! Harsh, YOU BET IT IS! – But it’s also reality. Now, back to Music Submit….

Music Submit does exactly what they say they do. They send your EPK (Electronic Press Kit) to all the contacts they have in their database for your given genre of music. That is all they do. They are not publicists, they do not actively work your project to their contacts, and they follow up very minimally. But here is the deal, they tell you in your control panel who they sent your package to, when they sent it, and they even give you the contact information. It is your job to follow up, make connections, and make things happen. What you get from their service is the contacts. This is very valuable because it saves you time and effort from having to do it yourself. Plus their contacts are part of their system because they actively want to see and hear about new artists. Again, I am not going to discuss every detail of their program, you can visit their site and get all the info you need. What you need to know is that I do not start an awareness campaign without using them…. why does this matter to you? Look at my track record, my clients get noticed, get on the radio, and get deal offers very quickly! Click here to go to Music Submit’s Website and Learn More.

3. OurStage.com

Ourstage.com give you credibility. The site is basically an ongoing music chart and contest with viewers voting for what song they like the best. It has all the normal social networking features: the ability to upload pictures, music, videos, bio, etc. I really use the site a lot for clients because if you work it right, talk to potential fans, and get your fan base to vote for your music – you will chart high. Obviously the higher your music charts the better publicity you can get out of it. When you are trying to get press or radio play you can use the Ourstage.com charts as your calling card. Press and radio people like to see that your music is a fan favorite! Go the the site check it out for yourself and get you music uploaded and on it’s way to the top of the charts. Click here to visit the site.

4. Reverbnation.com

Reverbnation is Myspace.com on steroids for artists, musicians, producers, and record labels. They offer a complete solution to distribution, marketing, promotion, EPKs, and beyond. They allow you to track your music and how the fans are helping you distribute your music, offers widgets to help you market, opt in email, and much more. If you are serious about getting your music in front of potential fans than Reverbnation has to be one of the spots you visit daily for interaction with fans, press, radio, labels, and more. Click here to go to ReverbNation.

5. http://tubemogul.com/

Tube Mogul might not seem like the typical music marketing or promotion tool, but it is. What they do is allow you to upload your videos in one location and then they distribute your video around the net to all the videos sites you need your video to been seen on. They also track how many plays your video gets, where your video is hosted, and it even updates social networking sites for you. The service is free, however, if you want more detailed reporting there is a fee. I personally do not use the paid version as the free option does everything I need. It really saves a lot of time getting artist videos distributed rather than visiting all the sites one at a time myself. Plus the tracking feature allows me to see how many plays my artists are getting all in one place. VERY EASY! Click Here to Visit Tube Mogul

Conclusion

These top 5 music marketing & promotion awareness tools/sites alone can boost your fan base, social networking activity, and merchandise sales revenue. I seriously do not work any project with clients without using each of these tools/sites. They work, but only if you work them. As with everything in music marketing and promotion – there is not silver bullet or “one tool does it all” available! I wish there was. When I find one I promise I will let you know how to get your hands on it!

More Music Marketing and Awareness Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC In Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

I have received a lot of calls and emails in the last few days…. I guess my own marketing and promoting is working well!!! … And almost all of those calling have the same thing on mind: “Where do I start?” After talking a bit further to understand what they know about independent music marketing and promotion I begin to see what the real issue is… Way, Way, Way too much information over load. I think what is happening on this information super highway we call the internet is people are getting information from all different directions and it is actually paralyzing them instead of pushing them to action. Is this you? Have you reached overload yet? Do you have way too many strategies, campaigns, social networking tricks, and beyond in your head to really have a grasp of what to do? I bet you do even if you do not want to admit it!

Marketing and promoting Independent music is really not that hard and in today’s world does not take a rocket scientist nor a multi-million dollar bank account to be successful. But it does take understanding the information you receive, knowing how to categorize information, knowing how the information fits within the entire campaign puzzle, and most importantly – knowing the road map to success utilizing the information.

Most likely every single “strategy” available online has or does indeed work. The author of the strategy has most likely used it within a total campaign with good to great success. But in most cases, these “off the shelf” strategy author’s fail to let you see how one particular strategy fit within the entire campaign. No one strategy is an end-all-be-all to the music marketing and promotion game. PERIOD. You can not simply do one thing and expect the press, radio program directors, labels, distributors, and beyond to start beating down your door. I am sure you have already found this out when trying the various strategies promoted online!

Every music marketing campaign has to begin with a planning and strategy session. In fact, to truly create a successful campaign you must put more time into the planning stage than the actual action phase of music marketing. The action is the easy part, it’s simply following a plan that was created to be successful. Planning, now that is the hard part. It is also the part most up-and-coming independent artists, musicians, producers, and record label owners fail to ever start!

Just like the calls I have received this week, I usually get a client, maybe just like you, that calls up and says something like: “I have spent X,XXX worked my butt off for six months and I still have not sold more than 150 CD to people other than friends and family! What am I doing wrong? I am following what they say to do online.” I then simply ask: “What is your plan and can you email it to me so I can take a closer look at the strategies you are using and how they work together?” Every single time I ask this question, and I do mean every single time…. I can almost hear the deep swallow, the brain racing inside their head to form some sort of answer that doesn’t make them look like an idiot admitting they really have no plan, and then the eventual admission… “I am just following what I can find online when I find it!”

Here is the really cool part: Reading, studying, learning, and trying to find solutions online is the best thing you can do in the world for your music marketing and promotion efforts! There is nothing wrong with learning all the strategies on the internet. In fact, it builds your toolbox from which you can create a successful music marketing and promotional campaign from. It is a good thing to read every article, blog post, or tid-bit you can find on marketing your music. The only bad comes from throwing out ideas with your money and hoping it works instead of planning for it to work!

So, what are the basics as the title of this blog promises? The basics, the nuts and bolts, the meat with your potatoes has already been discussed! It is the plan. It is understanding what you want to do, researching how you will do it, and then finding the music marketing strategy, plan, idea, concept, or guide to get you closer to your planned goal. Planning is the most fundamental basic concept of independent music marketing. It is how you stretch a dollar into ten dollars worth of marketing and promotions revenue. It is how you can track your efforts to see if what you are doing is getting you closer to your planned goals or simply spending your money and time for no results. You see, without the fundamental plan you have no way what-so-ever to know if your money and time are getting you anything in return until it is too late and you have spent your entire marketing budget.

This brings me to my next point…. A plan creates a budget. Not the other way around. This is a huge lesson! A lot of people will tell you that you look at your budget to see what you can do and then create your plan. NOT TRUE! To create a plan you need to first look at your goals, what it is you want to accomplish, then you create a plan to get you closer to that goal – One step at a time. You see, I can say you need $5000 a month to really get the word out about your music. But really you only need the time to sit online and communicate with potential fans. How much does that cost? Internet costs about $30 a month through a cable provider. So really all you need is $30 per month for right now… correct?

You see, if you know what you want – your goal – you can create a plan to get there that fits within your reach. Reach includes budget, team capabilities, resources, and drive. When you really sit down and create a plan to success you will find, as most independents do, you do not have the money in the budget to act upon every single item in the plan. But you do have the money, even if it’s simply $30 per month right now, to start the first phase of your plan which is always awareness. Awareness does not cost much and almost every artists, musician, producer, or record label owner I talk to completely skips this step, among a mountain of others, to go straight to radio and shows. BIG MISTAKE! How does it look to a club owner or radio program director when they do a bit of research on you or your music and find very little because you didn’t first act upon an awareness campaign that costs very, very little? BAD!!

A successful music marketing and promotion campaign author build a plan that grows upon itself. Meaning, you start with $30 per month and the success you build from that pays for a big chunk of the next step. Do not get me wrong, you will need money in the budget, but if you set goals, plan for success, and follow your plan… you will create a budget to act upon the rest of the plan when the time is right!

So the answer to “What are the basics of music marketing and promotion?”

Setting goals > Plan a way to reach goals > then and only then – execute and act upon your plan!

Follow this link to learn more about How to Successfully Release Independent Music!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, NOT Yourself in the MUSIC!”

So, you want to succeed in the independent music industry! Right on!!! It is a great place to make your living, have a blast, and really love what you are doing. But be warned, it is not all fun or games, a simple job, or something you do every now and then because you like it. It is a life style! No matter if you are an artist, musician, group, record label owner, producer, agent, manager, or a freakin’ janitor for one of the others…. being an independent in the music industry requires a total commitment to the life style if you are going to be successful.

To be truly successful in the independent music industry you have to learn the daily grind and live by it. You have to work everyday towards you set goal… ahhh there it is… you have to have a set goal to work for. You can’t just grind away no knowing where you are going or what you are grinding for. How could you track your efforts to see if what you are doing is working if you don’t know what you are working towards?

You have to look at the time you spend on your grind and determine if you are being productive. A lot of up-and-coming independent artists, musicians, producers, and label owners feel that going out every night of the week and making the rounds in the clubs is grinding. But how much is actually working? Sitting with people you already know is not working. Sitting with the owner, other artists, DJs, promoters, or potential fans is working. Simply going to a club can not put you any closer to your goals!

Getting gas is part of the independent’s life style believe it or not. When you are walking to pay or sitting waiting for your tank to fill you should be on your grind passing out flyers, flats, or promo CDs. I know, it’s hard to be THAT out going, and a lot of independents simply do not do it… but the successful ones, they do. Every moment of the day is a chance to gain a new fan, find a new agent, or work your grind.

Don’t get me wrong, being an independent artists, musician, producer, or label owner does not mean you always have to wark your ass off. As you get more and more successful you can hire people to do the “hard grind” for you. This frees up time to be creative or enjoy your success. But selling 1000 CDs is not total success or the sign that it is time to sit back and let your grind slip. An independent stays on the grind until the music industry comes to him or her. Meaning, when the press, radio, media, major labels, etc. start beating down your door then you know you have done your job and maybe it is time to let your team do a bit of the heavy lifting under your direction.

The life style is the independents best and most successful marketing tool, business tool, and meter to judge success itself upon. To learn more about how to live the life of a successful independent artist, musician, producer, or label owner check out The Music Business Bible!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

Ok, I can finally let the cat out of the bag!!! I just got my new book “The Music Business Bible” back from the editor and manufacturer and it is now available!

The Music Business Bible is the complete guide to releasing independent music. This is a complete system for artists, musicians, producers, and record label owners. It includes everything you need to successfully release independent music – A 300 page reference manual giving you all the inside information, tips, tricks, and techniques used to create buzz, increase awareness, and drive sales – An Independents daily schedule workbook detailing every step you need totake on a daily basis to sell more music and be successful in the independent music industry – A dvd packed with every contract you will ever need while releasing your music independently – A 1 year subscription to my members only weekly newsletter giving you total insider information about the music industry and how to maximize your profits or avoid loses by what is revealed – Plus a 3 month “I Need an Answer!” email consulting package that allows you to get the answers you need right now.

This complete system is huge! I am also hosting an 8 week Independent Music Training Webinar series that is included in the price of the system for the first 250 people who purchase. I am keeping it small so everyone has a chance to get their questions answered, talk to me personally – and meet all the special music industry guests that will be lending me a hand in the training sessions.

Here’s the promo ad… Click on it and learn more!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC In Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

In keeping with the “best tool” theme, I thought it might be a good time to discuss awareness strategies, particularly how you make potential fans “aware” of you and your music. Awareness only happens if you direct it to. Menaing, if you are posting pictures, videos, graphics, etc. to your website, social networking sites, or user forums that have nothing on them to associate who you are, what you want potential fans to do, or where to go to get additional information – you are not creating any awareness for you or your music. You are simply giving people something to look at that they may find cool or interesting or not. But if you brand your images, videos, and graphics with your name, logo, and web site you are creating awareness.

Big corporations understand awareness better than anyone. Think about the nike commercials on TV. It takes the entire commercial to figure out what the freakin thing is about. But then at the end you see the little nike logo in the bottom corner of your TV screen. They are not trying to sell anything with the commercial. They are simply trying to make you aware of the Nike brand. THey feel that when you are ready to buy another pair of shoes and think to yourself “what do I want to buy?” you will remember their brand because they made you aware of it over and over again.

Music Marketing works the same way. Think about this: how many times have you been online and run across something you though was cool enough to check out but didn’t have time to do so “right now?” IF you are like most people this happens almost on a daily basis. You think that you will go back and take a look later when you are ready. But what really happens? You either forget or you forget where you saw the thing you wanted to check out. So now, when you are ready, you can’t find it again….. unless…. you have seen it over and over again and remember the brand name, web address, logo, or some other “eye candy” that you can now recall and at minimum search for in google or yahoo.

Research has established that most fans need to see “awareness” at least 7 times before taking the next step of “clicking” to learn more. Awareness campaigns in music marketing are geared to do just that, present your brand, image, logo, video, or other attention grabbing visuals as many times as possible, in as many locations as possible, around the internet. Remember, music fans are finicky. They want to discover new music on their own. They do not like to be told what is good, what is bad, or what they should ask for as a Christmas present this year. They want to discover a hidden treasure and have the ability to share it with their friends so they have the power of saying they discovered the next big thing in music!

Awareness in music marketing is about putting your message in every location on the internet music fans gather to discover new music. But how you brand yourself and music is what will be remembered, not the music itself…. until they “discover” you. It is a hard concept to understand, but awareness is not about the music or even getting people to listen to your music, at first. Once a potential fan “discovers” your music, then you turn the page and go from awareness to marketing.

Awareness Tips:

- Always place your website address on all pictures and images
- Always place a water mark (your web address) on all videos you upload to youtube or other social networking sites
- Remember, awareness is about the brand, not the music. Do not over market or insist on “listening” to your music
- Awareness is a numbers game. Place your brand in as many spots as you can online

Social networking is about awareness. It is why it works so good. But it can also kill your chance of getting a potential fan if you are not regularly updating your social networking sites. Once a potental fan “remembers” your brand and does “click” to learn more, the last thing you want is for them to go to a social networking site that says your last visit was a month ago. Old news is just that. People will see that you don’t care enough to keep news fresh so why would they care to read about what you did a month ago. An awareness campaign is fresh, right now, and up to the minute. Remember, fans are finicky. Once you get them interested, you have to keep them engaged. This means fresh content, new blog posts, new pictures, new videos, and more.

Do not use up all your photos, videos, and blog posts during your awareness campaign. This is a huge mistake a lot of artists and labels make when first learning how to market their music. It is very important that when a fan finally “clicks” to learn more they see fresh content on the site they land on. They do not want to see the same pictures and videos they have already seen the 7 times it took to get them to actually “click.” If you put everything you have out on an awareness campaign what is the point in “clicking” to learn more?

Marketing your music, especially during the awareness phase, takes a massive amount of pictures, videos, and general content. The may be one of the biggest mistakes I see up-and-coming artists and labels make on a daily basis. One photo shoot does not produce enough content to sustain a true marketing campaign. One video shoot of a live show from three months ago will not last for an entire campaign either. You have to continuously update your media. Seriously!

Awareness Media Update Schedule:

- Photo – 20 – 35 usable pictures per week should be taken and prepared with brand and uploaded to social networking sites and website
- Video – At least two new videos – not just music videos, it can be of anything with the artist or group, recorded, branded, and uploaded per week
- flyers, graphics, banners – 2 per week
- Blog Posts – minimum one blog post per day – 80/15/5 rule – 80% about what is happening with artist/label – 15% personal about artist/label – 5% total off the wall non-music

Conslusion

Basically, an awareness campaign is about getting your name, brand, image, or video in front of as many potential fans as you can. It is about constantly updating that image to stay fresh and current. It is about being where the fans hang out and creating an image of always being there for the fan. The only way you can do this is by presenting yourself in as many locations as you can without “feeling” like you are marketing to people. Make your self available, do not push yourself or music upon anyone!

Click here for more FREE Music Marketing Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”