Is it all a bunch of crap? I am talking about all the ideas, concepts, strategies, tips, tricks, and techniques you read about everyday while trying desperately to get your music into the hands of your fans… you know music marketing. The thing that you HAVE to do to make a living in this music industry. Again, is it all BS? I mean come on, isn’t marketing really a better way of selling out?

I have struggled with this question my entire career. It feels bad, at least to me, pushing my own stuff on people. I mean they are going to like it or they are not. What can I do to MAKE someone like what I have let alone take hard earned money out of their pocket and give it to me…. and give it to me for something I would freely give away just so my art can be upon the world.

Folks, that is what makes you a true artist. Someone who creates from the heart what your soul NEEDS to get out. Selling out is changing what your heart tells you so you can make a dime. Selling out is promoting a product with your music you know is wrong just to make a quarter. And selling out is being someone you are not while pimping your music just so you can make a dollar.

Being an artist is creating your art, sharing it with the world and hoping someone, event if it is only one person in the billions out their, enjoys it and gets something from it as you have when releasing it from your soul. Music marketing is NOT selling out. The only way that – that one person out there – can find your music that may heal their broken heart, motivate them to get out of bed to face the day, or enhance their time at the lake with friends is if they know you and your music exists.

It took me years to understand that. It took my brother – the one who pushes me hardest to promote and market myself – hour upon hour of telling me to put name on something, get a picture with so-in-so, or build a website (when the 90′s came around…LOL) so another musician or artist would be aware of who I was and how I may be able to help them reach their goal. Because I always thought – WRONGLY – my actions, ideas, or music would talk for itself.

AND IN FACT IT DOES…. but if you are standing in an empty parking lot at 3am screaming at the top of your voice… “I am here! I have great music!” No one will hear you. There is no one there. You are alone. You have no audience. No matter how loud you scream, your music can not speak for you because there is no one to hear what it is saying to them.

Music Marketing is not selling out as long as you do not sell out. Yes, there are “smoke and mirror” campaigns that are BS, there are strategies that take you down the wrong path from what your heart and soul are telling you to do or what is right or wrong, and there are for sure little applications online that will trick twitter, myspace, facebook, and others into gaining you tons of BS “friends.” And these type music marketing activities are for sure selling out.

But real music marketing, real communication, real emotions, real friendships built around your music with like minded fans….. that is only letting people know about you, making friends, and reach further than your music can do alone. I am not saying social networking is selling out. It is not. in fact the words alone… SOCIAL – NETWORKING… it’s being social and it’s about networking. It’s not lying, exaggerating, using “smoke and mirrors,” or being someone you are not……

Music marketing is not BS….. it is sharing your soul with the world and attracting like minded souls to what your heart has to say. Be true to you, no one else -  one fan at a time, over time, and in a way you can stand and be proud of…. that is music marketing that works, that lasts, and that you can wake up everyday and do over and over again without feeling dirty!

Just my 2 cents on what makes me get up everyday and be able to “put my name on an idea!”

“Love the MUSIC in YOURSELF, not YOURSELF in the MUSIC!”
Peace,
Jai

If you want to find out how you can make potential fans aware of your music check out:
The Ultimate Awareness Campaign for Marketing Your Music the RIGHT way!

On your road to market your music you have got to plan for the unexpected!

I manage Jeremy Ledgewood (www.JeremyLedgewood.com), an up and coming Christian artist with a great vibe! This weekend we set up a photo shoot for his upcoming album cover in the White Sands Desert in New Mexico. After a week of planning, packing, and going over the list of needed more than a few times – to ensure everything went smoothly – Jeremy and crew set out on the road yesterday at about 7pm.

The plan was to drive all night (from Dallas, TX) and reach the desert around 5am this morning. The photo shoot pretty much had to be today as it is supposed to be around 70 degrees all day and sunny.  The rest of the week and into next week is forecasted to be cold as hell and cloudy! So, Jeremy got on the road with crew and things were going pretty good. Then at about 2am last night I get a call – awaking me – and It was Jeremy on the phone asking me to get online and find out where the jack is located on his new GMC Envoy! LOL. So, I stumble out of bed, head to the computer, and start my very sleepy search while the light from the monitor almost seems to blind me!

In case you ever need to know – there is nothing online telling you where you can find the jack on an Envoy! To make things worse… with the crew, props, clothes, etc. loaded in the vehicle – searching for a Jack, in the middle of a desert road with no street lights and just the coyotes reminding you that you are on their property…. in 13 degree desert night temp… finding a secret, only the designers could figure out, hiding place for the jack seems almost impossible!

As I am searching for the jack online…. about 30 min. later, I get a call say “We found it!” Relieved I went to bed.

The moral of the story: It does not matter how much you plan, what you consider to be important, or what you think could go wrong…. when you are trying to market your music, the unexpected will always present it self. The only way to prepare is to prepare mentally, carry a little extra cash, and by all means… if you are headed into the desert make sure you have the owners manual to your new vehicle!

Jeremy and crew are now safely at the White Sands Desert in New Mexico…. a bit more tired than expected, and still trying to warm up. The little flat tire turned out to be a two hour delay and one cold night with no light changing the tire. All is good, all is well, and the photo shoot will go on!

Just remember when marketing your music, always allow much more time than you think it will take, always have extra cash on hand, and never let the small stuff get to you! The music industry is known for throwing bricks at your head. The only way to prepare is learn how to duck, bob, and weave!

Kick your 2010 Music Marketing Campaign into OVERDRIVE: The Ultimate Online Awareness Campaign!

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

As you know from one of my posts yesterday, I am a speaker at the 14th Annual Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg, PA. Since I am a speaker I am listed on the site with links to my sites and contact info and I wanted to share one of the best music marketing efforts I have seen in a while from a band showcasing at the conference….

Here is the email I received from them (I added the picture from their myspace…)

——————————————————————————————

Greetings,
This message is intended for Jai Hutcherson.

I noticed you on the list of Speakers / Mentors @ MMC14 in Feb 2010 and wanted to take this time to extend a personal invite to see our band MADRONE perform.

We’re a progressive rock band out or Roanoke Va, often compared to the band TOOL. We recently have been privileged to share the stage with Halestorm, Hoobastank, Theory of a Deadman and many more.

Complete Bio: www.sonicbids.com/madrone
Other Link: www.myspace.com/madrone

We’ll be releasing new high quality recordings early 2010. Our featured single on the upcoming EP is called Daybreak and currently in the hands of Freddie Fabbri (Cage Rattle & Breaking Benjamin) and Dave Brenner from Theory of a Deadman for review. If possible we would love to hand you a copy at MMC14 for perhaps your feedback in the future.

Showcase info:
Saturday February 20th 2010
Set Time (12:30am)
Pints (Formally Tara Station)
25 South 4th St. Harrisonburg Pa. 17101

Since it’s a late set we wanted to give you plenty of notice but understand if your unable to attend. However if you do find you can, we would very much enjoy your company.

Thanks for your time and Happy New Year!

Regards,
Greg Escoe
703.489.9317
Madrone Manager
—————————————————————

Why am I sharing this with you…..

Just look at it. This is what it is all about. This is a great first contact communication; it has all the details needed for me to find out more about the band, it teases with a description of the bands sound compared to a major, it offers… not pushes their new cd to me for review, it gives me contact information, it drops some name acts they have been able to perform with and network with letting me know that they are out there working for themselves as well as reaching out to industry professionals trying to make a name, and it is not just another “Hey, we are the next big thing… go to our myspace page and wee why you want to sign us ….” as I get too, too often!

Look at the letter, study the letter, and realize – this letter got my attention, made me want to learn more about them, made me click on the links to visit their profiles, and made me want to go see them when I am at the conference! THIS EMAIL GOT MY ATTENTION! Not because it said a certain thing…. but because it said what it needed to without being full of crap, hype, or smoke and mirrors. It was professional, gave details, and sparked interest. This is a great template for any artist, musician, band, producer, r record label trying to reach out to industry professionals and get noticed – trust me, I don’t see letters composed this well very often and when I, and my industry friends, receive a letter this good we sit up and take notice…. FYI – this is part of that “IT” factor that is needed to succeed in the music industry!

OK, now, as most of you know that read my blog – myspace  has that little widget called “demand it” that artists place on their profile to get people from all over the world to “demand” they do a show in hometown’s…. Madrone, as they should to keep the buzz moving, has placed one on their profile page. Here is what I need form everyone reading this blog…. and you know, I do not ask for much, very often, from my readers…. I want you to click on the “Demand It” banner below and “Demand” Madrone to play a show in your city…. and then when they do, GO TO THE SHOW. I don’t care if you are into hip hop, rock, country, christian, R&B, or whatever…. if you listen to this band you will feel the music, like the vibe, and appreciate the music of another genre…. so get off the “genre specific high road” and listen to them to appreciate what they offer to their genre and then demand them…. if you do, karma  will do the same for you when you need it in your journey to the top…

View all Dallas events on Eventful

I hope to see a lot of emails like this from all my readers in the future!

For more ways to create awareness like this example check out “The Ultimate Online Awareness Campaign”

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”
www.JaiHutcherson.com

Hey Folks!

Man, I love this time of year. My family celebrates Christmas and my wife goes all out decorating the house, baking cookies, and spending all my money to try and single handedly save the economy as she hits all the shops and malls for presents. I am amazed every year how much she gets done and how well she sticks to her plans no matter how crazy things get…..

Of course that makes me think about “follow through.” I have gone, one time only, with my wife to the malls and shops to “be in the spirit” and help her pick out a few gifts for family and friends and I can tell you that if she did not have “follow through” and stick to her plan we would have never made it out of the mall alive! Me being like a kid in a candy store…. ok, we were in the candy store…. I wanted to go here and there as I saw shiny cool toys and gadgets that I wanted for myself, but my wife kept pointing to the clock, her list, and then telling me “we don’t have time for you to just stroll through the mall window shopping… we have to get in, get out, and stick to the plan!” “But, but, right now I’m here and everything is out and I have been thinking about looking at this stuff for a while now, this is a good time to just quickly look…” I said. “No, we have to keep with the plan or I will not get done what I need to do today to finish everything before Christmas!” she said.

Let me tell you this. When my wife says “NO!” It wakes me up. Usually she is the sweet, quiet type that just kinda goes along with the flow of life at her own pace. Actually, usually she is late to everything because she just moves to her own clock and really enjoys being chill. So, when she puts her foot down and says “NO” I have to wake up and listen….

What does this have to do with music marketing and awareness campaigns? A lot! You see, my wife gets all the shopping done, all the cooking completed, gifts wrapped, house decorated, and everything else that demands her time every year at Christmas because she has developed a plan and then sticks to that plan to a “T.” That one time of going to the mall with her showed me just how much she does stick to that plan and why….. My “five minutes here and there” just to check out a new toy or shinny object added up to making her more than two and a half hours off schedule. And trust me, once she is on a mission – the last thing you want to do is be the one to get her off schedule – she made me work with her the rest of the day to get back on schedule and by doing so I saw exactly what my “five minutes” really did for her day and plan!

Your music marketing activities, especially online awareness campaign work, require strict detail to a schedule. Getting off schedule even a day can throw the entire campaign out of wack until you get back on schedule. This is because each step you take is built upon the previous steps and you can not move forward until you complete each step of the plan. If you do not follow through, down to the minute, of what you are supposed to do you will start to hurt your over all online awareness campaign.

While you are online it is hard not to just take five minutes to look at this or that – you know the shinny things that grab our attention – and those five minutes add up quickly. While you are doing searched on your favorite search engine for radio stations or online magazines, a headline about your favorite commercial rtist might grab your attention, or when you visit a radio station site a picture might grab your attention and make you want to click on the picture to see or learn more…. This takes you off task and off schedule fast. It might not seem like much, but add this up over a three or four hour period of doing research and you have now only spent about half the time you dedicated to research actually researching music industry resources.

Staying focused and following through with your plan while surfing the net is hard work – maybe harder than anything else while marketing your music. You have email, forum announcements, new blog posting announcements, instant message pop ups, etc. that all are competing with your time and energy while doing your work. You have to learn the art of tuning distractions out, turning off announcements, and paying attention only to the task at hand. Your music marketing efforts have got to be the only thing that has your complete and total attention the entire time you are acting upon it. Not just for the time drain, but also for your focus, your commitment, and your follow through.

Constant research, sifting through websites for needed information, and going through lists of radio stations or press outlets to find the ones that are still in business is tedious. I have found that the only way I can do it over and over, day after day, is to set goals. I set a goal of 20 – 25 radio stations a day, 3 – 5 music magazines a day, and 3 – 5 event promoters a day. By doing this I have a goal to keep in mind which forces me to stick to the plan of the day. I then know I do not have time to get distracted by those “new and shinny” things that pop up looking to steal my time and effort.

Here are some tips for making the best of your time online while working your awareness campaign:

• 1. Shut down email programs for the entire time you are working. – Check your email before you start and then after you finish, but not during.
• 2. Turn off your instant message software while working.
• 3. Create goals for each day of work and do not allow yourself to stray away from that goal until you reach it.
• 4. As you find “shinny” things that grab your attention make a note so you can go back to them once you complete your online awareness activities.
• 5. Do not visit your social networking sites or favorite user forums while working.
• 6. Do not allow yourself to read the news, current events, or anything not directly related to your research while on industry websites – Keep note of sites that offer these things and do allocate time for this at a later date/time. It is iportant to stay on top of industry news, but not while working on awareness.
• 7. Turn off your phone while working.
• 8.  Close your office door or let anyone else around you know that you are working and need total focus so no interruptions.
• 9. Once you begin your online awareness activities limit your breaks to only one an hour and make that one break quick so you stay focused and on point.

Hopefully this will get you thinking and you can create a space and frame of mind to keep on point, stay focused, and follow through while acting upon your online awareness campaign! If you have some more ideas that may help other readers please leave a comment or two and I will post for everyone to see and appreciate! As always… keep busy, work smart not hard, and remember – the more effective effort you put into your music marketing efforts the more you get out of them…. Knowledge is power and the more you have the further you will go!

To jump start your music marketing efforts check out The Ultimate Online Awareness Campaign eBook available now!!!

Have a very merry Christmas and happy holidays!!!
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!”

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!

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