Ok, we are a few days into 2010 and as I sat down at my computer with my cup of coffee and favorite artist playing on the little tiny 2″ laptop speaker thinking about what “gem” of information I could share with you today about how to marketing your music better I realized…. maybe I don’t know! Maybe what I need is not what you need. Maybe where I think you should be in your journey is not at all where you are at! Maybe, just maybe…. I need to actually take the time and ask you….

What do you need in 2010 to help you successfully market your music to the masses?

I’m serious here. I want to know what you need to be successful in the music industry. What is your burning questions, what do you need to understand more, what resources do you find yourself trying to find, or what will make the biggest difference in your career? I am listening, I want your input, and I will do my best to answer all the questions I get over the next year.

I want to make this YOUR BLOG about music marketing, promotion, business… or, well, anything you need for your career in the music industry!

I love to share my knowledge about music marketing… but this morning I really realized something great… I love helping artists, producers, musicians, record labels, managers, agents, and anyone else interested in the music industry SUCCEED better than just sharing my knowledge. In order for me to actually do what I love I realized I needed to know more about what you want… not what I think you want!

So, what are you waiting for…go ahead…. click on the comment button below and let er rip – tell me your needs for marketing your music in 2010. Ask questions, tell me what confuses you the most, ask for resources, and tell me your issues.

If you take the time to ask…. I promise I will take the time to find a solution, answer a question, or guide you to the answer you need to succeed in the music industry in 2010!

I look forward to hearing from you…. and giving you what you need in 2010!
Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”
www.jaihutcherson.com
www.IamMusicNetwork.com

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!”

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!”