Ya Know something…..

I have been in the music industry for over twenty years now. I have worked in recording studios, booked bands and artists on tours, done a million or so radio calls, set up distribution, managed some great groups and artists, and do a heck of a lot of music marketing consulting for indie labels and artists and it shouldn’t, but it does still amaze me at the one thing that always works in the industry…..

You have to actually take an active roll in the music industry to succeed.

That is all there is to it. You have to wake up everyday and decide what you are going to complete, and then actually complete the task. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering or record breaking – it just has to be a step towards your ultimate goal. I know, it just sounds too simple to work. But it does. It has. And it will continue to be the #1 best course of action, strategy, or marketing campaign ever created.

If you follow the blog or read my articles over at www.IamMusicNetwork.com you know that I lay out a ton of strategies and try to tie them all together into a campaign plan to move your music from your hands and into your potential fans hands. But if you look at each and every article or word I have written over the years you will see one thing over and over…. you have to take action to make it work.

I think we all make the same mistake. We are always looking for the magic bullet or secret weapon that will get us ahead of the pack. The one thing that will finally get us to the top of the charts, booked in the exclusive venues, or get our name on the lips of waiting fans. But as we search and search for that solution – that magic trick – we need to stop and actually look within our own mind. Is the problem really that you don’t know what to do next, or is the problem that you are not actually taking steps, consistently, that will lead to your success?

What have you done today to get your music in front of fans? Did you call someone to see if they gave you the “hook up” or did you actually take the time to reach out to potential fans in your social networks to build relationships? Did you send out your EPK to blogs and online radio stations hoping someone would email you back or did you actively seek out the owners of those blogs and radio stations and start relationships? How about this…. did you simply ask people to join your email/newsletter opt in list or did you send out an email today?

Setting up a great website, having a ton of videos on youtube, creating a dozen or so profiles across social networking sites, and signing up for a newsletter/email subscription service is only the first step towards getting your music in the hands of fans. We have all heard the sad story of “Build it and they will come.” or “Play it and they will hear it.” Meaning, if you simply build a website or create great music then surely fans will find you and buy your music. But this simply is not true. Just because you have a killer website, social networking profile circle, or a ton of videos does not mean anyone knows about you or your music. You can not “build (or play) it” and expect fans to come to you.

You have to get up every day and ask yourself – “where are my fans today and how am I going to reach them?”

But here is the secret – when you don’t find them today, you still have to wake up tomorrow and ask the same question! Then, you have to work again tomorrow at actually finding and reaching those fans. It’s not easy, I didn’t say the #1 easiest method of winning in the music industry – But this is the #1 secret to the music industry. You can not get discouraged and stop looking for fans. You can not expect your manager to find you fans. You can expect your record label is getting you fans. And by all means, you can not count on anyone but yourself to wake up every day and search for fans but yourself.

Are you going to hit road blocks….. everyday! Is it going to be tough to stay motivated…. everyday! Will you want to give up because you have been trying for six months or a year and are not much further along…. everyday! But you know what…. everyday, if you keep on the grind, you will get more fans, sell more music, and create your space within the music industry. It does work, it does pay off, and you can make your living. Don’t get me wrong, you still need luck, information, and acquired skills to hit “the big” time. But in order to acquire the skills you have to be honing your game, and luck – luck is being in the right place at the right time and having the skills in place to take advantage of the situation – how are you going to have any luck if you are not on your grind daily? How are you going to develop skills if you don’t work at them everyday – and sometimes fall flat on your face?  Information comes from doing it over and over to see what works and what doesn’t and by actually being in the game to network and meet more people that have the information.

There is only one fundamental truth to the music industry: You have to be in it to win it!

Counting on others to do for you is not being in the industry. Waiting on something to happen is not being in the industry. Watching fro the sidelines is not being in the industry. And most important – you don’t have to have money to make it in the industry if you are willing to work harder than anyone around you. We are in the internet age now, you can make a living right from your house, with your music and merchandise, if you actually work the industry – and that will fund the rest of what you need to do.

You know, really, there is no excuse to not making it in the industry except you didn’t try.

This has been a motivational minute by Jai. LOL!!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”
Buy my new book – The Music Business Bible – and learn EVERYTHING you need to know about the music industry to succeed!

Live show promotion is by far one of the easiest ways of grabbing fans attention while they are open and willing to give it freely, yet, it’s one of the most under utilized means of marketing music. Sounds crazy right? Believe it. Most bands and artists feel that a live show is about performing, and sure, you have to have a good performance… but really, the actual performance of a show makes up less than 25% of what is needed to sell CDs and merchandise.

The other 75% of a live show is about marketing, networking, connecting, and making friends with your fans. Fans and potential fans go to see live music to have a good time. Believe it or not, they are not at the venue to see you perform. Sure, you will have a few die hard fans that come to simply see you, but reality is that most the people at the venue are there to socialize, have a good time with friends, and primarily not sit at home watching reruns of Friends.

It is your job to ensure every single person at the venue on the night of your performance is indeed having a good time. Yes, you heard correctly! It is you and/or your groups job to ensure every single person at the venue receives the experience far above what they expected when they feed the cat, put on their best shirt, and set out to hook up at the venue you happened to get booked at.

Your job as an entertainer, yes entertainer, is to ensure your fans and potential fans have a good time. That starts with a great performance and ends with you or your group speaking to each person that attends your show…. personally, standing or sitting in front of them, not from the stage. Everything in between is what determines whether or not your show will be a success or just another night at the club for your fans.

The experience for your fan or potential fan starts outside the front door of the venue.  Think about when you are going out to have a good time. As you walk up to the venue you will think to yourself, “What does this place look like? What’s going on inside? Do I really want to do this? Will I have a good time?” Every single person does this, it’s human nature. Your job is to make sure that from the very start, your fans know they are going to have a good time.

You should have one or two street team member posted outside the club to talk to the club goers as they arrive. They are not there to get people in the door, they are there to greet them as they arrive. You need to make sure your team members are out going, can talk to anyone, and truly greet each person as they walk in the door of the club. You want to really make sure that your team starts to learn the names of your fans… nothing beats a fan getting greeted at the door of a venue by first name. This is golden marketing dollars. This is a connection!

Inside the venue you need to have two or three street team members, dressed similar – all wearing merchandise available at the merchandise table, walking around the venue networking. The main duty of your inside team is to get email and phone numbers of everyone in the venue. They need to carry a clip board with a pen or pencil and simply talk to every single person in the venue. Their job is not to simply get a number or email and move on. Their job is to talk and network with every single person in the venue and get the information during the conversation. Meaning; having a team member simply walk up to someone and say; “Can I get your information….” is not networking and making friends with your fans. It also does not get to know how the crowd found out about the performance, how far they are coming from, what they like in a show, what they don’t like in a show, how much time they spend on the internet looking up new music, whether or not they have visited your website, if they have bought your CD, if they have visited your merchandise table, and beyond.

Get the point? Your inside street team’s job is to get to know your fans, find out what makes them tick, and network until the relationship moves from fan to friendship status. This is not accomplished by sitting at a table talking amongst each other or only the fans they already know.

Your merchandise table should be the hub of activity at each live show. The team member that is sitting behind the table needs to be the friendliest, most outgoing, member of your team. This person needs to talk to people as they are passing the table to get them to the table. It is their job to sell your music and merchandise. They are not there to sit and wait for someone to come to them. They are not there so they have a seat for the entire performance, in fact, they should rarely sit down. They need to be standing in front of the table and networking.

Your job, or your groups job, is to host the party from stage and from the floor in-between sets. Again, the music matters, but the hosting matters more. Hosting is talking to your fans, not at them. Hosting is guiding your audience into having a good time including drink specials, contests, jokes, etc.. Your job is to communicate with your audience as if they were sitting in your living room at a small intimate house party.

You need to remind people about your merchandise table, your website, contests you are currently running, to tip the bar tenders and waitresses, where the rest rooms are, up coming shows, etc., etc., etc.. You have to do this with style, not “service announcement” type speeches. Remember, these are your friends, not people in the audience. You have to make a personal connection from stage with each and every member of the audience. Do not be afraid to use fans first names on stage. People love the hear their name!

You should run a contest during every performance. Give out tickets to fans as they walk in the door and about three quarters of the way through your show have a drawing from stage and give a way a few t-shirts and CDs. Do not do the drawing yourself. Invite a fan on stage to do the actual drawing. Again, people go to venues to have a good time and interact with other people. Give your fans a chance at their 15 minutes of fame by getting them on stage.

The biggest mistake made by most performing artists is made on breaks in between sets. When you step off stage do not, for any reason, head to the table where your girlfriend/boyfriend, close buddies, or other band/group members are sitting. You have nothing to gain here. In fact, you have everything to loose. By going to sit with a group of people, that no one else in the venue knows, you are separating yourself from your fans. No one, including you, likes to walk up to a group of people they do not know and try to talk to someone.

Your job is to walk off stage and talk to your fans. Sure, if you need to use the restroom take the time! But you need to make sure you are talking to each person that attends your performance, personally, before they leave the venue. Shake hands, ask names – and try to remember them, get to know them and genuinely make friends with your fans. You need to start thinking of your fans as friends, not fans. The only way you make friends…. even outside of the musical world…. is to get to know the person you are trying to make friends with. Do it now!

Ask your friends if they signed up for your news letter with one of your team members. Ask if they visited the merchandise table and what their favorite shirt or hat is (if you have more than one variety!), find out why they came to the show, what their favorite song is so far, etc. Basically, you need to interact and talk to them!

When you get back on stage from your break it’s time to prove to your new friends that you remember their names. Thank the crowd for being at the venue and then address your new friends by name. Tell your core fans at the show that you met some really interesting people and that you need them to take the time to get to know them. Don’t put fans on the spot by making them raise their hands, that sucks…. but do say that you met “joe blow” and that you need the core fans to reach out to them and show them why it’s a good thing to be a core fan of your music.

About three quarters of the way through your show it’s time for your outside team to get into action promoting the next show. Have your team place flyers on all the cars in the parking lot announcing the next show. Then, from stage, announce your next show and tell the audience that your team placed flyers on their cars to help remind them. This is important. How many times have you walked out of a venue at the end or the night, found a flyer on your windshield, and threw it on the ground?

By telling your audience that you placed a flyer on their car you are upping the chances of them actually looking at it and taking it home to stick on the refrigerator as a future reminder. Sounds too simple to be true, but it does work very effectively.

In a nut shell, it is your job and your teams job to ensure every single person at the performance has one of the best times of their lives. It doesn’t matter what it takes. The number one job of the entire show is to make sure your fans and potential fans have a great time. The only way this is going to happen is if you actually take the time to notice them, interact with them, and get to know them.

Inside Tip: Less than 5% of all indie artists take the time to follow any of the preceding advice. Really! If you do this, you will instantly see fans turn into friends, you will instantly see a major increase in attendance at every show you perform…. by a lot of the people that attended this show, and you will instantly see new friends being brought by old friends to each new performance. But the insider tip…. the thing that matters the very most…. the big secret…sssHHHHHH don’t tell anyone so you can keep it to yourself……… YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY TAKE THESE STEPS AT EACH SHOW FOR THIS TO WORK!!!!!

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

What is an awareness campaign?

An awareness campaign is the backbone of all successful music marketing campaigns. It is what drives potential fans, music industry professionals, and the press to learn more about you and your music. It is your formal introduction to the world and the time you say.. “Listen to my music – I have something to say and I feel you will like my music and what it offers your soul!”

Successful awareness campaigns allow fans to “stumble” upon your music in a way that makes them want to take action – action that leads to them to learn more, attend shows, participate in user forums, and ultimately buy your CDs and merchandise. Awareness campaigns are not advertising or saying… “I am the next BIG thing – you will want to click here to buy my music!” They are not about getting 40,000 so called friends on myspace.com that in reality only accepted your friend request but never went to your profile to listen to your music. Awareness campaigns are about building a fan base of real friends that support their new friend by taking action when needed!

The internet has opened the entire world to independent artists, musicians, producers, and record labels. It has made it possible for independents to reach further, deeper, and cheaper in such a way that the playing field of the music industry machine has been leveled and now money is not the determining factor in who gets the “limelight.” The internet means good music matters again! However, like anything good…. every independent in the world has taken to the internet to “shine.” It is getting over saturated, over run with “smoke and mirror” techniques, and fans are starting to get tired of the “same ol’ same ol’” smoke and mirror tricks.

I have written “The Ultimate Online Awareness Campaign” book to help artists, musicians, record labels, and producers get past the tired tips, tricks, and techniques that no longer work. This book details, day by day, what you need to do to get attention, create buzz, and get your music into more hands of potential fans fast. This is the exact formula I use with my clients to get music charted, get the press to call them, and to get event promoters, radio, and video broadcasters to call us – instead of us trying to call them for attention! “The Ultimate Online Awareness Campaign” is a proven formula that works no matter the genre of music, location in the world, or money in your pocket.

This book teaches you how to set up a social network that gets instant attention, how to maintain your network to make fans want to stay, when, where, and how to contact radio program directors to make sure they add your music to regular rotation, how to get the press to contact you for interviews and reviews, how to get bloggers and video podcasters to keep you and your music a permanent part of their broadcasts, and a whole lot more.

Click here to learn more about how to kick start your music marketing campaign with an awareness campaign that creates buzz, grabs instant attention, and drives fans to buy your music!

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

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!”

OK, if you have not figured it out I am on a massive hunt for the best, real deal – no gimmick – it really works, promotional tools for artists, musicians, and labels. What I have been doing is digging through the tools I use every day while marketing my own clients and really looking at their track record to see exactly which are performing the best. So, today, I introduce music marketing tool number 2 on my top ten list….

Music submit gets your music in the hands of bloggers, press, online radio programmers and beyond. I really dig the company. Each artist I have worked through their program has got an immediate bump in website hits, social networking buzz, and a lot of interest from the music industry. The last artist I put through got 5 magazine interviews that lead to more than 10 live gigs, a broadcast spot on a music video show doing an acoustic set, and about 20 adds on internet radio within about 3 weeks time. So, I really have to put this up towards the top of my top ten music marketing sites that actually work!!!

Click on the banner above and check it out.  They offer a lot of packages and always have some sort of special going on. Listen, they have a $9.95 program available. This is cheap and it gives you the ability to try it before you go full on with a larger package… and their large package is still very cheap!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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

A successful music marketing campaign does not just happen because you throw enough money at it. You can’t go from one idea to the next, spending crazy money looking for the magic bullet that will catapult your career to the top of the charts. Money alone may get you a bit of exposure for your music, but if you do not plan to maximize that exposure it simply dies and you basically get nothing for the money you have spent. I have seen too many up-and-coming artists that have a bit of a budget run through their hard earned cash in less than three months and in the end have little more than a local buzz to show for it. I have also seen artists with almost no budget rise to the top of their city, then region, then state, and on to national success by planning to maximize what little money they did have by following a plan and tracking results to ensure any money spent was gaining something, anything actually, as an end result of their marketing effort and dollar spent.

It’s easy to run through a thousand dollars when marketing music. In fact, you can go online right now and find at least ten people or companies that will show you how to spend your thousand dollars in less than 30 seconds by filling out their form, trusting that they will do what they say, and using your credit card to send them the money to get started. Some of these people and companies are very legitimate and will indeed do as promised, others may not be so “honest,” but the reality is this; you can pay a person or company to do many, many different aspects of your music marketing for you if you do not understand or have the resources to do so yourself, but if there is no clearly defined plan of how each effort you or an outside service provider acts upon will work together, creating a complete music marketing campaign, you will never get the huge returns expected or promised.

Every strategy or action of music marketing should work in conjunction with one another to create a plan. There is no “magic secret” or “magic bullet” that will take you or your music over the top. Yes, there certain things you can do that will create more buzz than others, but what you do with that buzz is usually handled by a completely different aspect or strategy within your marketing campaign. As an example, let’s say you have enough money to throw at radio and you decide to buy into the marketing department of a radio station group that owns 15 radio stations in your desired region. Your “buy in” gets you top 20 rotation for 8 weeks. Once you pay the money do you sit back and enjoy the airplay? No! That is only one part of your marketing strategy. If you sit back and do nothing, after your 8 weeks are up you have nothing to show for the money spent except the ability to tell your friends and family that your music was in top 20 rotation on 15 radio stations. So what! How much did it cost you to get it? What did you get from your efforts? This is a great example of throwing money at music marketing and getting nothing from it!

In the example, throwing money at radio should have been only one part of an entire marketing strategy. The other parts would have included radio promo tour to support the airplay with retail appearances, live show performances, charity shows, meet and greets, street team promotions to get email addresses for your opt in list, a website with daily updates and news section, daily or weekly email blasts to fans for support and requests at the radio stations playing your music….. and the list goes on. All of this takes planning, not money. Sure, going out on tour takes money, but it first takes planning, research, and actions to get the tour booked… this would all be done before you spent a dime with radio. Why? Because you would want to have the promo tour booked and in place before you spent money so you would know, becasue you planned for it, that the money you spend “buying” into a radio station marketing department would give you results. Again, the only way you can KNOW, not THINK, you will get the desired results is to plan for them.

This is only one tiny example of money does not equal music marketing success. There are many, many music marketing service providers out there that claim to have what you need to succeed. And indeed, most do, if you utilize their product or service within your entire campaign. There are companies that guarantee every press reporter and blogger in your genre of music will know about you and your music if you just pay them $1000. The fact is there are many great companies out there that in fact do their job and get you exposure this way. I have used many of them for my artists. But this exposure does nothing if you do not plan to utilize the exposure once you get it.  The only way to do that is to plan for how you will take action once you get the exposure BEFORE you get the exposure in the first place.

Buying your way into marketing does not work. You will spend a lot of money and have nothing to show for it if you do not plan how you will use the positive results you get from spending money. Furthermore, if you do not plan to use your bought exposure in conjunction with all the other aspect of your marketing campaign you might as well spend your money on a new piece of equipment because you will get a lot more use from the new gear!
For specific tricks, techniques, and tips on building an entire music marketing campaign check out the music marketing section on the main site: www.IamMusicNetwork.com

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

Ya know what… I have to admit it, sometimes I get so wrapped up in delivering useful tips, tricks, and techniques that help you gain potential fans that I forget about the basics. I am talking about what goes on behind the scenes to make a music marketing campaign successful.

Case and point
I just started with a new client and have been emailing him requesting needed photos, videos, music, etc. to plan his campaign. As I started getting the files I noticed that none of them were formatted correctly, had any type of branding information, and basically were just everyday files that a “normal” internet user would be sending to friends and family. I stopped what I was doing, picked up the phone, and started a conversation that led me to this blog post:

“Hey ________, thanks for sending over the files, but I notice you didn’t put your logo on any of the pictures or a water mark on any of the video files so potential fans would know where to go to find out more about your music. What’s up with that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know how when you go to different artist pages and look at the photo section of their website each photo has a logo usually at the bottom of the picture or if you watch a video on youtube by your favorite band at the bottom of the video or towards the end there will be something that appears and says go here to learn more?

“OK”

“That is what I am talking about. I don’t see any of that on the stuff you are sending me.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to do that.”

AHHHHHH, the light bulb went off in my head!

This is a new artist that up until this point has used the internet for friends and family. He has never done music marketing online. He has never tracked his efforts or even has a clue about how to track his efforts. He is used to using the internet like the average person, not as a music marketing guru!

My Point….

This new client has opened my eyes to a reality that I have over looked for far too long. It’s like a new bass player coming to me and asking “How do I get fans to come to more of my shows?” I usually do not go into.. “well, you are new and right now you only know how to play two scales and really can’t keep time very well, so the first thing I would suggest is practicing about four hours a day and get good so when fans do come, they like what they hear.” Instead, I talk about email lists, merchandise/information booths, and street teams. But right there in my face is the most obvious thing the bass player could do… prepare.

Music marketing takes massive preparation. The final move is standing on every rooftop and screaming to all that will listen; “Check out my music, you will love it!” The actual behind the scenes stuff take the time, effort, creativity, and work. But often times we, and by we I mean all us marketing types, forget that the prep comes natuaral to us because we have been doing it for so long. I forget that you might just be starting out and don’t know the difference between a PO box at the post office and a PO box that allows package deliveries. I forget that you may not already have a standard watermark prepared to place on every video you create or a logo that has been preformatted so that all you have to do is copy and paste it to any photo you decide to use in marketing your music. I forget that the basics, what I take for granted because I have been doing them for so long, is what you really need!

You see, the basics, the little things that make all the difference in the world when it comes to reaching potential fans and getting them to do what you want them to do, are the fundamentals of music marketing. If you get the behind the scene basics to become natural the actual marketing of your music seems simple! Actually, if you cover the behind the scene stuff you can almost do no wrong when marketing because at least you are reaching potential fans and they know what to do next.

Conclusion:

Starting today, I have posted a new article on the main I am Music Network site featuring “Behind the Scenes” tips, tricks, and techniques. I will continue to do so until I feel the basics have been covered at length! So, what are you waiting for? Click on the following link and start learning the basics!

Multi-Media File Storage and Maintenance

Peace,
Jai
“love the MUSIC in yourself, NOT yourself in the MUSIC!”