Article :: Musician Marketing - Free Music for all
For article submissions or enquiries, please contact Larry via service@alchemix.com.au
|
By: Larry Karl - Editor
You are a musician, song writer or a band and you got original music?
Ok, give your music away, what the heck... you are new, you are unknown anyway, so by giving your music away you can help create maybe some attention and compete with the other thousands of releases that come every year.
Hopefully you have a web-site with a mailing list or a myspace page.
Now you need to track down anyone who likes your music, and downloaded your free music, and pay attention of how your popularity grows. If it does, begin to sell your music at affordable prices for your now ever hopefully growing fanbase. - And keep in touch with your fanbase .. or they will forget you. That's where a mailing list helps ..
-
Have you got some old songs? Remember, every song is a new release... if people haven’t heard it.
Allways add any and all past recordings up at your website / myspace etc. as downloads, and on sale at all your live shows and as give away for friends and fans to pass on to other friends.
-
As your fanbase grows your fans will want anything you ever did, and this will expand as you attract more fans over the months and years ahead. Add a jounal to your web-site, news and anything you do .. this invites your fans to be part of your music scene.
-
If you "lent" out ‘promo’ copies/ demo copies to various gatekeepers in retail, radio, the print media, and at live venues, you may one day see them for sale in used record stores, if they are cheap,
BUY THEM back, no matter if you initially gave them away for free...
.then on your website have a special ex promo/demo CD sale.
-
Bring down the price of your CD's, esp. for your fans.
Use your web-site to encourge special CDs sales, maybe, "for a limited time only” or for loyal repeat customers...or offer free shipping and handling.
-
Remember the golden rule.
“If you are not out there promoting your music, someone else is out there promoting their music”.
There is a tremendous amount of competition out there.
THINK....what can you do that no one else has done.
-
Have you planned any new recordings? Use it to promote CD sales to your fan base.
Arrange to record a special ‘LIVE’ CD and invite only the fans who signed your email list to attend.
You could do this in multiple markets, close to your home base. Charge them $25 for the live recording experience, and tell them if they buy a copy of the LIVE CD that night, in advance, you will autograph the CD and remind them that they can hear themselves applaud and whistle on the recording....everybody wants to be part of that.
-
Never forget WHO your fans are.
Get to know your fans at live shows...what kind of clothing do they wear? where did they buy it? where do they eat before or after your gig?Learn their lifestyle habits...and then use YOUR IMAGINATION to think up a clever co-promotion with an appropriate local merchant, restaurant, or coffee shop.
-
I guess you noticed, it's basically all about your fans, and as more you have as better.
Therefore everything is geared towards building your fan base, and staying in contact with them.
Music, artists or a bands are products like any other product.
Therefor the same marketing principles apply. It may be hard for you to compare yourself to a sausage or any other product, but if you know your product specifics and find your target market for your product, you will have a better chance to sell your product.
-
Final Note:
Who is your Target Market ? This depends on your music, make sure you know who would like your music. Don't try to sell your blues CD to electronic dance music lovers.
Know your market, your people, get to know them better, hang out where they hang out. Play you music where your kind of music is played. Start in your town, than neighboring towns, always attrackting new fans with free CD give aways.. spread out more towns, bigger towns... have that all on your web-site or myspace -share it all, than use som eidea from above to start selling ...
Looking for a recording studio to support you in your goals? Need a demo, EP or full CD?
|
|
