2) Making connections
This is the step way too many aspiring musicians try to skip over. And they do so at their own peril. Quite often, artists don’t even realise they’re turning their backs on this step, or they don’t comprehend the importance of it to begin with.
Core idea: As an independent artist, you can’t think only in terms of marketing to the masses. That’s an old-school, major-label strategy. So stop thinking about marketing as a way to catapult your message to an enormous, faceless crowd from a distance.
Guerrilla music marketing is personal. It’s often delivered one-on-one. And even when you do direct a message to a sizeable audience, that audience is targeted and predisposed to like you. And, when communicating to crowds, your tone should be warm and personal. In fact, that’s one of the things that sets you apart from bands that are mass-promoted and “handled” by corporations.
So, how do you start and maintain personal relationships with a growing number of fans and music business contacts? Here are just some of the actions you can take:
- Build a mailing list by collecting names, email addresses, and snail mail addresses at your live shows.
- Talk to people at your live shows and become friends with your fans.
- Put an email sign-up form on every page of your website.
- Create incentives for fans to join your email list.
- Send email updates to your fan list at least twice a month.
- Mail post card announcements to your fan list every other month.
- Communicate with editors, reviewers, bloggers and podcasters in your genre and nurture relationships with them.
- Reply to all fan and industry emails promptly.
- Respond to people who post comments on your pages at facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Start a blog and share your music-related thoughts and experiences with your fans
- Thank your fans often and treat them well.
Can you see how important this step is? Your job is not only to make people aware of you. Your job is to notice the people who connect with you the most (or who can potentially help you the most) and cement the bond between you.
3) Asking for the sale
When I encounter musicians who ignore this step, it always leaves me scratching my head. Why don’t more artists ask for the sale and encourage fans to spend money? Well, sometimes they simply forget to ask. Other times they’re too shy or they fear they’ll be perceived as cheap hucksters.
My advice: Get over it!
Want to know the biggest reason musicians avoid this essential stage? Insecurity. It’s the feeling that their music has no value and is not worth paying for.
That’s too bad. Because if they’d only take a few more steps to encourage fans to buy, these artists would find that fans have a different opinion. Most consumers who spend money on music feel that it enriches their lives and have no problem parting with a small amount of cash to take home new music or download it to their computers.
So get it into your head that your music is worth paying for. And make a commitment to this important third music marketing ingredient by doing the following:
- Announce that you have CDs and merchandise for sale at your gigs – and have some fun with it.
- Set up an attractive, efficient merchandise table at shows.
- Make every music CD you release available for sale on CDBaby.com.
- Sell your CDs on Amazon.com through its Advantage Program
- Use CD Baby’s digital distribution program to make your tracks available on iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic and other major music download services.
- Stress customer benefits, not the features of your CDs
- Use testimonials from satisfied fans and the media.
- Offer a money-back guarantee on sales from your own website – yes, even for digital downloads.
- Sell more by offering a collection of your CDs and merchandise at a special bulk price
- Make limited-time and limited-quantity offers.
- Offer lots of free bonuses to fans who buy now or at a minimum purchase amount.
Selling your music is not the evil deed many musicians make it out to be. On the contrary, it’s an essential element to a successful music career.
So commit these three simple steps to memory. Engrave them in your brain. And the next time you create a new promotion plan, make sure your efforts are hitting on some combination of these effective music marketing steps:
- Creating awareness
- Making connections
- Asking for the sale
Keep your eye on these three simple elements at all times. Doing so will make a world of difference in your pursuit of indie music success.
Music Matters 