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| AMEG |
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How to Promote your
Music on the Internet |
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Online tactics and strategies
for creating
awareness | |
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I
don't think
we
have to tell you that as an independent artist and
unsigned artist in today's music environment the
Internet is without doubt one of, if not
the
most, powerful strategy
for marketing your music that you could possibly
employ. With the playing field level'd for
independent musicians and artists, any hard working band
can create a major buzz on the Internet. There are
many unknown indie artists who have used this medium to
their full advantage and have gone from a relatively
unknown, unsigned artist to stardom utilizing online and
digital tactics.
In
this brief video clip Jerry Goolsby professor of music
marketing at Loyola University explains why the Internet
is a powerful medium to promote your
music
Although
it's not brain surgery and a lot of the techniques are
pretty easy to employ and in most cases very inexpensive
(not to mention the multitude of free advertising) a lot
of indie musicians still do not know where to
begin. Like any other marketing plan of attack you
must first map out your strategy.
Put a
digital marketing plan together.
Organize your thoughts and marketing
efforts. |
 
| If you are not organized and do not
have a mapped out, step by step, plan of action your music
marketing and music promotion efforts will be scattered all
over the place. What usually happens in this event is
"nothing". You are so overwhelmed with ideas and half
completed marketing campaigns that you wind up getting nothing
done. The effort is half baked and not effective.
As
an independent artist or independent band you have a huge
opportunity to create awareness for your project on the
Internet. As much of an opportunity as any other
artist; Hence, you need to take full advantage
of this music marketing medium. A qualified professional Internet music
marketing consultant or a manager can assist and
facilitate the entire campaign. Beginning with analyzing
your current level of development, and your particular
scenario as an artist. Then preparing, writing, and
putting into place your plan of
attack.
If
you are self-funded and on a shoestring budget, we highly
recommend MusicSubmit. This is a
great, inexpensive, easy to use submission service that gets
your message out to thousands of Internet music media
outlets. So if time and money is an issue as it usually
is with most hard working independent artists, we highly
recommend you checking them out. Just click on the
message below and take a look-see:
Here are some strategies you can do
yourself as a DIY independent
artist.
The
Strategies are Endless:
Your Online EPK (Electronic
Press Kit)
Needless to say, you need two versions of your press
kit. A traditional paperback version for snail-mailings,
and an EPK (Electricronic Press Kit) for promoting
yourself or your band on the Internet. It is crucial in
today's digital world that you have an electronic press kit as
well as a traditional music press kit. when you are doing your
Internet marketing. Having an EPK allows you to save an
enormous amount of time and money and they have become a well
accepted medium in the industry.. It's so much easier
just to send venues, promoters, media outlets, and labels a
link to your online press kit then it is to put together a
physical package and mail it.
There is a few
different versions of the EPK out there but the most popular
and widly accepted EPK is Sonicbids. Sonicbids is the
website that helps bands get gigs and promote themselves
online. Join now free for festivals,
contests, licensing and more. You can email your Sonicbids EPK with
confidence that it will be immediately reconized and accepted
by venues, promoters, media, etc. So make good use
of your EPK. Prominently diplay the link to your
press kit from your official website, and
your myspace website. The best part about this
form of music promotion is that it can be utilized in your
email marketing efforts and is quickly becoming the industry
standard for online music
promotion.
|
Sonicbids -
The EPK used by over 160,000 Independent
Artists
 |
Write your digital music marketing
plan
This
is essential in your overall strategy. Your
music marketing plan will be used to lay out your plan of
action for marketing you or your band but it can also be used
for seeking the "ALL IMPORTANT" investment money that can be
used for serious promotion. This being said you should
include elements that may not be pertinent to you or the band
as ways to promote yourself but what you'll have is an overall
music marketing plan that can assist greatly in attracting
investment backers in your career.
A
good marketing
plan includes the following elements. Ask yourself
first, where do you want to be in 6 months, one year, and 3
years as an artist or band. Be clear, truthful,
realistic, and concise, with yourself. Write it
down.
The
music marketing plan should be professionally laid out and
prepared mainly because you may want to use this to entice
potential investors. A plan that can be used to employ
your plan of attack and also attract investors should include
the following:
Include a
band member summary: Each band member’s individual bio
outlining their musical background and experience then
write down the marketing strategies you plan on employing in
the order of implementation. Note under each category
the methods you'll use, how you plan to finance them,
resources you will use for the strategy, if you are in a
band you may want to share the duties so you must write down
the delegation process. Here is more detail
of the elements necessary in your music marketing
plan
Official Website
Marketing
Vigorously promote your official
website, which if you don't have one, you should, Pay
attention to this. Just about every independent band has a
myspace site which has become a staple for any artist
online. However, any professional band of any
significance also has their official home on the web ... the
official site. This is where you brand yourself online. This
sets you apart from all others. It raises you up to
a higher level in that it exhumes professionalism of a band
that's going somewhere. Although design and
functionality ability on myspace has come along way, it is
still a networking website whereby
you should market and have
fans visit your official site. It is still no
substitute for your official site where you have total
control. If you do not have a professionally designed
and highly functional official website, you should. If
you need one developed at a very reasonable price, we
recommend you contact us for a
quote.
Myspace and other online
marketing
Although your myspace,
purevolume, broadjam, facebook, etc. site
should not take the place of your official website, it
is still pretty much a must in your online music
marketing efforts. You should have one.
Myspace if used properly as a networking website can be
highly effective and create a tremendous amount of
awareness for your project. Labels, venues,
promoters, etc. still in a lot of instances judge you by
your myspace popularity. There are many ways to
market your myspace and generate
friends and more importantly plays. Promoting your
myspace site should be an everyday occurrence in your
effort to promote yourself online. This nifty
eBook can walk you through all the
strategies on how to properly market your myspace site
for maximum exposure |
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Mailing List / Fan
Newsletter
Do you have an electronic mailing list? If you don't you need
to get on the stick. A mailing list and/or digital
newsletter for fans who have opt in to receive email alerts
from you is an unbelievable tool for getting the word out on
shows, tours, new merch, news, etc.
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You must
constantly interact and keep in touch with your
fans. You must show them you value them as a
friend and fan. An effective mailing list or
newsletter will keep fans informed, bring more people
out to your shows, sell more CDs and merchandise.
Not to mention create fan loyalty. Having an
electronic mailing list developed with a database and
all the necessary elements needed to be attractive and
effective can be a daunting and expensive task.
|
There
are Internet companies out there that will completely develop
and manage your fan list for pennies a
month. Yup ... They do it all
for you. The most popular and most
effective fan mailing list that we have come across is Fanbridge. This is the fan list
management system that we endorse and recommend to
our artists exclusively. Here's a brief
overview:FanBridge – Is Free Email and Mobile list management for bands
FanBridge gives bands the tools and resources needed to easily
build their email and mobile fan lists and create/send highly
customizable and targeted campaigns and newsletters via email
and text messaging, all from one account!
With FanBridge.com you can:
- Create custom signup forms for your website, MySpace, PureVolume, etc.
- Have all your fan info in a single searchable database
- Schedule campaigns/newsletters/text messages to be sent in the future
- Geo-target campaigns/newsletter to specific areas along your tour route
- Separate your fans into custom groups (and target messages to these
groups)
- Easily collect emails at your merch table
(with the merch table signup program)
- And much more!
You can signup for your FREE account now at Fanbridge
Build and grow
your mailing list. It may be one of the
most valuable tools in your arsenal.
Digital Music
Distribution
In-Store retail product
distribution is awesome. We all know that. If you
can get it, you certainly have done more than most other
independent artists. However, the playing field has been
leveled. With the Internet, any indie artist can now
distribute and sell their music online through digital
downloads. There are literally thousands of eMusic
portals where you can sell digital downloads. For those on a
shoestring budget, this is the most popular way to go. There
is the ever-popular iTunes.com, Napster, Rhapsody, Amazon,
etc. the list is endless. There are a couple ways
to make your music available on these portals. You can
deal with each one individually or you can hook up with a
distributor that will get your music to all of them such as
CDbaby.com or Tunecore.com. However,
getting your music on these Internet portals is the easy part
... getting people there to buy your downloads is the
trick. This is where you must implement the marketing,
and link strategies that will facilitate your sales.
Cyber publicity, reviews, links, newsletter, and more will
help to facilitate this. If you would like some advice on
this, contact us.
Cyber publicity
Without
publicity, your music career can "pass you by like a ship
in the night" . Creating the necessary awareness
for your project is crucial if you really hope to
succeed. But traditional publicity can be extremely
expensive. However, there are ways to do your own
publicity and there are very effective - low cost cyber
publicists out there that specialize in Internet
publicity. Having your CD reviewed on high-profile
Internet music media portals can be very effective and draw
traffic to your digital download sites. Feature
articles, interviews, etc, are just as effective. You
can arrange all this
yourself with a
lot of diligence and hard work and one of the best
possible resources to independent DIY artists, the
Indie
Bible. The Indie Bible lists THOUSANDS of places where
you can get your music REVIEWED and your songs PLAYED on the
radio. ALL
genres of music are
covered!
The contacts listed
are music reviewers and radio personalities from around the
world that will listen to your music, and if they like it,
will present it to their readers and listeners. The Indie
Bible shows you where to promote your music, regardless of
your musical style, and will save you MONTHS of valuable
time! Truly the Indie
musician's bible for
Promotion!!
But sometimes as an unknown
independent artist it's not always easy to get the
attention you deserve with the insurmountable amount of
competition out there. There are millions of independent
bands seeking this exposure. That is why you may want to stick to the creative end of your
career and leave the publicity and promotion to a professional
firm ... one that won't rape your finances and kill your
budget. We hands-down highly recommend Arial Hyatt
of Arial
Publicity. Arial and her firm have been around for a
while, specializing in cyber publicity, and have the
industry connections and ability to create tremendous
awareness for your project on the Internet. They have the
ability to break through the barriers, and have a repoir with
the significant music journalists that will feature you as an
artist. So you may be thinking ... Hummm ...
We're on a shoestring budget and this sounds expensive.
Well maybe not-so ... If you want a pleasant surprise
check out Arial
Cyber Publicity.
Internet radio
play
There are numerous Internet radio
stations that will be willing to play your music online.
Gaining online radio play is a lot easier than trying to get
traditional terrestrial radio play and in the digital age, it
may even be just as, if not more, effective. The fact
that Internet portals playing your music can easily relate,
and link to your websites, and digital download portals, makes
Internet radio play very attractive. It can be as easy
as just contacting Internet radio stations that specialize in
unsigned indie music. A lot of these stations are
looking for great independent music. A good reasonably
priced cyber publicist
can also hook you up with Internet radio play. If you do
your Music Promotion with musicSUBMIT.com! they
guarantee radio play results. They are highly effective and
extremely affordable.
Banner
advertising
Banner advertising on high-profile
Internet music media portals can be very effective in driving
traffic to your websites and creating awareness throughout the
music community for your project. Although there is a
cost to do this, it's relatively inexpensive for the amount of
exposure you can get. Some media portals charge only
$20. - $30. bucks for 10,000 banner impressions. This
form of marketing is just another in your overall promotion
strategy that should be considered in order to enhance your
overall effort. It should not be used as a primary
focus. Because after all, if you advertise
on many Internet media portals, it could eventually
start to get a little pricey. The AMEG Advertising
Network for indie artists is a reasonable high exposure
alternative to other more-expensive advertising. For
less than a dollar a day, you can place your banner in
significant sections of our network. Gaining exposure to
new fans (creating awareness and selling music) and
music industry professionals that frequent the AMEG website
networks. Artists and bands advertising on the AMEG
network get their CD reviewed and are placed in our featured
artist section. Take a look at what you get and the very reasonable
advertising fees.
Digital press
releases
Distributing press releases to
online music editors is a great strategy for getting the
word out. You should consider doing
a press release for a new product release, a tour, or some new and
exciting news. Editors will only consider relevant,
professionally written press releases for publication
consideration. The story must be newsworthy so make sure
you send in only relevant press and make sure that you
are sending it to the correct media editor. There are
various press release writing
and distribution
services that you can use. We highly recommend
that you do your Music Promotion with
musicSUBMIT.com!
Online
interviews
As
in the traditional print media, interviews can be a very
valuable form of marketing yourself. Fans want to know
all about you. A good interview will generate a lot of
awareness. There are a multitude of Internet media
outlets that interview independent artists. In an
interview you can talk about your influences, tours, and a new
CD. Unlike traditional print, where your web address may
be in there, the best part about an online interview is the
links to your websites, and digital download portals making it
easy for a fan to buy your music if they like the
interview. Interviews are a valuable form of
marketing. You can contact these portals, send in a
press kit and request an interview. Although, again,
it's not easy with the amount of competition trying to do the
same thing. A good cyber publicist
can facilitate these interviews for you if you are finding it
difficult.
Music Blogging
As you
might know, blogging has become very popular on the
Internet. It used to be that people would post blogs
just to express themselves or their opinion. Not so much
anymore. Blogging about your music can be a very good
way to gain more exposure and get into the fans hearts and
interact with them. There are many ways to bog for free
and are portals that can set up your blog instantly such as
wordpress.com, blogger.com,, blogspot.com, and many
more. Another good thing about blogging is that fans can
subscribe through an RSS feed and get your message sent
directly to their desktop every time you post a new blog. As
another part of marketing yourself and your product
online you should blog along with all other forms of music
marketing. This is a great way to get you out
there.
Music
Forums
Getting involved in the online
music community and posting
relevant posts on music forums is another great form of
creating awareness. There are subtle ways to post news
about your project on these online forums without being
blatant about the fact that you are trying to market you and
your product. Getting involved with superior online music
communities for indie artists is also a great way
to get involved and get yourself out there. One of the
very best we have found is Artistopia
- Indie Music Heaven Artistopia is the place for independent artists
to manage and advance their careers via music marketing and
productivity tools, peer-to-peer and peer-to-industry
collaboration, and fan base ramp-up and communication. Join
today for free! is one of the best you may want to
consider:
SEO tactics and link
strategies
Optimizing all of your
websites to be search engine friendly is something
else you should consider doing. Although the likelyhood
of this helping a great deal in your particular niche may or
may not mean very much. But it sure can't hurt.
Having your website come up on top at google or yahoo
when someone does a search for "Great indie music" is always a
plus. Although search engine optimization technology is
not easy and best left to the
experts. To really do this right, it can be
expensive. So, although it would be nice, if you're on a
shoestring budget maybe you should set this tactic aside for
now. On another note however, link campaigns are usually
free and can generate a great deal of new fans to your website
if placed on the right portals. There are many online
music communities that allow you to place a link and
description to your website. Search around the Internet
and look for invitations to add your link. Whenever you
see one, take advantage of it. A great deal of external
links from other websites to yours also makes your site more
attractive to the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or
MSN. So if you have some time on your hands, this is a
good strategy. If you can manage to get your CD reviewed
on a high profile portal that links to your website, this is a
major plus. You can find thousands of music media
portals that will review your CD in the Indie Bible.
Online feature articles and
reviews
An extremely powerful form of
online marketing is obtaining feature articles and reviews on
your band. As stated above, this task can be very
difficult for the unknown indie artist
with all the competition that you have to deal with. But
if you are lucky enough to have online music media
websites review your CD, or write a feature article on your
band it can bring a good return. Get involved with
high profile music
communities and
they will be more likely to write a feature on you or review
your material. Again, it's not easy and may be better
left to a professional
publicist to facilitate
features and reviews. There are also many online firms
that will submit your music to a
variety of music media websites. You may want to do this
to save tons of time and stick to the creative end if you have
a couple bucks to spare.
Podcasting
A podcast is a series
of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet
using syndication feeds for playback on portable media
players and computers. The term podcast, like
broadcast can refer either to the series of content
itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter
is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is
often called a podcaster. Podcasting can be used to send
out a live performance over the Internet, conduct an
interview, or can be used for promoting the band in
general. Podcasting takes a bit of technical expertise
to put together but it's really not that difficult.
Showcasing to labels
online
The all important showcase
........ But how to you get labels to listen to you
online. No easy ... most of the time when you have
created a story, sold records, and have a good history, they
will find you. One thing you may want to consider doing
is place your muci on internet portals that generally work
with the labels. In other words, a portal that is
frequented by label A&R. They're not easy to find
but they are out there. You just have to search for
them.
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