Band Marketing Beyond Myspace

[brandondrury]

This was sent to me via PM.

brandon, i needed to ask you this qestion personally.
my band would like to set it up where anyone would be able to download our music for free, all they would have to do is give us an email address and their location. I know myspace and pure volume are big places to do stuff like that but we were looking for a way to increase our footprint in cyberspace. what kind of advice would you recommend.

We are in a tricky time. Giving away "free music" for an email is not much different than a guy giving away free sex to women in exchange for an email. While it COULD be a good experience for the girl, I don't see many girls jumping based on that alone and I don't see many people just rushing to your site to download your songs. There are a million trillion bands that already give away their music for free. Even the really good bands out there who do have great music out there for free don't excite many people simply because they haven't provided an experience to go along with the music. The "characters" aren't developed we could say. It's just another song, or worse...."sound".

So how do you stand out in the current climate? This is the real question and one in which requires a lot of work and a lot of creativity.

I'm a big believer in the idea that music marketing is best if it isn't self serving. For example, no one gives a shit when they hear "download our music for free". However, "guess this dancer's bra size" tends to get more attention. Instead our stripper friend dancing to Motley Crue, she dances to the bands music. Then you offer some kind of prize. Obviously, we don't have to focus on everyone's past time (sex) but the concept can work from everything from lawnmowers to clocks. It just takes some creativity hitting the right audience.

I've always said that friends come to shows. Friends buy cds. So you really need to put together the kind of promotion that can make you a lot more friends. When you have quite a few friend and you play music that EXCITES those friends, word of mouth will generally kick in. However, if the music kinda/sorta excites your friends they'll come anyway, but forget about word of mouth. No music marketing approach has ever worked without word of mouth. At least none that I'm aware of. So your music needs to be good enough that strangers react VERY positively to it even if they don't know you.

This is a start. I could write a crappy book about my observations on this topic, but I've never bothered really marketing a band so who knows if I'm dead wrong.

Brandon

[Roo]

Myspace certainly is an excellent online medium to publicize your band, considering people can randomly stumble upon you, tell a couple of friends, who then tell a couple of friends... etc. Many artists have exploded out of Myspace into touring across the globe.
Another medium of course is YouTube, which is equally as effective. Similarly, putting up small videos of your band performing (preferably with good sound quality for obvious reasons) and attain a fan-base there.
Just like how I'm learning about Audio Engineering, what you think you know is really the tip of the iceburg - maybe a little speck of snow at its highest point. So many bands I see these days are using VERY creative ways of publicizing themselves - all in an effort to just gain awareness of their band.
I'm currently taking Marketing courses in university, and it's really giving some really great insight to how you can gain awareness on different geographical scales. Many of course take time and money, which is where the internet has so thoughtfully stepped in and provided an unlimited abundance of opportunity at the price of our ISP costs (if any, who knows). But there is a real world out there, and while the internet is such a cost-friendly way of letting people listen to some samples of your free tracks, it doesn't always quite keep the potential fan-base.

For instance, personally I believe that bands can be all they can be on MySpace, Youtube, whatever - but it really all boils down to (like Brandon said) word of mouth. Live performances tend to be a very large driver of this, for every concert I've seen I have probably told at least 20 people about it - and those of them who hadn't heard of the group or artist I insisted on driving some of their songs into them.
I think more live shows have made me a fan of an artist rather than an online page has. Then the problem is, how do I get people out to my shows? Investment, money and time. It's clear that many bands have started out in someone's garage, and they truly believed that people would dig their sound. So, they invested, probably dumped their day-jobs, spent stupid amounts of money on publicity and took more risks (and made more mistakes) than they could count.

You can go with a lot of old-school things that everybody knows works: flyers (oh how many hours i've spent running around my hometown with tape and posters), facebook events (new-school to some, old to others), giving out free wearable merch, bug local radio stations to listen to some of your tracks and play them, and most importantly: Free Shows! Playing for free in large events is great because: (A) The audience is already there, even if they might not all be your target audience, but word of mouth spreads, old people actually talk to young people sometimes (B) It makes you feel moral, perhaps for once haha (C) It gives people the notion that you are not completely self-concerned, and love just playing the music you love. Of course, you will inevitably get noticed and get asked to play for more charitable causes, which is great and will further increase your audiences, but eventually when you start developing a fan-base who can fill some kind of concert hall, you can't undersell yourself to free shows too much - perhaps just on special occasions.

You've got to spend money to make money and survive on your art, and unfortunately you really can't be a musician these days without being an entrepreneur and doing your homework on what you're getting into. Learning from others' experiences help, but making your own mistakes in how your organize and publicize your band is crucial to its development and making the right decisions when your job as a musician is on the line.

I tend to swing in and out of the criteria for answering the question, but im sure people might be able to take something out of it anyway

[maestoso]

thanks roo. that is more along the lines of what we are leaning towards. our problem or better yet situation is we are not starving musicians, and we are trying to work smarter not harder. we KNOW there is no money in what we are doing and we have to spend more than we will ever make. Another thing is we are older and in an image and age biased culture(as far as mainstream music is) we really need to pull in a niche. Also living in MONTANA, makes it harder to get other fans, but with internet marketing other than myspace, purevolume etc. we could increase our footprint we have put money into taxi
tunecore and soon airplay direct.

[ferguson66]

81 views of this thread and we still do not know where to go to learn about yourband or listen to your music. Take every opportunity to get your name and music out there I guess is what I am saying.

[maestoso]

NO SHT! duh sorry!
MySpace.com - THE CRAVED (Now Available on Rhapsody) - Great Falls, Montana - Punk / Alternative / Garage - www.myspace.com/thecraverock
urSESSION - THE_CRAVED - GREAT FALLS - United States
rhapsody
itunes(supposed to be)
taxi