Working with Be On The Scene, I am faced with a lot of
questions from performers on how to market themselves in the ever growing
industry. Now as I am no expert, I thought I would share an article written by Carina
Westling of Imagem, who appeared as a guest author on DIY Musician Blog.
Imagen is an independent music publishing company
that manages artists like Vampire Weekend and Justin Timberlake.
Carina explains three tips on how to successfully
market your music in a step by step article focused on the musician as an individual.
I hope you find this as insightful as I have and you are one step closer to
achieving your goals.
lets begin-
How do I successfully market my music?
If you want to get anywhere as a songwriter or
a performer, it’s crucial that you learn how to market yourself and your music. The issue is, occasionally a songwriter
will get a “lucky break” with his or her music and fall into fame and fortune
without having put in much effort. When that happens, every other songwriter on
earth thinks that’s the way to make it happen. You just have to be lucky. After
all, we all want a quick fix, right?
However, if you’re serious about being
successful with your music, that’s not much of a strategy. I want to give you
three important pointers on how you can be much more likely to achieve your
songwriting goals, based on how you market your music and yourself as a
musician.
1. Speak to One Person
Of course as a songwriter you want to appeal
to the masses. You want a ton of people hearing, sharing and loving your music.
I get that. But one thing you have to realize when you’re marketing
yourself is it’s best to address a single person to increase the odds
of getting their attention.
For example, let’s say
you signed up for a band’s email list at one of their shows. Which of the
following opening email lines would be more likely to grab your attention as a
reader?
A. “Hey Guys – We wanted to
thank you all for coming out to our last show. We appreciated you guys being
there and hope you can make it out to our next show at…”
OR
B. “Hey Bob – We wanted to
thank you for coming out to our last show. We appreciated you being there and
hope you can make it out to our next show at…”
Doesn’t the second one feel much more like
it’s directed at you, specifically (well, assuming your name’s Bob)? The second
one’s much more likely to get your reader’s attention. There’s a
subconscious detachment that happens when we read phrases like “hey all you
guys.” It makes us feel like just a face in a crowd, and we zone out.
But when we’re spoken to directly, we’re much more likely to respond.
To get good at this technique, a great
marketing approach is to create an avatar of your typical fan. Write out the
name, age, gender, occupation, etc., of one of your fans. It can be someone
made-up, who you feel represents your fan base appropriately, or it can be an
actual fan of yours. Every time you write an email, tweet, or Facebook post,
keep that person in mind. Pretend you’re writing to him only and not to
everyone on the internet. It’ll help you keep your writings engaging for
everyone who reads them, because while saying things like “Hello Cleveland” is
kick-ass on-stage, it just doesn’t apply when you’re marketing yourself.
2. Give Value
Another big mistake a lot of songwriters make
is they don’t make their promotions all about their fans. They make them about
themselves. They say things like “We would really appreciate it if you came out
to our show. It would mean so much to us.” That’s inwardly focused. It may work
on their mom and siblings, but it just won’t appeal to someone who’s a casual
observer of the band. In fact, it’ll probably turn that casual observer off,
because it’s such a self-serving statement.
Another phrase I see a lot of songwriter’s
write when promoting their stuff is “hey check out my songs, and let me know
what you think.” There are two reasons this phrase is a bad idea: 1. Again,
it’s self-serving. It’s all about the artist who posted it, which means other
people aren’t likely to care. And, 2. It’s disingenuous. They probably don’t
really want to know what you think, UNLESS you love it. If you hate their music,
they’re not going to want you posting that on their page. I recommend staying
away from that phrase altogether in online postings. It does the exact opposite
of giving value.
Instead, talk about the benefits they’ll have
by coming out to a show or buying one of your albums. Let them know why
it’ll be a positive experience for THEM. People respond to what makes
them feel good, so make them feel good. Don’t just talk about yourself.
Everyone’s favorite topic is themselves. Not someone else. Use that piece of
information to your advantage when you’re inviting someone to a show or to buy
your music.
3. Build Relationships
One of the best ways to market your music is
to build relationships. This applies not only to people who can help advance
your career, like club owners and bigger bands, but with your fans as well.
As far as building relationships with your
fans, if you were in the crowd for a band’s show, wouldn’t you be much more
likely to come to another show if the band members engaged you in some pleasant
conversation afterwards? If you get your fans on your email list, you
can continue the relationship, by offering them cool stuff in your emails.
And as far promoters, bigger bands, etc., who
can help your career along, building relationships with them, is key as well.
You’ve heard the phrase “it’s all who you know.” Well start knowing people. But
again, it’s about them. Don’t try to build relationships with people by seeing
what they can do for you. No one will want to deal with you. Just be cool and
get to know people. Later on down the line, you might able to ask for things,
and it’ll be okay because you’ll have that relationship. But start out just by
getting to know them, and even see if there’s anything you can do for them. If
people like you and get to know you, they’ll be much more likely to want to
help you succeed.
The opposite of building relationships would
be to spam people online. This includes sending emails to people who didn’t ask
to receive them and posting your music on sites that weren’t looking for it to
be posted there. Things like that will only aggravate people, and possibly even
get you blocked from the sites you want to be on. You’re doing the opposite of
building relationships.
The problem is, most songwriters think in
numbers. They think “that Facebook page has 20,000 fans. If I post my music
there, SOMEONE will hear it, and I’ll get famous.” What’s much more likely to
happen, is you’re just going to annoy the owner of the page. Think about how
you feel when random people you don’t know post their stuff to your page.
Instead, try to develop a relationship with the owner of the page. Maybe he’ll
eventually promote your music to his page, if it’s good. And if not, that’s
fine too.
Last Note
Marketing your music and yourself as an artist
is crucial to your success as a songwriter. It’s just as important as
understating songwriting, stage performance, recording and theory. Actually,
it’s probably more important, if you want songwriting to be more than just your
hobby. So use this information to avoid some unnecessary mistakes throughout
your journey to success and have fun.
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