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English · Tips

How To Get Your Project Marketed & Promoted

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Allen_20Johnston

Article by Allen L.  Johnston – The Music Specialist
http://www.asha.com

Online marketing and promotion has changed once again, and for you readers that imagine you can get it right one time and make a huge fan base “FORGET ABOUT IT”.  Getting your music, film or fashion project marketed today takes a combination of hard work, online technology and physical networking.

ONLINE

You have a FaceBook page, ReverbNation account, Twitter account and email but still you don’t have REAL fans or sales.  Having people “like” your page does not create fans and the new “Pay for fan” services are doing an injustice to the emerging artist.  The biggest online marketing fault I see is communication.  Once you make initial contact with a fan you must continue to let them know that you care.

Contact                             

Make initial contact with your fan and be courteous

Re-Contact

Become a regular communication person with your fan, find out what they desire in your product and what you can do to increase this desire.

Inform

Give information on your project and on yourself, keep your fan informed of new developments within your organization and new ways of communicating with you.

Give Away

Everybody likes FREE STUFF so make sure that you have something free for your fan on a periodic timetable.  This can be a free video of you speaking, performing or traveling, a photo, a mp3 or mp4, a chance to win tickets to your show, a private event, etc..

Re-Connect

Stay in touch with your fan often and personalize your communications, happy fans BUY stuff.

Design a plan for your business that includes honesty, uplifted morals and professionalism.  Then treat your customer with respect and you will find that you will have endearing fans

You must still get out and be visual, play gigs, shake hands, make friends and make a fantastic project.

Remember that today’s promotion is direct to consumer especially via mobile delivery, video, photos and streaming is now the norm.

Physical Network

Hotep – an Atlanta entrepreneur and entrepreneurial speaker says “Your Network is your Net Worth”

The best way to network with Industry professionals is face to face and conferences still provide the best availability for the least amount of finance.  Be careful before you sign up for any industry conference.  Honest companies will promote WHO they have as panelists, WHAT the panelists will be speaking on, WHERE and WHEN.  Recently I have seen advertising for the NEW JACK THE RAPPER Conference.  This is so misleading for the advertising speaks incorrectly about the accomplishments of “Jockey Jack Gipson” and implies that this conference will continue the tradition.  Upon closer scrutiny ALL this conference offered was promises of a conference without any solid information, of course it offered a way to send its owners money.  Absolutely no information on attendees, panelists, panel times, past affiliations or even information on WHO the organizing company is.  I totally take offense to the inference that this will be a conference even similar to JACK THE RAPPER’S FAMILY AFFAIR.

Music Conferences today have become big business for the individuals and companies that put them on.  Almost every conference created has an educational component, a seminar, panel discussion or technical workshop. Here lays the problem, why pay good money to come to a conference with positive seminars and not attend?  Every conference I have attended in the United States this year has had more night time attendees for parties and performances than daytime seminar attendees.

In Europe it is the complete opposite.  Conference attendees come for business during the day in droves.  Panels are packed and private meetings are scheduled.   Let me give you a few ideas on how to become more productive at your next conference.

 

Rules To Work Conferences

1. Research Your Conference – Know who is going to be at the event you will be attending.  Read the Schedule in advance and determine who you want to meet and WHY you want to meet them.

2. Schedule Meetings – Try and reach companies, executives, publicists and other artists prior to the event and schedule private meeting times to discuss your MUTUAL interests.  Email works when used properly for communication, so PLEASE spell correctly.

3. Speak Correctly – Leave the urban street based conversations at home.  This is a business and professionals will be attending and speaking on the seminars.  Lose the phrase “You know what I mean?” and the phrase “You feel me?”  Say what you mean upfront and be prepared to explain yourself.  The way you speak in the “trap” is not going to get you anywhere in the entertainment BUSINESS environment.

4. Take a Shower – Partying the night before is NOT an excuse to have bad breath or body odor.  Make the effort to bathe BEFORE you come to the seminar.  You never know who you will be standing next to.  By the way dousing yourself in perfume or cologne is NOT bathing.

5. Be on Time, awake, attentive and prepared – Walking into seminar fashionably late shows disrespect for the other attendees and to the seminar speakers.  It also says that maybe a professional does not want to work with you because you didn’t think enough of their time to hear them from the very beginning.

6. Take notes – Just like you were back in school.  This is how you remember some of the information that will be disseminated.  Plus this is how you can keep names and numbers straight, while you write down any questions you may have.

7. Have Business Cards Available – name, email, website, phone number, mailing address and a representation of what you do. (Logo, business name, etc.)

8.  Receive Business Cards – When you give a card, receive a card.  Take the card in both of your hands if possible; read it before you put it away.  This business card is the beginning of your entertainment industry database, treat it with esteem.

9. Carry a Camera – Take photos of the panelists to help you remember who was who.  And take as many photos with other people as you can.  Email them back to the person and use this as a starting point for a great business relationship.

10. Be Polite and Courteous – You want and need to advance your career, the worst thing you can do is to disrespect and upset a professional.  This means NOT telling a DJ off for not playing your music,  DJ’s TALK TO EACH OTHER and so do distributors, store buyers, publicists, record exec’s, club owners and almost everyone else that is a professional.

11. Follow Up – email, telephone, regular mail and do ALL of these things consistently.  It is true that the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

12. Have An Online Presentation – FaceBook is good for starters however you do need your own website that allows viewers to find out more about you and your talent.  You should also create MP3’s of your material for sending and for downloading.  If you have a visual talent, create video for web usage.

English · Tips

7 Steps To Having A Great Album/CD Release Party

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CD_autolev_crop_new

Article by Allen Johnston

Within the past few weeks I have been invited to several Album / CD Release parties and a recurring theme is happening.  The artists and their management companies are getting it ALL WRONG.

Here are a few rules to make your CD Release party effective and profitable.

Check Your Invitation List

If you are inviting your relatives, friends and fans you are NOT having a CD Release party.  The primary reasoning behind a CD Release event is to get as much press, media, radio, TV and online media writers to review and promote your music.  Anything else is self-defeating and a waste of time, energy and money.

Advance Preparation is critical

Determine the place where you will be having your event, scout the location, setup prior to your event and check sound, lights, seating and acoustics.
Know which area you will be preforming in and where you will greet your guests for one on one autograph and photos.

Choose your team wisely, they will represent you

The team that you have should be able to make your event easy and comfortable for you or your artist.  Have enough qualified people around so that your guests feel pampered and their minds are solely on the music.  VIP guests should be escorted into the event, directly to their table, where they can have the option of seating or mingling with other guests.

Keep solid publicity

Having a person send out an email blast without being able to get you phone interviews, video interviews, print reviews of your project and online blog interviews is NOT having a publicist. Hire a publicist who can develop your guest list and make sure that you have a quality follow up after the event.  A publicist should be able to write the documents, press releases, informational sheets and in some cased the reviews of your cd.  This same person needs the ability to contact and invite music reviewers, bloggers, radio & television executives, announcers, DJ’s, print media, videographers, and photographers.   After the event your publicist becomes extremely important for you want the world to know about your project.  Make sure that you have copies of any and all footage taken at your event, any interviews recorded and tons of photos.

Be Personal

Take the time to speak to EVERYONE who has come out to be a part of your release party.   They took the time to visit you and listen to your music, YOU take the time to be one on one and place a positive face to your music.  The worst thing you can do is to be a DIVA and not speak friendly to everyone; these are the people that will talk blog, write, review and ultimately play your music to the public.  Piss one of them off and you may not be able to reach any of them again.

Your Presentation is Crucial

Practice your performance in front of mirrors before you get on a stage telling the world how great you are.  Know what you look like holding a microphone, how to move and address your audience, even if you can’t sing well.  Engage your audience and make them a part of your show, happy people make for happy cd reviews.

 Don’t sell your CD at your release party

You have invited press and media and then you tell them that they can buy your cd? That really means that you hold them in contempt and they are no longer interested in you or your project.  Every person that has taken the time to come to your release party should have a complete package on you when they leave, which includes bio, photo, CD and a personalized thank you card.

Reaching the largest audience with a positive message that increase your revenue is the ultimate final result of a GREAT CD RELEASE PARTY.

 

English · This & That · Tips

A New Strategy For Your Music

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Article by Lars Deutsch

www.larsdeutsch.net

 I have attended numerous events with titles such as “Which Brand Fits Your Band” or  “How To Get Your Song on TV”, where experts talk about the right color for a CD sleeve, how to wine and dine music supervisors or how to use social media.  After events like this, musicians go out and spend money for promotion and spend more time on the internet than with their band or instrument.  The end result is they find themselves at exactly the same place a year later.

Maybe it is not time yet to use your last cash to master your songs, hire a publicist, get more photos, shoot a video, etc…   All products need the right photos, packaging and campaign to be successful.  However, these steps make sense only if you actually have a working product. Unfortunately, even the most talented artists and bands usually do not have that product.

Before anyone could just record at home, bands played their songs hundreds of times in rehearsals and on stage.  It took real people in a real room.  The songs grew and changed with the band, and there was time for feedback and fine-tuning.  In an ideal scenario a band would bring their best songs to the studio, where a producer would work with the band to get these songs in even better shape.  A good producer would not only record what was handed to him, but provide input on instrumentation, performance and storytelling.  An experienced arranger could add a little magic by writing a delicate string arrangement echoing the melody.  A good recording engineer would then track the songs and mix the music, while the producer kept his eye on the bigger picture.

Today, it is often one person in a bedroom studio recording an unpolished idea and then trying to immediately push it into the market.  There is no time to mature, no feedback and no pool of experts. So when I meet an artist who is struggling to get placements or develop his or her career, I always encounter exactly the same issue:  the material is simply not good enough.

Often the songs contain great ideas, but vocal phrasing, arrangement and harmonic control (to list just a few points) are not up to a professional standard.  To this day, I have not heard a single “homemade” ballad with a solid string arrangement.  Yet almost all the ballads on the radio have solid string arrangements.

Your songs are the core of all your plans as an artist.  They deserve the best.  They deserve more attention.   

Your favorite singer or artist might be a great performer, but the reason the material sounds polished and “finished” is because of the team of experts behind each song.  You will see the same producers, arrangers and engineers on a number of successful albums for a reason – because they are the experts your favorite artist needs and trusts.

I will never be a great singer and I need someone better than me to sing my songs.  Chances are you need someone who understands songwriting and production better than you in order to get your material to the next level.

I don’t want to compete with people who focus full-time on developing their voice and stage persona.  So why would you want to compete with people who have developed their craft full-time over many years?  Just like I get help from a singer, you can get help to get your material in shape.  An artist needs grooming and objective feedback.  This is why bands such as U2 and Coldplay rely on Brian Eno for conceptual thinking, Daniel Lanois for musicianship, two engineers and a string arranger.

Here is my recipe for quality:

Go back to the standard process before home recording.  Perform your songs, let them mature, do demos and build a team.

From a producer’s standpoint, it takes a thorough pre-production with an artist who is willing to polish every note, regardless of whether this process is outside of his or her comfort zone.  It also takes an artist who is willing to fight for a vision and at the same time understands that good communication is all about the listener.  Both artist and producer need to be open to trying new things and to keep going until both are pleased with the result.

To sum it up:

Save your money.  Do not book a studio (yet), do not print 1000 CDs, do not hire a publicist and do not spend the time you should be practicing using social media to promote your unfinished product.  Spend your money to study songwriting and composition and / or work with someone who has the training, a solid track record as a songwriter and who has successfully coached and produced artists.  This might cost some money, but the up-front costs will save you time and money in the long run.

Once you have developed a number of songs that are so well-written and tight that they work in a simple acoustic form, you can take the next step and create a detailed demo.  After all the issues are ironed out and you have all the parts arranged, you can enter a studio or start the real recording.

All social media, CD sleeves and band pics come after that.