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1. Awareness

This is the crucial first step. You really can’t do much with the next two stages until
you’re getting results from this stage. Obviously, exposure is your main goal.
But before fans, the media and other people in the music business can help you,
they need to be aware of you. They need to be familiar with your name and the type of sound you create.

As you’ll read in a number of my blogs, there are certain things you need to do before you march out into the world and start promoting yourself. First, you need to:

• Define who you are as an artist.

• Determine who your ideal fans are.

• Come up with a way to clearly communicate your identity to these ideal fans (and media/business contacts).

Once those issues have been addressed, you take action to communicate your musical identity and the benefits you offer to a specific target audience. Some of the ways you accomplish this is to:

• Perform live as often as you can.

• Pin up posters to promote your gigs.

• Register a domain name and create an artist web site with Go Daddy Custom Web site Design.

• Set up a FaceBook artist profile and Fan Site.

• Post music video clips on YouTube.com.

• Research and discover where your ideal fans congregate online and off.

• Contact influential bloggers and podcasters.

• Pursue media coverage online and off.

• Set up shop on sites like GarageBand.com, SonicBids.com, Last.fm and more.

• Write and distribute press releases.

• Pursue digital radio airplay online.

• Determine the words and phrases that potential fans use to search for new music like yours.

• Optimize your web pages so they’re more likely to be found with those keywords and phrases.

• Determine what popular artists you sound like and tie into those artists’ existing fan bases.

This is just a quick overview of the steps involved in this stage, we will get into more details about many of them later, this should give you a good idea of what creating awareness is all about.

2. Connections

This is the step way too many artist and musicians try to skip over. And they do so
at their own peril. Quite often, artists don’t even realize they’re turning their backs
on this step, or they don’t comprehend the importance of it to begin with.

Essential 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.

Indie 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, e-mail addresses, and snail-mail addresses at your live shows.

• Talk to people at your live shows and become friends with your fans.

• Put an e-mail sign-up form on every page of your web site.

• Create incentives for fans to join your e-mail list.

• Send e-mail updates to your fan list at least twice a month.

• Mail post card announcements to your fan list every other month. You can use a company like Vista Print and Save up to 90% + get FREE Shipping

• Communicate with editors, reviewers, bloggers and podcasters in your genre and nurture relationships with them.

• Reply to all fan and industry e-mails 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.

Now 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. Get The Sale

When I encounter artist and 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 we are in the sales business!

Here are some of 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 your web site or some where like CDBaby.com.

• Sell your CDs on Amazon.com through its Advantage Program.

• Use Etonicmusic or CD Baby’s digital distribution program to make your tracks available on iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic and other major music download services.

• Stress customer benefits.

• Use testimonials from satisfied fans and the media.

• Offer a money-back guarantee on sales from your own web site, 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 artist and 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 three effective music marketing steps:

• Awareness

• Connections

• Getting 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. I will blog you next week stay tune, it just get’s better.

1. 

   Orgallyreumma

   May 16, 2010 at 3:45 AM

   Just want to say what a great blog you got here!
   I’ve been around for quite a lot of time, but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!

   Thumbs up, and keep it going!

   Cheers
   Christian, iwspo.net