First 50 promotions tips from hypebot – with commentary

From hypebot.com check it out:

32% of consumers spend money on music in 2007 compared with 20% in 1980. EXCEPT The average consumer would spend the equivalent of $198 in 1980 compared to $120 now.

Point being – AGAIN: CD’s and Major’s are dying. Music culture continues to grow, just the problem we’re having right now is working out how to get paid. Don’t worry, I’m working on it, thats what I’m here for.

Now get another graph in ya. Go on, it’s good for ya.

It is the result of an online survey mind you, most likely taken by regular internet users.

Anyway.

HYPEBOTS FIRST 50 FREE OR AFFORDABLE HIGH AND LOW TECH PROMOTION TIPS

Never leave promotion to the other guy. Depending on your point of view don’t count on the label, band or publicist to do their jobs. Do it yourself or ot may not get done.

Know your niche market(s) or hire/befriend someone who does.

Always think of the fans first when making decisions.

Start early. Pre-promote. It allows time for viral buzz (free promotion) to build
and ensures you’ll get you a larger share of a discretionary spending.

Take the time and spend the money to get a great publicist to get free media.

[Do these people have any idea how much a "great publicist" costs? This is not affordable to your average band. I am not a publicist. I am a promotions manager. As a promotions manager I will organise for the production and distribution of media friendly materials but I will not spend your money buying magazine/radio/TV people lunch]

Produce great promotional material and send it out early and often. Don’t wait until they need it.

Email lists must be your new religion. Make sign up simple and easy to find. Put it visibly on the top half of the front page and watch it grow.

Segment your email lists (genre, location) to fight email burnout.

Produce and send great e-cards. The best ones get forwarded to others

[Bit passe. Go youtube]

Make your web site a destination by keeping it updated and including news, giveaways, polls and things to make it worth visiting.

Put your promo online in downloadable form for easy access by the media and your fans.

Enable and encourage others to do your promo for you. Ask fans to put up flyers and send out emails. Put a poster online as a free downloadable PDF for fans to use.

[Don't call it a street team unless you only want 13 year olds to want to be involved!]

Create, utilize and reward a street team. Here’s a short article on the subject.

[don't worry it was a crappy article - I would have provided the link if it was any good.]

Talk to people and take informal polls. Have they seen your ads? Where? Did they grab them and provide useful information? Survey your audience via email, on the web and at shows.

Add a free poll to your web site or blog via http://www.yourfreepoll.com.

[see? Interactive. you didn't think it was going to be that easy did you?]

Get every free listing everywhere you can no matter how obscure or far away. Maintain an extensive “listings” email list and use it.

[This is utter crap and a blog i'm working on now will tell you why - make sure you subscribe!]

Enhance the value of press releases by always attaching a photo or graphic file or a link to one.

Aggressively seek sponsorships. Big sponsorships are great, but no sponsorship is too small to consider even if its just cross promotion in ads or free give aways.

[let me know if you have any luck with this. Otherwise my suggestion is pretend your a rugby team]

Always think yourself as a brand that needs to be defined, marketed, and protected.

Try local cable TV. Some local spots on Fuse or other targeted channels go for as little as $7 each. Check out Spotrunner or Dmarc or your local cable company.

[Where did back of the Y/ deja voo doo start? But this shit has GOT to be targeted.]

Try local internet advertising via Google Adsense or local web sites

[this is so obvious, I wonder why so little artists advertise on the biggest media channel in the world. I can organise campaigns for artists on our packages and I encourage them to do so. You set the budget from $20 p/month]

Advertise on internet radio and blogs that serve your market.

[I wouldn't touch this if you didn;t know what you were doing]

Create consistency by creating ad mats and radio spots beds.

[stings, ads, skits, jams whatever - content is content and content is king!!!]

Sponsor non-commercial radio and get mentions. NPR is great, but don’t forget college radio.

Think out of the box with radio tie-ins. Try talk radio for a classic rock or jazz radio for a fusion. Radio stations want to expand their audience too.

Co-brand. Celtic Music with an Irish bar or specialty shop or metal with a tattoo parlor. Worry less about money and think more about exposure.

Sponsor somebody else’s event. Consider trading sponsorships.

[So crazy it just might work]

Create your own affordable net radio stations on Live 365.

[Well do a podcast or something!]

Add a blog to your website to keep content fresh. Blogger.com has free tools .

[and is NZ's favourite blogging platform. check me at http://kurbpromotion.blogspot.com]

Go viral and post on related list-servers and discussion groups.

Start your own discussion group for free at http://groups.yahoo.com/ or Google Groups

Get on both MySpace.com and Facebook.com and stay active. Don’t just set it up and forget it. Update it and promote it. Make it worth visiting.

Make everything you do an event. What holiday is near? Is it a band member birthday? An anniversary near?

Consider internet your new best friend. Study it, learn from it, explore it and use it.

Run contests for best poster design or homemade video. Share all the entries on the web.

Produce monthly or even weekly podcasts. Consider having it produced cheaply by a local college DJ.

Do anything you can think of to enhance the consumer experience.

Give stuff away – backstage passes, seat upgrades, seats on stage, tix to the sound check, mp3’s of live songs.

In the entertainment business perception can be reality. Is your show the biggest, best, loudest, “most talked about”? Then be sure to tell the world that it is.

Enhance and monetize the hardcore fan experience with a Platinum level fan club that offers exclusive downloads, pre-orders, insider news, preferred seating at shows, etc.

Go old school and cut through email overload by also faxing calendars and press releases. Use a free computer based fax broadcast service.

Don’t just send announcements to the press but include bloggers, record stores, colleges and even large offices.

Make your faxes look like mini-posters worth hanging up.

Fly a plane with a banner over someone else’s event.

[Yeah, good one. sheesh. Already at number 45 and running out of juice]

Park a van or truck with a banner on a main street or across from a show by a similar act.

[DONT hand out flyers at a show for a gig at another venue without checking with the promoter!!!!]

Buy a billboard for an event or series of shows. Place it strategically near a competitor or across from a college campus.

Use one of the cheap automated phone answering services advertised in the classifieds to set up a special phone line for your schedule.

Pass a clipboard(s) around before a show to capture emails or do a survey.

Meet your fans face to face and ask them for feedback but how you can serve them better

Try the good old fashioned mail occasionally. It actually gets peoples attention

Another 50 soon . . .

Cheers for the connection with Kurb.

Kurb offers online promotion for artists and creative projects, come by our page, theres plenty to pick up about new developments in the music industry in our blogs and theres a whole lot of free info and articles at our self promotions hub. Get some scope checking out our overview of online promotion strategies and if you’re interested – our artist packages or brand new campaign packages including CD’s, posters and online promotion strategies at one low price.

All the best with your music, from Kurb
........

The art of hustle

So why would a young, loud, aggressive rock band like Uncrowned, or their management, bank on that one demographically transcendent fluke?

“Their problem is, they’re functioning in the old system of waiting to be swept off their feet by a label or some giganto marketing push that’s going to propel them to stardom,” says a record executive who has met with the band and asked not to be named. “The new paradigm calls for you to take care of your own niche first.”

The new paradigm. Maximizing outside revenue streams. Monetizing digital content. CDs as loss leaders. More and more you hear these buzz phrases thrown around by the type of people who, back in the ’90s, would’ve been arguing abstractly about whether Kurt Cobain was a hypocrite or a savior. It’s finally a DIY world (bereft of political context, of course). Musicians across all genres are necessarily, obsessively business-minded; it’s not just gimme-the-loot rappers anymore. Since the Internet can reach millions of consumers directly, even standard indie labels may soon be pass é — managers and booking agents wield the influence. The money isn’t in record sales (down 20 percent this year), but in diversifying your brand beyond hoodie/T-shirt merch — just recently, press releases have hyped Beck’s Sketchel shoulder bag, an All-American Rejects-designed Pepsi can, a skate-shoe partnership between Etnies and Chester Bennington’s tattoo studio, and an Urban Outfitters indie-rock tour featuring the Ponys, Voxtrot, and Tapes ‘N Tapes. Artists who have yet to release a record are pursuing publishing and sponsorship deals. One of the most talked-about indie bands of the past few years — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — is perhaps more notable for its no-label business model than its music.

But the problem with a DIY approach is that you have to do it yourself. And that means a generation of artists who spend countless hours attempting to manage their own affairs and hustle every angle. But what if you’re not Pete Wentz or Jay-Z or Arcade Fire? What if you can’t trade on a punk or hip-hop or indie tradition? What if your numerous marketing ideas haven’t quite panned out? What if you’ve got a killer MySpace page and consistently draw 300 people in clubs three states away and sell several thousand copies of your self-released record, but can barely pay the rent? What if you were a passing industry fancy a couple years back, but now that you’re a far better band, interest has waned? What if you’re so anxious to jump-start your career that you let your manager come hat in hand to the freaking guy from Hinder?

What if you’re Uncrowned?

Read the rest of this awesome article from Spin.com here

Cheers for the connection with Kurb.

Supporting musicians with successful strategies on a budget.

Come by our page, theres plenty to pick up about new developments in the music industry in our blogs and theres a whole lot of free info and articles at our self promotions hub. Get some scope checking out our overview of online promotion strategies and if you’re interested our artist packages or brand new campaign packages including CD’s, posters and a dedicated online distribution, promotion and videomarketing program.

All the best with your music, from Kurb
For direct enquiries get us on gmail as kurbpromo

.....................
Kurb Myspace

Geeking out on Social Bookmarking

See this is one frustrating part of my job is trying to understand technology that only geeks currently use so that 6,12,18 months down the track when it becomes popular enough to offer real promotion opportunities to musicians and creatives I’ve already got a thorough understanding – as it was one of the great fortunes of my life that such a thing happened with myspace and social networking to put me where I am today. I will be blogging soon about deciding how to avoid wasting your time resources on sites that won’t help promote your music because there’s no one there to promote your music to.

But see as I’ve said before, promoting on the net is all about having the distribution systems in place for the ongoing genration of content, and having this set up in the most favourable way for search.

Although theories are starting to fester in the unlikeliest corners of Nigeria that Social – with the potential to infinitely and effortlessly connect, network, aggregate and deliver is gonna eventually be bigger than search, the sons of myspace will destroy the sons of google.

But you’ll see that rather than going nutty on the quantity and quality of my content creation (and here I am writing a boring as geeky blog post to blow off steam) which comes further down the line, I’m strengthening my distribution network.

Because the latest technology I am trying to come to grips with in this area is social bookmarking and feeds and the like and though it may seem otherwise to you who are co ordinated enough to play an instrument – I am not naturally adapted to such geek environments.

And don’t try and argue that Stumbleupon, Digg and Del.icio.us isn’t geek shit. Myspace is mainstream. Social bookmarking is still geek shit.

So whats it about? Well I have managed to wrap my head around the significance of distribution and ease of access to quality information.

Although as you know I write my own material when I can, and I’m trying to get more into useful and unique analyses, you probably notice I repost a lot of articles I find for you people to read and the happy result is more business and more kudos for my business by providing access to significant items of interest in my chosen field of expertise.

So whereas in times past this would have been considered akin to plagiarism, these days, with the flaws of the internet manifested by google in screeds of pointless unvaluable information or “noise”, being able to provide direct access to high quality information, creating trust and worthiness – as I’ve pointed out several times – is now quite a powerful marketing strategy.

Hopefully you can reflect on how all this relates to YOUR online promotion strategy.

What kind of access and redistribution of information can you provide to your fanbase to add value to your brand?

More less geek oriented stuff coming through soon.

Stupid bloody bookmarking sites. This better bump my google ranking and get me lots of hits.

Lets see how this goes: