Music Marketing [dot] com

Why You Need Music Marketing

There are plenty of talented musicians and writers in the world and most of them couldn't get pissed on if they were on fire. Technical ability has little, if anything, to do with music business success.

There is no relationship to being a good musician and getting paid. Getting paid comes through good marketing...whether you do it or somebody else does it for you.

Worked with a successful side musician who had done well for years playing for other people. Wanted to go out on his own and borrowed money to do it thinking that because he'd been in the business working for other people who had done well and he did well with them, that he'd do just as well on his own and be able to keep more of the money, get more attention, etc.

And the people who gave him money thought so also.

So this guy borrowed some money, started up his own thing, and before I came along, was dying.

Success in the music business is a lot more than simply playing, singing, or writing well. You've got to be good with management and you've got to be good with marketing.

Most musicians/songwriters go about this backwards and focus on the quality product. While that's great for customer retention, it's not going to help you get the sale initially. Marketing first, quality later.

There are plenty of people with superior technical skills that are resentful of this. They've bought into the belief that technical skills or a better product is the key to the game. But having superior technical skills or a better product doesn't help you to get customers...marketing does.

As we all know, there are plenty of lame records that are at the top of Billboard. That proves the point.

I read an article today which said that most parents don't know their own kids are fat. Why? So many people are fat that it's become the norm.

Same for music. People don't know what exceptional talent is because we're not used to it. We think Destiny's Child or Ashlee Simpson is the norm.

And a lot of great musicians are pissed about that.

What they should be doing, rather than being so pissed, is to go get superior marketing to match their superior technical skills.

If you've got a superior product, you'll kill the average stuff with good marketing.

What to Do if Your Job Sucks...

Millions of people in the US were off work this weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. And millions of people reluctantly returned to that work this morning...

Yesterday, I was spending some time with friends and one mentioned that she wasn't ready to go back to work. And I had one of those weird moments that sometimes come over me when I realize that I, David Hooper, don't have to go to work if I don't want to.

Well, none of us really have to go to work. I'm not going to get fired if I come in a few minutes late, spend a little too much time at lunch, or just don't feel like coming in though.

Of course, I do want to work because I love what I do, and I'd go broke if I never worked, but I'm sure you see my point. If there is one thing that I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving, it's that.

But not everybody has that option right now...or they don't feel like they do. What then?

Po Bronson of "What Should I Do with My Life?" has these suggestions...

1. From your fears come misconceptions.

The uncertainty of exploring your passion can lead to irrational fears and unlikely conclusions. Many are afraid that pursuing their passion will put them in the poorhouse. Others fear that the path to their true calling may lead them in some irreversible direction or limit their future options. Bronson observes, "Often we burn 70 percent of our emotional energy on what we fear might happen (90 percent of which won't happen)." These psychological stumbling blocks are most often overblown, worst-case scenarios that keep people from finding themselves. He adds, "What I found is that, if you take care of these obstacles, you create an environment where the truth is invited into your life." Get rid of the fear factor and pursue your dreams.

2. Don't wait for clarity.

Many people wait and hope that their calling will come to them in the form of an epiphany. Don't wait for a "big moment" or a sign. Sometimes the obstacle isn't that you don't know what makes you happy, rather it's hard to imagine that what you love could be a profession. It's possible to bridge these two worlds together with a little hustle, training and determination. Having an epiphany is great, but so often they tell you something you already know in your heart.

3. If you aren't happy, don't stay.

Bronson's book is filled with stories of real life examples of people who left jobs that compromised their values, consumed far too much of their lives, were no longer interesting, or created feelings of constant fatigue or insomnia. They were doctors, lawyers and investment bankers who left the jobs that were dragging them down and have found happiness as a massage therapist, bakery owner or catfish farmer. It's not selfish to deny what will make you happy. Life will evolve naturally if you listen to your inner self and pursue what you truly enjoy.

4. Experience speaks for itself.

Real wisdom is found in experience, yet people too often ignore the strong message of their experience. They fail to embrace their experience because they believed their calling was to be figured out intellectually. If you have no idea where to start, there's some insight waiting for you in the experiences you've already had.

For some that may mean changing sides like the oil company geologist who was morally troubled by his environmental clean-up work. He took a county government job to fight the very same company he used to work for. For others it means finding a career in doing what they love more than anything. Bronson shares a story of a college grad who had held 16 jobs in eight years. His true passion was golf and he really wanted to use his love of the sport to help others play better. He had even designed a golf swing trainer and putter grip. With a little nudge and using his sales experience, he took a job selling golf equipment and has already pitched his ideas to the United States Golf Association (USGA) and demonstrated his grip prototype at a couple of golf expos.

5. Never give up.

It's okay and even normal to take many years before pursuing or discovering your calling. It's possible to have more than one purpose in life, and you can do them together or sequentially. It really doesn't matter as long as you are focused and pursuing them versus chasing other unimportant things like a job title that will impress people you don't really care about, a top-paying job that is uninspiring or a dream that is someone else's (your parents', your spouse's) and not your own.

How Important is Your Web Site?

PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.

PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.

So what is the PageRank for your site? PageRank Site will calculate it for you free of charge.

Kids from Pink Floyd Hit Sue for Royalties

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A group of former London state school children who sang on Pink Floyd's 1979 classic "Another Brick In The Wall" have lodged a claim for unpaid royalties.

Twenty-three teenage pupils from Islington Green School secretly recorded vocals for the track, which became an anthem for children with the chorus "We don't need no education."

On hearing the song, the headmistress banned the pupils from appearing on television or video -- leaving them no evidence and making it harder for them to claim royalties -- and the local school authority described the lyrics as "scandalous."

The album sold over 12 million copies and the single became number one in Britain and America.

Royalties expert Peter Rowan told Reuters he was appealing to a music royalties' society on behalf of a former pupil and was working with other members of the class. He said he was still trying to contact the majority of the group.

"They are owed their money and we lodged the first claim last week," Rowan told Reuters. "I've been working on it for almost two years."

Music teacher Alun Renshaw took the school pupils to a nearby recording studio without the permission of the headmistress after being approached by the band's management.

The lyrics "We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control, no dark sarcasm in the classroom -- teachers leave them kids alone" were described by the Inner London Education Authority as scandalous.

The school was paid 1,000 pounds and later given a platinum record of the song but the individuals involved were never paid.

Rowan said the money would come from a music royalties society and not Pink Floyd. He expected the 23 pupils to receive a couple of hundred pounds each.

The application for royalties was initially hindered by a lack of evidence but Renshaw said the headmistress at the time Margaret Maden, now a University professor, had supported their application.

"We had to provide evidence to show they were part of the song and Mrs Maden helped us with that," he said.

Music teacher Renshaw told the Evening Standard newspaper he accepted the offer, viewing it as "an interesting sociological thing and also a wonderful opportunity for the kids to work in a live recording studio."

"I sort of mentioned it to the headteacher, but didn't give her a piece of paper with the lyrics on it."

10 Ways To Ignite Your Sales

This one was written for music business companies such as CD manufacturing companies, recording studios, radio promoters, and others. It works for bands and musicians just as well though.

1. Sign-up to win web site awards.

When you win, some award sites publish your web site link, name and description on their site. These are usually sites with a high Page Rank and links from them count for a link.

2. Join online business associations or clubs. If you join, they will usually list all their members on their web site. It will give your business extra exposure.

3. Utilize a simple form of viral marketing. Write or have someone else write a small report with your ad included on it and allow others to give it away.

Example: If you're a CD manufacturing company, you could do a report called "10 Things You Must Know Before Pressing a CD."

4. Improve your business by promoting customer feedback. Tell them you want their honest opinions about your business, good, bad, and ugly.

5. Design your catalogs, advertising, and packaging so it sells your products. Utilize colors and lettering that makes your product more attractive to your prospects. Use bulletpoints to sell the benefits of your product or service.

Remember, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.”

6. Compare your product's guarantee to your main competitors. Make your guarantee more powerful.

Want a great example? Look at my gurantee on IndieBiz.com. Who else in the music business offers a guarantee like that? Nobody.

7. Try not to assume your audience understands everything in your ad copy. If you have words they may not know the meaning to, define them.

8. Build alliances with other online businesses. You could trade links or ads, create joint venture deals, cross promote your products, etc.

9. Design your web site to be a valuable resource for people. Include original content, links to other interesting web sites, reports or reviews on your products and services, software, etc.

10. Compete with the highly branded businesses by practicing good customers service, strong product quality, and speedy service.

Be Thankful for What?

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others." - Cicero

The One-Dollar Music Marketing Tool

by Bob Baker

Traditionally they come in yellow. But these days you can find them in orange, green, pink, blue and all the other colors of the rainbow. In school you probably used highlighters to flag important passages in textbooks. Or maybe you use them now to note meaningful paragraphs in your favorite how-to titles.

I'm talking about highlighters. And in case you didn't know it already, you can also put this inexpensive writing instrument to good use in marketing your music. Here are three creative ways to do just that:

1) Highlight important facts on the outside of your mailing package

I once received a press kit on the band Earth Crisis, which was playing an upcoming date in my hometown. On the outside of the mailing envelope, the publicist had handwritten the band's name, the venue name and date of performance in dark ink. Then she highlighted these notes in bright green.

The editors and reviewers who receive packages like this know in an instant what they're about and why they are timely. Especially with regard to media people who already knew of the band, this simple technique helped the group avoid the slush pile.

2) Highlight pertinent dates on your tour schedule

If your band is on tour and promoting a string of dates along the way, you definitely want to notify the media in each city where the group performs. Some publicists craft a separate press release for each city, which if fine. But other bands take a more economical approach: They list every city, venue and date on one sheet, which is inserted into every press kit.

The one-sheet system is fine and dandy, but editors still have to scan over the document in search of the relevance to their specific city. And quite often, these packages are sent to music media in cities not even on the tour schedule - which wastes editors' time searching for a concert date that's not even there.

Which brings us back to a music marketing rule I've hammered home many times in the past: Make it easy for media people to give you free exposure. The harder you make them work, the less recognition you'll get.

The easy solution: Highlight the date and venue that's pertinent to that city. That way, the line will stand out in the overall listing of tour dates. This will take a few more minutes to coordinate when putting together your press kit mailings. But the payoff could be substantial.

3) Highlight standout quotes within your press clippings

Hawaii's Crash the Luau Records recently sent a promo package for the band Tone Deaf Teens. Five of the act's most favorable reviews and write-ups were interestingly arranged on one appealing page.

In addition to that, the most positive and descriptive sentences within each review were highlighted in yellow. It allowed someone reading about the band for the first time to get a quick grasp of what this group was about.

You didn't have to wade through multiple paragraphs and exposition that didn't matter. The highlighted sections forced you to go right to the heart of what Tone Deaf Teens is all about.

Using a colored highlighter to draw attention to the important points you want to get across to the media is a simple but powerful way to stand out.

Why not go out right now and invest a buck or two in your music marketing campaign?

Bob Baker is the author of "Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook," "Unleash the Artist Within" and "Branding Yourself Online." He also publishes TheBuzzFactor.com, a web site and e-zine that have been delivering marketing tips and inspirational messages to music people of all kinds since 1995. Get your FREE subscription to Bob's e-zine by visiting www.TheBuzzFactor.com today.

It's No Joke! On January 1st, I'm Locking the Doors Forever...

Next month, I'll be locking the doors on IndieBiz, my music business mentoring site, forever.

Read that again... I'll be locking the doors forever. I will not be taking on any new people...ever.

That means if you want to work with me personally, talk with Joe Taylor on our six monthly coaching calls, come to events like my February seminar in Las Vegas as my personal guest, and take advantage of the networking, knowledge, and everything else we have to offer, you need to get in now.

Too expensive? The Las Vegas seminar alone is worth $777.00.

Actually, that's what it costs. What it's worth is a whole lot more.

But let's talk about the real expense... The expense of missed opportunity.

I can teach you how to make more money from your music by working smarter, not harder.

If you'd rather play the same washed-up club week after week to a dozen (or less) drunks who don't give a damn, that's your option.

If you're rather work a job you hate because it's more comfortable than taking the chance that I might actually be telling you the truth about what I can help you to accomplish, that's your option.

What you choose to do won't affect me one way or another, but it might affect YOU in a very big way.

Check out IndieBiz for what people who have used me say and then be the judge.

But remember, this isn't a deal that you can think about. The doors will be locked forever at the end of next month and they will never open again. If you're not inside when that happens, you're out of luck.

Why Are Some People Broke?

Check out this article about 8 Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions.

Sure, there were some greedy relatives and "friends" involved in some of the cases. Drugs involved in others... That's not the real problem though.

The real problem is that folks without money who suddently come into money haven't been taught the skills to know how to deal with it. Money is like a gun...if you don't respect it, you're going to get hurt.

How many people do you know who work their asses off, yet they're still broke? You may be one of them.

Why do you think that is?

How is it that rich and successful people have rich and successful kids. Sure, there is nepotism in a lot of cases and education and other opportunity that the wealthy have in others, but there is something much more basic than that.

For the answer, take a look at Conversations with Millionaires and compare the thoughts of the people there with those in the article listed above.

Branding Gets Political

The Democrats didn't exactly get their asses kicked in the most recent election, but it's fair to say that they didn't do as well as they wanted (or expected) to. Whether it was problems with black box voting or not, Democrats have a problem.

So what now?

Oliver Willis is working on a Democratic "brand" to get the message out in a new way...

"My belief is that this is a branding campaign, and as such touts the product benefits of the Democratic party - specifically the people in the party. What that means is that it doesn't bash the GOP - at least not on its face. It's putting your opponent in a defensive position, so to speak," he says.

And it's working. Check out the campaign here and see for yourself.

Don't feel left out, Republicans. For you, there's Banana Republican.

For more information on how you can create your own brand, try Why? Communications.