promoting your band

[pounce]

in this day and age, promotion might now take place on the internet. however, the old tried and true methods or radio and magazine ads, flyers, and posters are still important.

when i was gigging, the internet wasn't as much in the picture yet. it existed but wasn't considered a primary vehicle for band promotion yet. nowadays, email lists, band webpages, and other online resources might help one promote their band. in fact, for certain genres and demographics it might work better than anything else. talking about how to best exploit this is relevent for all bands now.

some online services exist, like one i've used and like

http://www.musicsubmit.com/IndexCopy/Keyword/SubmitYourMusic.cfm

and there are numerous others on the net to help facilitate intertnet promotion of your band.

do i need to mention web pages? ever band should have a proper web page with it's own proper web address. while it doesn't have to be fancy, it shouldn't be ugly. even kids are sophisticated in thier use of the internet and are accustomed to pretty looking web pages. if you can't make one, find someone who can. my band web pages are relatively simple and to the point.

http://www.pounceinternational.com/

here is one i think is excellent.

http://www.alphaconspiracy.com/

notice that the band name is the domain name. that is important. make it easy for folks to find you. same thing with myspace. myspace isn't just for teenage girls and perverts, it's also for bands!

http://www.myspace.com/99310986


i'm using my pages as the guinea pig here, but i'm sure there are better pages out there that we could reference in the what to do, or what not to do examples. a lot of bands might have musical talent but no sense of how to properly design a website, two totally unrelated skills. if so, get some help. ugly webpages are unnacceptable.

flyers in the right places might help boost attendance at shows. and really, securing gigs at better venues on better nights is all about being able to draw a crowd. we will presume your music is in good shape, and now it's just a matter of promoting it. i'd expect you already have a press kit and that before gigs you make sure the local papers and radio stations have your cd, press kit, and gig announcement. all the local record stores, music stores, and a variety of other venues might allow you to put up flyers or handouts at some designated section of their stores. after asking permission, get your flyers there. i'd also give them a cd and or tshirt, thank them profusely, and invite them to the gig. put them on a guest list. get in good graces with anyone who can help get an audience to your gig.

the guest list should be for more than just your girlfriend or whatnot. invite any promoter, label folks, reviewers, etc. you can to as many gigs as possible. always cultivate these relationships.

there is a lot more that can be said about promotion. this post so far is more like a list of things we could discuss further. i'd welcome all input on how bands are promoting themselves in this day and age, and what are you doing to get the better gigs and draw the bigger crowds. this is especially true with respect to how you get a crowd for out of town shows.

[Bob Olhsson]

One thing is don't tell the world they can see you any Tuesday night!

They'll always find something else they can't do just any Tuesday night...

strategy is important, very important and needs to be discussed!

[Comte de St Germain]

Rock to an empty room.

[nobby]

Hey Compte, I heard a band you recorded is playing in my area soon. Not sure if I'll be able to make it to a show.

http://www.myspace.com/theflightout

:Thumbsup:

[Swafford]

For new bands, I find the single most important thing for exposing your band is networking with similar bands in your own or out of town markets. Radio play is great, but without a radio promotions person, getting airplay at signifigant radio stations is difficult and time consuming. If you have a CD, contacting press in the area you are playing is fairly easy. I always contact a press person first to see if 1. they will be intersted in seeing a press kit and 2. if they will have space to run something the dates we will be in town. Sending stuff willy nilly rarely pays off. Yeah, I said willy nilly.

In town, I only promote shows when there is something special going on - holiday concert, Fred Neil tribute, CD release, etc. If we're playing at the local Tavern on a Thursday night, there's no reason to send out press requests. We'll hang flyers at the bar a month out so the regualrs or other show goers will know when we are there next. I'll hit our email list and I will certainly ping the local media, but without expectation of press. The purpose for keeping local media types in the loop is so you do not drop off thier radar when it comes time for you to actually want press. When I really want press, I contact the local media types 6-8 weeks prior to the event to pitch them the event, and so they can see what's on their calendars and make a note that I'm asking them for consideration. Media people are busy, but they are not shy about letting you make a compelling reason why they should devote inches to you and in fact, the more compelling your event, the easier you make thier job. Make good copy and you will get good copy. I am never shy about asking if we will be getting press that week.

Aside from press, for special local events I'll usually buy banner ads on the local music website, hang posters in the usual places (not telephone poles) and make sure it's listed on every online and paper press calendar available to me.

[Spock]

Being a just a local cover act one thing we depend on a lot is an E-mail list. The band's webpage allows signups for email. We have also collected emails at gigs. We've put little cards out on the tables with our information, and on the back as them to fill in an emial address and drop it in the box near the stage. To get more people to do this, we will pull one card out in the last set and give them some swag like a band tee shirt.

[pounce]

a thing i found out was that numerous media outlets would ultimately print more or less the release that you sent them. in my case it related to a new cd release, but i was a little surprised that as i wrote up a description of the music and a little band bio, that stuff was sometimes incorporated into the news clip word for word. so assuming that will always be true, that busy people in the media will happily lean on your materials as a good place to draw all the adjectives and good accurate band description, it serves us well to write releases as fully as possible so that were we to see our releases in print as is we'd be perfectly happy. so i have since kept that in mind and have given the press materials that include information that is exactly what i'd like to see in print or hear over the radio.

[David Aurora]

my usual promo at this point for shows is:
- obviously, myspace. bulletins, gig section, comments, event invites and also an avatar with the relevant info (often a gif flashing different parts of the info so i can use bigger text)
- gig guides in all the local street press
- big poster at the venue and some smaller takeaway flyers. havent done any local shows recently to do flyer drops to music stores but thats obviously something to do
- email list
- sms list
- info on any website i have an account with (for example, my youtube music page profile, last.fm page, etc)

with all this, despite being a total unknown i generally pull in enough mates/relatives/friends of friends through all this stuff to not play to empty rooms and hopefully pick up a couple new fans.

on the other hand, most of the other acts i gig with, despite being great acts, bring practically nobody to gigs. i try to keep an eye on their promo so i know whether or not they made an effort (and therefore if they will be offered any more gigs from me). for the last 4 gigs including one coming up on thursday (12 acts in total), heres the promo ive seen from other bands:
- one band did pretty much all the stuff i do and got a great turnout. out of all 12 acts theyre probably the most well known too and could probably get away with being slack on promo, yet they still make the effort
- two other bands put out one or 2 myspace bulletins. each brought maybe 5 people max to a show. including significant others who had no choice

.....yep, thats the end of the list. guess how many people the other acts got in the audience. come on, guess......lower.......lower......lower.........

[David Aurora]

follow up on thursday nights gig- each other act brought one person. seriously, thats fucking it. one person each. one was a relative, one was a girlfriend, so neither seemed like much of an effort to get to a gig.

so again, promo is really fucking important. do it, and do it right.

[Bob Olhsson]

We did something at NARAS in San Francisco that I'll never forget.

We advertised for audition tapes for a party. The deal was that each performer would be allowed to do only one song. Then we picked the best audition tape in each genre and told the performers they could each invite a few guests. The result was a room full of people hearing a bunch of musical genres they had never experienced live before. We literally had opera singers embracing hip hop artists by the end of the evening and a lot of the performers had a whole new additional crowd attending their shows from that point on.

[David Aurora]

that would be pretty awesome. ive often thought about trying to do something like that but i usually get put off by things ive seen a lot like the bitching between bands and people walking out when their friend finishes at gigs. did you have any trouble in that respect?

[adisonpol]

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[Bob Olhsson]

An awful lot of folks seem to think that all you've got to do is write a great tune and all the rest will just fall in place.

I've never found "build it and they will come" to be the case.