My Music Marketing Plan Audit

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Music Marketing AuditIt’s time to grade the effectiveness of my marketing efforts over the last month. The key for me has been trying to weed out the weak parts of my music marketing plan and sub in new and possibly more effective methods. Discuss what is working and what doesn’t. Areas I want to evaluate are:

  1. Time Management Through Planning
  2. Social Networking
  3. Writing/Content Efforts
  4. Having Others Promote My Music

Time Management Through Planning

Time management has been a big issue for me. The main thing is keeping a consistent plan of attack. My effort was there in terms of my marketing. I was using social networks to promote, writing on my band blog and participating in discussions around the web. The main problem was keeping track of what I had to do in the future and also remembering what I did.

I needed to schedule better, to spend more of my time on what is working and I also need to analyze what I did on specific days and use this information to my advantage.

Solution: Google Calendar. I will use a calendar program to address these issues:

  1. Plan Out Days for Writing Content
  2. Plan Out Days for Commenting on Other Blogs
  3. Schedule Times To Work On Linking Strategy
  4. Scheduling Studio Time to Work on Music
  5. Spread My Time, Lessen My Daily Workload

Social Networking

Which Social Networks am I using? Twitter has been great as a social network but I need to see which other ones are effective as well. First thing I want to do is make sure I update all my current profiles to reflect my current mission. Make sure all my information is consistent with what I am currently promoting.

The main thing I want to do is:

  1. Schedule Hours to work on Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook
  2. Start using Friendfeed more to create Discussions around My Blog
  3. Add New Social Networks and Gradually Integrate Them
  4. Use Each Social Network for Conversation not Promotion

Writing or Content Production

I want to keep a consistent writing formula for my blogs. Your planning and then writing are critical to your monthly visitors. Step 1 with getting a calendar setup is going to be key here.

Brainstorm on article topics and set up a schedule over the next couple of weeks when you want to post them. One good tip I read online I found at ProBlogger. Generate article ideas off of your last couple of posts. Most readers want you to expand on your recent articles into more areas. Take your last article and think of a couple of other article topics related to it.

If you don’t have a lot of articles, then use your main categories and think of a couple of article topics to fill in your categories. Build an information resource around your writing and music.

Having Others Promote My Music

Are you prepared to have others promote your music? This is an important question. I’ve had people ask me, “I’d love to help promote your music, how could I help?” Looking back at it, I should have had definitive answers on how to help promote my music. For instance here are some things you could ask the willing friends and fans to do:

  1. “Sign up for my mailing list and recommend a song to a friend, We’d really appreciate it!”
  2. “Are you on Twitter? You could tweet some articles from my site to your friends”
  3. “If you use social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, You could bookmark and share some posts with your fans”
  4. “Since we both have music blogs, let’s discuss writing some articles on our blogs promoting both of our sites”

This is just an example of creating a list of specific tasks that can increase your online visibility and build your marketing team. You can ask certain friends to complete one task while having other friends complete another task. This is important so you don’t wear out your welcome when friends are willing to help. Little by little, you can have a small group of friends turn into a powerful marketing attack. Be prepared to have others promote your music.

Set Up Alerts for Music Promotion Campaign

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

The development of my music marketing campaign includes promotion but another crucial aspect is monitoring your band’s niche and what people are talking about on the web. It can serve multiple purposes for your blog and keep your marketing active and fresh. Two tools I use are Google Alerts and Monitter.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts lets you enter in search terms and you can decide what results you want to see from that search term: such as news, blogs, web, comprehensive, video and groups.

You choose how and how often you want to be alerted. My personal preference is using Google Alerts and having them sent to Google Reader via RSS. You have the option to change how you receive them from the manage alerts menu and these alerts can also be sent to your email. Choose you own time intervals. I enjoy receiving them once a day.

google-alerts

As a musician, I use these alerts to monitor my band name, album names and my genre. For instance, I set up and alert for my Label “Fried Roots” and also created one for an album release we also have called “Lost In India”. Anytime these phrases show up in Google, I am sent my daily alert with where it is mentioned, whether its an article or forum discussion.

Now the point of this is not to boost your ego and see how many times your music is mentioned. The activity includes participating in discussions around the web that mention your music or operation. Track what kind of press your music operation is getting whether good or bad. Join in conversations and comment on blogs that mention you and give your music operation a positive appearance. Create some Google Alerts also for keywords related to your blog. It’s a great way to find other bloggers in your niche and is a great networking tool.

Monitter

Twitter is playing a big role in my music operation currently. I am not here to tell people how they have to use Twitter or tell them Twitter is the answer to all their problems. From most responses to Twitter, you either hate it or love it. I’ve found it very useful in finding relevant readers to my blog and hip hop listeners to my music. One tool I use is Monitter, real time twitter keyword results.

monitter

Monitter allows me to see what is being talked about on Twitter currently. I type in 3 keywords of particular interest to my music operation and get to see who is discussing anything related to this topic in real time. I can now add relevant people to my music operation based on their interests and help gain subscribers to my blog. This has been a great networking tool as well, being able to quickly shoot back and forth messages.

Promote Your Band Through Songza for Free

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Songza has a new way for bands to get exposure through its Self Promotion Beta Program. This is a great way for indie bands to gain some exposure through new online avenues.

songza

Songza is a music search engine and acts as an internet jukebox. You can search for your favorite artists and stream music you like and find related Youtube videos for songs if available. The popularity of sites like Songza, Pandora and Last.fm can’t be overlooked.

Internet users can sign up, create playlists and stream their favorite music upon demand. The beauty of this is that while users watch a Youtube video for your song or listen to your streaming music they are also shown links for your “Discography” and “Buy Song”. Imagine your music in this arena.

To participate in the program you have to own the rights to a song’s recording and fill out the application, its that easy.

songza-self-promotion-beta-program

Fill out: Artist name, song title, url of your song, url for your band’s site, and url where your listeners can buy your music and you are ready to go.

Take advantage of free promotion and reach more visitors with your music.

Essential Sites for Start Up Musicians

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

Establishing your online presence in a Web 2.0 crazed world is critical for any music operation and their success. This list provides different avenues each artist can tap into to increase their visibility online. These different target areas allow you to focus your marketing energy towards different social networks and forms of music promotion.

Developing a marketing strategy is easy. With all the tools out their for independent musicians, all it takes is some effort.


Web Hosting


Purchasing your own domain hosting and establish your brand name. Your own hosting gives you more flexibility to customize your site and expand by creating forums or blogs. I prefer Bluehost because of my experience with their customer service and control panel. Bluhost gives you all the scripts to setup a WordPress blog in minutes.


Free Blogs


Promote your music by any means. If you choose not to buy your domain name and hosting then you should take advantage of any FREE blogging platform. Establish your brand name. I like Blogger because you can start a blog for free and use your Adsense code to make extra marketing revenue while blogging. Nice to see out of a free blog site.


Music Distribution


Upload your music to major online retailers such as iTunes, Napster and Amazonmp3. Choose distribution service if you currently have no marketplace for your album then promote over various social networks. I prefer Songcast because of its unlimited album upload, free profile page, widget/link maker and 100% royalties.


Mailing List


Setting up a mailing list is essential for your music operation. You can manage a small fanbase and create a better chance of selling your music to your list. They signed up so they are interested in your art. I chose Aweber because of their track record and awesome features allowing your readers to stay tuned to all your news.


Music Profiles


Upload your music for free. Create profiles and add friends, allowing them to hear your music and read on your band news and tour info. Bandcamp is my favorite. They have a clean profile page to upload your music, collect emails, allow fans to download album fully coded with cover art, and it is all for free. You can sync up your page with your Paypal account and sell the music for whatever price you choose.


Social Bookmarking/News Sites


Write a post on your blog and then submit them to these news sites. Great way to promote your band and get free traffic.


Music Licensing


Submit your music to these sites and they help connect you with placing your music in television and film projects.


Online Music Collaboration


Collaborate online and network with fellow hungry musicians. Work on music together and have twice the promotion. Network!


Music Resources


Participate in different music arenas and find your comments leading to great unique visits later. Share your knowledge and market.


Article Traffic


Display your expertise, write articles and create free profiles. Great for backlinks to your site and generating extra unique visitors to your site.


Create Free Widgets


Free widgets are great. Spread them across your music profiles and promote your content. Add one to Myspace and get fans to your website.


Free Press Release Sites


Creating a press release is a great way to establish your credibility. Press releases are great to add to your Press Kit and help spread your name online.

  • OpenPR
  • Express Press Release
  • Free Press Release
  • As an indie label partner and musician, these websites and services have made it possible for me to sell albums in a digital world. The key to this is finding a nice mix of promotion. Once you develop a consistent plan of attack, your marketing will become an asset instead of an obstacle.

This Is My Jam: Promote Music You Like

Friday, August 29th, 2008

I came across an interesting website called this is my jam that lets you use its search and find albums and songs you like, puts them in a flash player and plays snippets of tracks for fans to preview.

I have distribution through Songcast and wanted to see if my album, Lost In India, was found in their search. Once the search was done, I found four singles from my album release and was content enough to create my own.

The nice part of this is once your tracks are selected the website gives you the option to arrange it yourself or let them take care of it, mixing tracks in order they think would sound better.

I get to promote my album and fellow artists I like. I think the value in this is you can showcase music you like in the same genre. This might stimulate some sales for you if people see other artist they like in your mix.

These are some tracks I like and I get to mix them with 4 singles from my Fried Roots Album release “Lost In India”.

Just another reason why I enjoy my own music distribution.