While working with new bands recently, I’ve encountered the same question over and over again: I want to get started on my music promotion, I don’t have a website but I want to get started making online sales. I’m not a blogger but I want to spread the word, what do you reccomend?
The interesting part to this question is that each band or artist was involved in completely different scenarios. Some bands were already performing and needed to setup immediate sites for email capture and promoting new shows. Other artists were a “one man band” and wanted to take their music and test the waters. With each I replied: Set your own pace according to your goals.
When discussing an online marketing campaign with each artist or band I asked them a few questions to gauge expectations and understand what they want to achieve. It is very important to define before any WordPress installation begins, the numbers don’t lie.
I am a big fan of Zenyatta, a beautiful racehorse that is setting incredible records and she just recently won her 17th consecutive race here at my favorite track, Hollywood Park. Zenyatta is known for keeping consistent with racing within her means.
For example, as the races get tougher with higher quality opponents, she still races at a pace comfortable to her. No matter if the field is filled with quality sprinters, she loves to race from behind to maximize her greatest push and not burn out at the end.
How does this relate to your initial blogging campaign? You must understand what kind of blog you either want or already have and guide it in the direction of the pace you want to achieve to win your race. What kind of time are you willing to dedicate to your writing and promotion?
Setting a schedule to pace your ideas over time will create the momentum to keep this project fresh and consistent.
This is an important question to ask yourself when looking at your initial blogging campaign because they each yield different results.
My blog is my sales strategy in action, ultimately my outlet for expression with a purpose. If your goal is to sell music, what kind of specific strategies do you want to test to get you higher conversions? Are you marketing with a purpose? Is each article designed to get viewers to your store or just to inflate your ego that you got new visitors?
I have been on both ends. I was able to get increasing traffic on a monthly basis and felt this is all I needed with low conversions. I had one blog where I was happy with 4% conversion rate because I was lazy and didn’t want to increase that percentage, I was happy with increasing visitors.
Ultimately, you want to make the most of your visitors and make them repeat their visits. By taking that 4% as a lesson, I created a stronger email campaign and more articles based around what was selling. That was the day I went from passive income to active income.
Be prepared to ask yourself after each task, how did it help my overall promotion or goals I want to achieve.
If your music site is your sales strategy, what specifically are you going to do to implement it? Keeping this mindframe will create a purpose for your work. I hate busy work, I want to create tasks that yield results not just time loss. If you wrote an article, how did it help your cause? Did you actively or passively ask for mailing list sign up or push for downloading your new song?
The point of this activity is to get your brain started in creating plans that you can grade and make correlations to winners and losers. Spend time where it is showing most promise. Failure occurs and its up to you how you bounce back and tighten your operation.
Even if you haven’t started blogging yet, get to your nearest text editor or Google Docs and start writing down some ideas for articles you have in mind. Get active and write down all topics for future use, don’t wait.
You don’t have to be a writer to be a blogger. You just have to have enthusiasm about your work and promote it consistently. Promotion sounds like an infomercial to many, half of the time it just involves connecting with readers and engaging in conversation with fans. It’s easier than it sounds.
Answer some of these questions before our next session:
These questions will get the ball rolling until we discuss more specific ways of promoting online. I learned from my hit and miss tactics in the past, now I feel comfortable we will both benefit from a little planning and action in motion.
I no longer assume what an artist knows about online promotion. It is to his/her benefit to understand the marketing aspect so that they can engage with their fans and maximize how they can help their online visibility. If a fan asks how I can help, don’t just reply “buy my album” because of arrogance. Share articles, ask them to invite a friend, offer free music, or just conversate on Twitter and build a relationship. Invest in your marketing.
