My Music Marketing Plan Audit

It’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.