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December, 2006
 
Utilizing Digital Promotional Tools to Launch Your Band
Getting People to Listen to Your Music by Chris Cofoni Some extremely creative bands have been able to use their website, their MySpace.com page and posting pages like JamBase.com, Garageband.com, PureVolume.com and Last.fm as promotion tools. Marketing research has proven you must expose people to a band or product multiple times before they will act. Many industry professionals use these digital tools to investigate bands they are considering working with. This is something bands must understand: Labels, managers, agents and anyone worth working with want to see you are doing a lot of promotion for yourself before becoming involved. I left EMI a year ago to work in marketing and sales for a sheet music company and also to realize my dream of managing artists. One group I am now managing is Rolla, which features Fuzz from Deep Banana Blackout (www.rollaband.com). They have been doing something unique with their myspace account (www.myspace.com/rollaband) to promote shows while on the road. By looking under music in myspace and searching by area code and genre, you are able to find bands that match your sound in the area where you wish to play. You can look at that band’s page to see the clubs where they have been playing, and determine where your band should be playing in that market. You can see how many visits their page has had, how many fans they have and what they are doing that your band is not. Additionally, it gives you the ability to hear other music you may have never been exposed to. One suggestion is to start by contacting their booker or the band themselves through their myspace page and offer them to play in your area at a venue where you know you can draw. Then they will owe you a gig in their area. Let them know this up front and try to book both things at once. This way you trade gigs and everyone wins. Blogging has also become a way bands are being noticed. By placing blogs about music, other bands or anything in general on the Internet, you are making a statement and bringing people to the band that may never have seen them. It is yet another way to get your band’s name out there and associate your band with other bands, political views, etc. Blogging has to be handled in a way that is genuine and not viewed as a band spamming another band, or simply posting to advertise your own shows. The more genuine the post, the more noticeable the response. The information you can access on myspace in this way also allows you to contact other local bands in key markets you have targeted. In Rolla’s case, a tour down south through D.C. was proving difficult to book. They hooked up with some bands on myspace that had a strong following in the area and were able to promise turnout in markets where they otherwise may not have drawn well. This is the best way to book shows on the road: open for bands that have a similar concept or sound and therefore audience. This exposes your sound to potential music buyers and band supporters. It is key to play in rooms full of your target demographic, and in new markets it will take time to build a following. Opening for larger bands is the next key step, but this comes with making connections with bands. By playing with and contacting these bands, you stand the chance of making friends with an artist on the rise and therefore having a shot at opening slots for a band playing bigger rooms down the road. Word will also spread in the music industry, as bands tend to discuss other bands they like. Building a following is a combination of good grassroots marketing, playing the area enough, playing the right rooms and teaming up with other strong local bands. These are magic ingredients, but these things alone are not enough. Rolla also has a booking agent (Crescendo Artists), a full-time national publicist (XO Publicity) and a tour manager as well as a manager. They are also looking into getting a college-radio promotion person involved and then focusing in 2007 on booking colleges around the country, once they are being played already on campus. In previous articles I have discussed the importance of having a solid team of motivated individuals to move in a solid direction. Without a team of people, it is hard to move fast regardless of how talented you are. It takes determination, hard work, a solid team and vision of where you want to be and how you will get there in small increments. |