Make Your Band a Company and Your Company a Rockstar!

Dusty Doering and I dressed as our alter-egos, Michael Sugarberry (left, me) and Tad Thurman (right, Dusty) to start conversations about our band promotion packages with industry folks at all of the SXSW parties this past spring.

It amazes me how many bands out there do not have the slightest clue how to promote themselves on the internet. With so many tools available, it is flat out irresponsible to not have an internet marketing strategy for your band. Seeing as a great deal of the marketing consulting I do is for various bands and creative artists, I figured I’d give all of you out there a free look at what I suggest to any artist during my initial consultation with them. This advice, for the most part, could easily be transferred to any small business looking for inexpensive, but effective ways to utilize the internet and grow your company.

Your Band is a Company
As much as you want to focus on the creative side of your project, you have to realize that your band is a company and should be handled as such. So, first things first, consult with a media attorney and decide the best entity for your band. I won’t get into too much detail on this, because I’m not qualified to comment on it other than this: having a business entity, even if it’s just a sole proprietorship, will allow you to deduct relevant expenses on your tax return. It also makes you legit in the eyes of investors, labels and the government. Again, consult an attorney. The SBA (Small Business Association) can offer you business counseling to help you through this process.

Now that you’re a real business, you need to think about the best way to go about marketing and growing your company.

Your Marketing Strategy
The internet is full of inexpensive or free tools to help you promote your band, you just have to know the best way to use them all to compliment one another. Here is a list of ways to use the internet to become a huge rockstar:

• Build a website. You can’t expect for any record label or investor to take you seriously without having a website for your band. Sure, a MySpace profile is another great tool on the internet, but it should be used to drive traffic to your website. A good website doesn’t have to have all of the expensive bells and whistles, it just needs to have a striking photo of your band and some good information. It should also have links to the rest of the things listed below.
• Blog your Band. This is a great way to build your fan base and while it’s something that can be done within the MySpace platform, you’ll want to setup your own blog, either on your website, or at a separate URL that your website and MySpace profile points to. An interesting way to raise your ranking in Google is to build all of these tools at separate domain locations and then link them all back and forth between each other. But, if you have a blog, you need to always be updating it. The more often you update, the more often your fans will check back in with you and share you with their friends. Read my post on starting a blog for more information.
• Make a Video Podcast. A great way to share what’s going on with your band is to have a video podcast. You don’t have to do this everyday, but once or twice a week is a good way to provide fun content for your fans. It could just be a video of your band practicing, or a video promo where you tell your fans about an upcoming show. Or just fun footage from your tour. Get creative with it. If you need a camera there are many inexpensive options, the Flip Camera is a cool new camera that makes importing to your computer easy and is lightweight and easy to carry around. You can host your videos on any of the video hosting websites and the more you upload each video to, the more audience you’ll reach. I personally think Blip.TV offers superior quality, but YouTube has a much larger audience.
• Make an audio podcast. This is very similar to the video podcast, but provides yet another way to give your fans consistent content, thus strengthening their relationship with you and your music and making it easier to sell albums, merchandise and tickets to your shows. This is a good format to suggest fans ask you questions, to which you record your answers. It also helps to have a moderator or someone interviewing you to help the conversation go on smoothly.
• Where’s your press kit? Very few bands that I come across have a press kit at all and those that do don’t have a very good one. Hire a graphic artist to help you design a press kit that is visually stimulating. The kit should include all of the following:
  1. Detailed description of the band and music.
  2. Testimonials from fans, but more importantly other members of the press.
  3. High resolution photos of the band. Included posed photos and live photos.
  4. High resolution video clips that can be downloaded for use in television stories.
  5. MP3’s of full or partial songs.
  6. List of scheduled shows.
  7. Contact Information.

  Take all of these files and compress them into a .zip folder and put it on all of your webpages and profiles as a downloadable link. This makes it easy for the press to write a story about you and press leads to more press. When writing your bio, you’ll want to write it as if it is an article itself. This allows reporters with busy schedules to simply copy and paste material into their publication.

• EPK. Electronic Press Kit. This goes a little bit further than the press kit listed about. What I like to do is get professional interview footage of the band answering a series of relevant questions. We then shoot three mini-music videos, each only 20-seconds (after-edit) in length. Then, we have an editor cut all of the interview footage in with the three mini-music videos. This gives the appearance that you have three full-length music videos, when really you only have three 20-second music videos. It’s simply a technique that gives your band higher perceived value.
• Live Music Videos. This should be a no brainer. Get a friend with a video camera to film ALL of your live shows. Even if you just set up the camera at the back of the venue on a tripod the whole time, this is another great piece of content to promote your band to your fans and spread the word. Another good idea might be to broadcast your show live via BlogTV or Ustream, but if it starts to affect the number of people who show up to the actual venue, you’ll want to do it less frequently.
• Music Videos. If you’re using all of the above tools correctly, you’re probably building a sizable fan base and hopefully making a little bit of money. Now, you need to go out and shoot a professional music video. A music video is the ultimate promotional tool, when used correctly. There are numerous outlets for your music video to air on public access television and a good music video can even land on sites like Fuse and MTV2. A music video is a great way to build perceived value around your band and another good reason for the press to write about you. It doesn’t hurt to tag something onto the end of a video that gives details on how to purchase your album, as well.
• Sell Merchandise. Hire a graphic artist or design them yourself, but get merchandise. I’ve seen bands make thousands of dollars each show just by selling out of their three t-shirt designs. If you don’t have merchandise to sell, you’re missing out on a lot of money. CafePress is an easy site to generate all kinds of customized merchandise, but there are thousands of others that you can find through a simple search engine search. I personally like to find a good local vendor and have designs printed on American Apparel t-shirts. You can charge more money and again, it’s all about perceived value. Don’t forget about bumper stickers, posters, sweat bands, hats, lunch boxes, toothbrushes, etc., etc.
• MySpace and other social networks. I’ve saved this for last, because it seems to be the most obvious to most bands. If you don’t have a MySpace page and you’re in a band, then go and get one now and stop living under a rock. It is probably the greatest promotional tool available to you as a musician and it’s completely free! Now, as I mentioned earlier, don’t use this as your main band site, use it as a tool to send people to your website and other sites carrying all of the above content. Other social networks that you should be on include, PureVolume, Facebook, MP3.com, Music Gorilla and Twitter. Again, all of these sites should be used to drive traffic to YOUR website.

The idea behind all of the above suggestions for promoting your band is to create a conversation and relationship with your fans. There are a lot of bands out their and people’s attention can be diverted pretty easily. But, if your fans get to know the people behind the music, then their loyalty to you is going to be much stronger than if they’re just fans of the music. Give your fans something extra, give them a reason to tell their friends about you and respond to their comments and questions. Create an on-going conversation with your fans and you’ll find they are much more supportive of your music and creative efforts.

All of the above can be slightly modified for ANY creative artist or company. The end goal is to reach out and humanize yourself or your company to your fans and customers. Show people what goes on behind-the-scenes and you’ll reach rockstar status in no time.

How else are YOU promoting yourself as a band or company? What success stories do you have in building a loyal fan or customer base? Share your success stories in the comments section of this post. Proper promotion is all about building a strong conversation and strong relationships with the people who care about your band, music, company or product. How are you building those relationships?

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