September 2007

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?

This might be the worst picture ever taken of me.

When your company winds up in the gossip rags…
If you know anything about me it’s that I am obsessed with all things celebrity. I’m the guy holding up the line at the grocery store, because he’s shamelessly flipping through the latest edition of US Magazine. The reason I love all things celebrity, is because I hope to one day be one, in some form or fashion. I’ll admit it, I’m a subscriber to both What Would Tyler Durden Do? and Perez Hilton. I’ve even had one of our videos on Perez Hilton. I just love gossip. But, many times I feel sorry for the celebs that are targeted in the many gossip rags. Too often does the press just take the worst photo of you and publish it. Anyone who has ever been the subject of a photoshoot knows that for every good picture there are, at least, ten bad ones. The picture of me above is one of the “bad ones.” So, what happens when your company ends up in the spotlight for something not so attractive? Do you run and hide and let the press have their way with you, do you lash out at the people making you look bad, or do you roll with the punches?

Right or Wrong, Talk to the People
People aren’t stupid and information spreads fast. So, if you’ve made a mistake or your company has some poor light being shed on it, the worst thing you can do is not comment. Too often, whether it be a scandal, a mistake, a random mishap or a bad photo of you on Sunset Blvd, I see companies and people brushing the media away and not owning up to the truth. In our media ripe world, your story is going to get out there no matter what you do. So, you might as well tell your side of the story, so that someone else doesn’t make it up for you. But, don’t backlash against those people calling you or your company dirty names. Instead, roll with the punches and make light of the situation. Admit you’re wrong or weren’t at your best for once and the public will have mercy on you. But, admit you’re right, when you’re obviously not; or choose not to comment, when you’re obviously at fault and the public will crucify you. Look at the A&P Supermarket Ganster Rap Parody Video lawsuit and you’ll see a PR nightmare because “Corporate America” is suing two kids for being kids and making a video. If A&P wanted this thing to go away quickly, they picked the wrong way to go about it. Had they just fired the kids and been done with it, I wouldn’t be writing this post right now.

How do you handle press, good or bad?
I’m a big fan of spinning anything negative into a positive, which is pretty easy to do. The public is surprisingly forgiving as long as you’re honest with them. It’s only when you try to hide the truth and then are outed that they go for your throat. So, how do you handle less than perfect media coverage? What ways are you spinning negative into positive? Is your company afraid of admitting that it isn’t perfect? Guess what…no one is.

I had a phone conversation today with a colleague regarding what “Buzz Marketing” was and how to best implement it into a campaign. This is an interesting question, in which, there are many schools of thought. Many people go about buzz marketing, or word-of-mouth campaigns in a way that does more harm than help. With so many other people putting their two bits in about buzz marketing, I decided I’d go ahead and lay out my theory on building buzz with your marketing campaign.

Grab Attention and Keep It
It sickens me when I get a message through MySpace, an Instant Messanger service, chat room or e.mail that claims to be someone that I know or that is interested in something that I supposedly like. Automation is not the way to build a buzz campaign. If you ask me, the best way to build word-of-mouth or buzz is simply by engaging your audience in a fun and creative way. Don’t tell them what their supposed to think or believe, but rather set into place a system that they want to believe in. Give your audience something they want to talk about. Forcing a message is never the way to go about spreading news of your product or service. If you truly want people to talk about your product then make it the best it can be and then when it comes time to promote it, create an event or presentation of some kind that is worth talking about. When I was in school, to raise money for new computers, we had our principal promise that she would put her desk on the roof of the school and use that as her office. Each $10,000 that was raised through various fund-raisers would result in another day on the roof. The media loved it and more importantly, ALL of the students wanted to see their principal conducting business from the roof. In two weeks we raised nearly $70,000 and our principal spent a lot of time on a windy roof. That’s what buzz marketing is all about!

Use advertising to generate press for your product.
Let’s face it, there is WAY too much advertising for someone with a small ad budget to break through all the noise. Even those companies that do break through, aren’t seeing the returns that they could see if they would just refocus their ads. Too often are people with ad budgets wasting them away, when they could see plentiful returns. The key is grabbing attention, as mentioned above, and then capitalizing on that attention, or raising awareness to others through your advertising. If I’m Red Bull and I advertise that “Red Bull Give You Wings” there’s a good chance that the average reader is going to skip over that ad. But, if I’m Red Bull and I advertise, “Red Bull Flugtag: A contest to build the most outrageous machine that you can possibly think of…and then fly it into a lake!” Now, I have something worth talking about! An ad for something like Red Bull’s Flugtag generates a lot more buzz between people, but more importantly, gets the press writing about Flugtag. And consumers are always going to trust the press more than they trust traditional advertising. Make your product newsworthy somehow and then promote it through good advertising and PR.

Engage the consumer even after your campaign is over.
I see so many campaigns that spend millions of dollars building a customer or fan base in a certain demographic and then the next year roles around and they start from scratch. You should constantly be nurturing those that are gracious enough to give your company or product the time of day. Many campaigns run for 60-90 days (if that) and then leave their fan base high and dry, longing for more. A great way to remedy this is to build your product the best it can be, create a way to promote it that is newsworthy, couple that event with appropriate advertising and then continue to engage your consumer with branded content and relevant information on the web. It could be as simple as a blog that is updated three times a week or get as complicated as offering five new branded content videos every single week. The key is to take the attention that consumers are granting you and keep it. I might see an ad campaign that I really like, but not be in the market for their product at the time. Three months pass and the campaign ends with no attempt to keep me informed on what is happening with the brand. Six months later, I’m in the market for that product or something similar, but have forgotten about your brand. But, had you merely kept an interesting blog that was relevant to me and reflected why your brand is great, then maybe I would have bought from you. Maybe 100,000 people in my demographic would have done the same. Don’t abandon those who have been so kind to grant you a little bit of their attention. It’s rude.

A Quick Recap
In the end, I’ve been talking about ways to build buzz about your product without spending too much money. I’ve also highlighted some ways you can spend a lot of money and see little, if any, return. To recap, here are the main points you should consider when putting together a marketing and advertising strategy:

1. Build your product or service to be the best it can be.
2. Create a way to promote it that is newsworthy.
3. Couple an event or promotion with appropriate advertising and PR.
4. Continue to engage your consumer with branded content and relevant information on the web.

If you just use this as a guideline when putting together your next campaign, you’ll find that you can stretch your ad dollar significantly and start building relationships with your customers that last longer than any 60-day campaign could ever hope to achieve. Your customers are people. They want to know that your company is run by people. So, make your campaigns about people communicating with people, and you’ll have more customers than you ever thought possible.

For some time, I’ve been a HUGE fan of Whole Foods Market. With their headquarters in Austin, I eat lunch in their awesome cafe three or four times a week. That being said, I rarely do my grocery shopping at Whole Foods, simply because it is so much less expensive to go to a competing grocery store. Today, I decided that I’d change pace and do my weekly shopping at Whole Foods.

Wow! The Whole Foods Market in Austin has a digital pricing system. Every single product in the store has a digital display below it on its shelf (similar to a calculator face) that gives the product’s current price. At first glance, you might assume that this is Whole Foods way of simplifying the rather tedious process of replacing price labels on a daily basis. But, I think these digital price displays are a little smarter than first look might render.

While walking up and down the herbal tea isle, looking for “my brand” I noticed that several of the price displays changed as I looked at them. WHAT!? Yes, the price of three herbal teas dropped as I walked past them. This got me thinking, how complex is the pricing system that Whole Foods is using? Are product prices rising and falling as I shop? If I stand around the store long enough, will I end up saving money, or is it possible that I take an item off the shelf at one price, but find it to be a completely different price upon checkout? Or was this just a glitch in the system, that I happened to experience first hand?

Regardless, I think that Whole Foods has a winner on its hands. I would imagine that these displays are intrinsically linked to a much more advanced system that logs consumer behavior. Being that Whole Food prides itself on selling only the freshest of fresh, I’ll assume that shelf life goes into the end price that is displayed digitally. The longer a product is on the shelf, the more of a discount is given off the retail price. This allows them to move products off the shelf that will expire soon. But, I wonder if they don’t also consider consumer buying habits? If a particular brand of herbal tea is selling really well, will Whole Foods lower the price, or make it higher? Will I save more money shopping on a Wednesday than shopping on a Sunday? These are all questions that I’d like to learn the answers to in regards to this digital pricing system.

Whatever the answers, I love Whole Foods. Their Animal Compassion and Whole Planet Foundations alone are reason enough to enjoy Whole Foods. But, let’s face it, they just offer a superior shopping experience and I think these digital displays are designed to heighten that experience. Whole Foods is basically taking consumer tracking techniques from the internet and applying them to real life, like many other retailers are doing. So, go visit a Whole Foods, enjoy the experience (impossible not to) and let me know whether you think those digital displays are designed to help increase your shopping experience, increase Whole Foods bottom line, or a pleasant blend of both?

Is your company’s pricing system designed to fluctuate from day-to-day or month-to-month, depending on market conditions? Do you give incentives to frequent clients or consumers? How are you making your customer’s shopping experience more efficient and pleasant? What are people saying about the new technology that you’ve recently implemented?