Promotions and Marketing we believe is the key to indie music success in the current music industry. The barrier of recording and distributing your record is now if not gone, then certainly a lot lower but getting people to actually hear about it can still be an uphill struggle. One of the side effects of the digital recording revolution is that there is a lot more music out there now completing for the audiences attention. This coupled with the music media fragmention means being heard above all the background noise is an increasingly hard challenge.

What we mean by fragmentation is that there used to be a just few main radio stations, TV shows and music magazines that the record labels could use to reach the majority of their audience with. These days the way people hear new music has fragmented into hundreds of music shows on a vast array of international TV channels, countless blogs, websites, internet radio stations, podcasts and social networking sites. People are picking up new music in a huge number of different ways and are forging loyalties to media outlets that cater to their specific niche taste.

This can be a huge opportunity for independent artists to reach audiences they would never have been able to reach before. It requires a change of mindset from the traditional way music is marketed which is something the major labels are still struggling with.

Marketing music used to be about shouting loudly about your new band’s release through bill boards, adverts, flyers and shows hoping that people would hear and buy the record. The problem is that with everybody shouting through all these new media channels (eg. online, radio etc) the audience has tuned out. What they want now is a quiet voice speaking directly to them and a relationship built up between them and the artist. We’ll come onto social networking sites and the revolution they’ve been later on but this focus on relationship building has now become gospel in the music industry. One of the most valuable things you can get from a fan is their contact information because that allows you to speak them directly about what’s going on with your new project or new tour. You can send them special offers on merchandise or even send them free demos or tracks from the studio. If you can make them feel valued and part of your ‘community’ then they are a lot more likely to buy the next album, go see the next gig and most importantly tell their friends about you.

Making your fans feel valued is probably the most important marketing tip we can give you. The other huge piece of advice we’d offer is to sit down and make a plan to target all your efforts at the audience your aiming for. There is a huge amount of honesty and creativity that needs to be put into this, ask yourself who is going to like your music and what is the best way to contact them. You may think that your music really appeals to bleeding edge teenage punk crowd but in reality is your core audience really more people in their early 30s with sensible jobs? Either way which magazines, blogs or shows do they read and go to? If your sound is like a folk band on acid then where in the country has a vibrant psychedelic folk scene and who are the promoters running the gigs and shows in that area? If you have a sound like another well known band then find all the online forums, sites and blogs who mention them and post up a bunch of comments saying “You think these guys are good, check us out!” The more targeted you can make your efforts the more likely you are to find a return for all your work. Mis-targeted marketing and promotion – telling people who would obviously have no interest in hearing about you – is simply a waste of time of your time and theirs.

Promoting Music by Playing Live –>