Indie Music Marketing Stratiegies?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robertt8
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Robertt8

Robertt8

Well-known member
Hey! we're probably a month or so away from releasing our first CD by ourselves. is there any steps we can take now to get things ready to roll when we actually get that in our hands? We were looking to target these places/people:

local radio stations
surf video making companies
local beach areas events like Santa Cruz
local college venues
maybe sell at local surf shops as well as local record stores

these are just some of the top of my head, is there a source out there that may help with our planning or strategy? something online? a good book? people with ideas in this thread? anything like that?

any ideas would be great.

Thanks!
Tait
 
before you release it, send it out to a few places to be reviewed... there was a thread on here awhile back about zines and such that review albums...

put out flyers and free stickers as well as free samplers if you can afford it

basically, play as many shows as you can and promote the cd and your web site at shows
 
Yeah, play as many places as you can: bars, coffee houses, college events, charity events, house parties, etc.
 
thanks guys! but we're already playing as many places as we can. that's not the problem. we can handle selling the CD at shows, that's never been an issue. we're trying to look at it almost from a record company persective...how do we take it too the next level?
 
there isn't much of a next level, just get the name out there and sell sell sell. how can you get the name out there? we've been doing television appearances and radio interviews... in addition we've tried to keep ourselves in the papers for one reason or another for the past few months... and it's worked. tv and radio are fun anyway and most of the time all you have to do is ask!
 
now we're talking!

tv huh?

who are you contacting at these radio/tv places? program director? you just asking to come in, do an interview and play some tunes or what?

also, how are you getting in the papers? we're in there once or twice a month for shows at clubs (just the venues ads). are you guys robbing 7/11s or something once a month? :D
 
Hey Robert, You sound like a smart guy and defenetly hungry. (which, first and formost is what's required to have any success in this business..) I just wanted to reinstate the fact that this is a business and when you speak of Getting to the "next level" you have to know what that next level is first.

If Joe's Carpet Cleaning Co. makes a plan to increase revenues by 15% over three years, and break even on the overall investment capital in half that time in order to score some profit then half the battle is over. The second part of which you inquire about is the marketing necessary to accomplish the task at hand. Now Id say this site is a wonderful place to learn everything there is to know at one stage or other in the production process. I just dont know how eager peaple here would be to give away hard-learned lessons and strategic marketing tactics/ploys that took much trial and error and well as eons to learn. But thats just my opinion.

What I can tell you (which your already starting to do) is "plan your work and work your plan." When you create your own "Blueprint" for success, you will take yourself to the "next Level" and have control of your business's future. Once you do, never let it out of your hands. Peaple can only help you along. Also, its not important knowing who to ask for at say, a local radio station. (you'll learn this quick after a few embarrassing phone calls/and or walk ins.) Whats important is that you never stop knocking on those doors. Ever. (preverbial doors of course).
Oh...and most important, make sure your product is superier to anything you've ever heard in your life. :D -mi2c-
 
well, we just did two tv appearances on local affiliates of ABC and CBS... well one was an hour away so I wouldn't call that local, but both of them broadcast all over central virginia. all I did was go to their web site, email them explaining that I was in a music group, I told them our name and explained our music was 100 clean and family friendly and that we were promoting the release of our first album and I asked if it was possible to come on and play a few songs. luckily, two out of about four or five stations I asked agreed to it.

I usually looked for the programming director's or producers' email addresses first, if taht was not available, I just would email the webmaster asking who I should contact about performing a few songs on the news. you just have to ask who the right person to contact is and most of the time they will forward the email right to that person.

you can also just call and ask. that's what I did with many radio stations, I said who we are, what we were doing (promoting our new album), who should I talk about doing an interview and where should I send the cd in. pretty straightforward... ask who to speak with, tell them what you're doing - hopefully they'll say yes!
 
as far as the papers go. we have been lucky. our local newspaper JUST started a web site for local musicians, right when started talking to them. we were the first ones on it! again we just talked to an editor and said who we are and what we're doing and made a big to do about our performance debuting the album. we've had our picture in the paper for months since then because we kept doing shows and they wanted traffic to their web site so they advertise both at the same time. I also got to know an editor fairly well and now I do CD reviews once a week for the paper (for free I might add, but it benefits me in so many other ways) - so now I'm in constant contact with them.
 
like babygrand said, it will take a bit of getting used to and becoming accustomed to contacting these people out of the blue and getting them on board with you, but I like to think of it as a game - what is the next ridiculous thing we can do that probably won't happen - and then when it does... like TV for us... it's amazing. the other day I just happened to pick up a copy of my local record stores magazine and we were on the first page! usually we can keep track of where we are in the media, but this one blew me away. so I think after 6 months of work, we're finally getting a name just around this area.
 
Coffee Shops and more

Try to get into as many local coffee shops as you can. Nora Jones and Jack Johnson got started though starbucks. I would suggest submitting you disc to as many newspapers and magazines as possible. The best thing you can get for your album is a review. Post songs from you disc on as many sites as possible. Most importantly, plan a tour and play out as much as possible. Get a good mailing list started by playing live.
 
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