Band Promotion & Marketing

[jstover77]

*Posted this on another forum with no response, so I'll try here. Higher end marketers here anyways.

I've made a lot of really good friends through this forum, but a lot of people don't know that at one time I was a full time musician. Have toured the states, been signed, did many many sessions for money...etc.. Fast forward to 2018, I haven't really done anything since college (almost 20 years ago), besides a few cover bands and sessions to keep the chops alive.

Long story short, I recently started getting the bug to play again. I decided to contact a bunch of guys who I've known for years and are very good musicians (my idea of the All Star crew). We've been putting together some tracks. Here are two rough tracks we recently recorded:

https://soundcloud.com/john-stover-689077145/drink-to-drown-rough-trac

https://soundcloud.com/john-stover-689077145/say-something-rough-track

Both are very rough, and only played a few times, so take it easy I play drums by the way.

Anyhow, I've never really promoted bands online (back when I was coming up it was straight guerilla marketing). If anyone has some tips or experience, let me know. We are planning to hit the studio in a few months.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

There are a couple of clips out in the wild if I remember correctly like this one where Gary talks to rappers about promoting themselves. Seems like from the ones I remember (the one linked is just a random one I found in a search) he recommends a lot of 1-1 interaction/hustle via social etc.

ps I did listen, I know you're not rappers

 

[GNews]

YouTube and Facebook. To me, those are still the best 1-2 punch for music. You can promote yoru music, if good, via a solid FB social media campaign. Get people to engage and you're a hit.

or Tekashi69 it.......

Talk sh-t about all your favorites so bad they have to respond.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I've always been convinced that the best way to promote an artist is grassroots locally. By locally I mean within a physical region of your state or country or within a forum or something online. The important part is that the artists take part and engage, ultimately creating awareness but also trying to form your first posse of loyal evangelists.

You have to be real careful though about staying out of drama or negativity (unless it's rap, but even then you don't want to hurt your collaboration chances by being too much of a drama queen), and even more especially if it's online. It'll haunt you forever.

In my experiences, it's better to be the big fish in a small pond than just another fish in the giant ocean of Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, etc. You can jump to the next larger sized pond with notoriety this way.

Another thing with music is it's often a war of attrition. He who is left standing after everyone else quits gets the glory. (Think about guys like Young Jeezy, E-40, and Tech N9ne if you know their history).

Of course it's about who you know (not skill). But if you're looking to sign to a reasonable label, nobody wants to caress and mold an artist. They want the entire package already developed, and they want to see that you're a hustler making steady sales on your own.

That applies to the Spotify / Soundcloud artists as well as offline hustles. Labels don't want to gamble on artists because there's a very limited amount of slots for the lime light at any level of it.

To come back down from the big picture, I think engaging with fans on social media, and being available in all the places they'd want to find you matters. Youtube, Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, etc. There are some great (and horrible, worthy of the scam label) digital distribution services too that can get this done for you.

 

[GNews]

Just found out. As i expected, DJs are making a killing now by building huge playlists on stuff like Spotify and then selling placements. You can make $800 profit on a $2200 investment (3k gross) by simply buying streams, win lose or draw.