Band Promotion Tip – Always Build Up A Mailing List

Chris    Music     autoresponder, aweber, band promotion, mailing list, music marketing, phplist, promote your band, promotion tips

The first and most important suggestion I can give to help you promote your band online is to collect names and email addresses of anyone remotely interested in your band, both from online and off line sources.

I’m not talking about collecting random email addresses either and spamming them!

Build up your mailing list
What you want to do is collect people who willingly wish to hear from you by way of them signing up or opting into your mailing list or band newsletter.

You can then stay in touch and communicate with them, letting them know what you’re up to and continuously promote your music to them.

If they don’t dig what you do, they can easily unsubscribe which is a good thing as you only want interested people on your mailing list.

Why build a list?
Simply because unless they are extremely motivated, they could see you live for the first time or bump into something online, think it was kind of cool but then completely forget about you.

Without a mailing list, you have no way of communicating directly to the very people that are interested in you.

Mailing List Software
PHPList is great, open source, newsletter software and best of all, it’s FREE.
Aweber is a powerful autoresponder service that works on a monthly subscription.

With PHPList, you install it on your web server and send out messages whenever you like.

Aweber differs in that you can write a predetermined sequence of messages which will begin to be sent out when someone signs into your mailing list. This is really handy if you wish each new mailing list member to receive messages that perhaps explain more about your band, your history, anything really.

Both allow you to send personalised messages so instead of them saying just ‘Hey’ or ‘Hey everyone’, you can say ‘Hey John’.

It makes it seem like you’ve personally sent your message to him which is much nicer than just broadcasting a group email.

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101 Resources For Band Promotion And Music Marketing

Chris    Music     band promotion, music marketing, promote your band, Resources

Here is a huge list of resources that can help you expand your reach on the internet and reach world domination!

You get links to help with the following:

1. Where To Sell Your Music
2. Where To Get a Band Review or Interview
3. Where To Break News – Do a Press Release
4. Join Forums & Post
5. Where To Create a Blog + Comment & Ping
6. Where To Get Links To Your Website
7. Where To Post Your Gig Dates
8. Get Your Music on Internet Radio
9. Create a Profile to Promote Your Music
10. Essential Resources
11. Marketing Music – Resources

Check out 101 Resources for Music Marketing.

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Discover More About Music, Websites & Marketing
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How To Promote Your Band On Myspace

Chris    Music     band promotion, how to, music marketing, myspace, promote your band, social networking, web 2.0

I came across this great post from Eric Herbert over at evolver.com about how to promote your band on Myspace.

Though he talks about Myspace in his post, the same principles apply to any other social network like Facebook, Bebo, etc.

Use them as a tool to promote your music and build up your own mailing list on your own site.

If these sites were to one day disappear, all that hard work you did getting people to know about you and your music would go down the toilet!

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Are You Treating Your Band Like A Business?

Chris    Music     band promotion, music marketing, promote your band

I know this is probably a thought which scares most musicians and in an ideal world, a musician could be left to be just that, a musician!

However, nowadays you need to get on with doing things yourself if anything is ever to happen.

I believe if you understand the business elements of running a band, you’ll certainly look at everything in a much different and hopefully more insightful light.

Let’s examine the following as we compare some business elements as they relate to a band:

• Product Research and Development: Songwriting
• Product Creation: Recording/CD pressing
  
• Product Offered for Sale: CDs, mp3s, etc
• Product Showcase/Demonstration: Live performance, touring
  
• Product Advertising: Various airplay

Let’s not forget about running the business/band:

• Management
• Bookings
• Promotion and PR
• Branding
• Various Marketing

Most small businesses fail because they don’t know how to market and promote themselves, do you see a pattern forming here with bands too?

“But Chris, I’m a musician, not a business person!” I hear you say.

My point here is that you don’t need to be a business person, but I’m sure if start to understand some business concepts, it could really benefit the way you promote your band.

Over my next few posts, I’m going to share some ideas which I’ve learnt from online marketing which I think can help any band or musician utilise the internet to better promote themselves.

I welcome your feedback and comments so please subscribe to this blog to receive post updates when they occur.

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Discover More About Music, Websites & Marketing
FREE Book Offer: Make Real Money On The Internet by Stephen Pierce