Today I have a guest post from another BandWPThemes member Todd Dunnigan of Roaming Royalty. Todd has been one of the best action takers I have seen in the indie space. Over the last few weeks he went from knowing nothing about WordPress to getting his new site up, taking part in blogging contests over at Ariel Hyatt’s site and today writing a guest post for the GYRS community. Below is what he sent over!
You Don’t Have to Market Your Music (Unless You Want to Succeed)
I’ve lived this feeling dozens of times, and comments I read on other music marketing blogs tell me I’m not alone. It’s the feeling I get when I’m just about to hit ‘send’ to e-mail out another newsletter, the feeling I get when I’m working really hard on some goofy promo video instead of a song, or the feeling I have when I’ve stayed up all night searching internet portals through which I can promote my band.
It’s the feeling that I wouldn’t have to do all this stuff if my music was good enough. Music marketing is actually quite enjoyable ’cause in the end it’s really all about finding and connecting with other people who dig the same things you do, but sometimes a huge marketing effort leaves me and many others feeling kind of inadequate, like, why doesn’t my shit just blow up on it’s own?
A Reality Check
Metallica, Radiohead, Rush… we can probably all think of an band or artist who has legions of devoted fans based pretty much solely on the music. Thom Yorke and Geddy Lee don’t do silly stuff for a viral video, or tell you to sign their e-mail list on the way out of the show. That being said, those guys do work hard at staying connected to fans. The bad news is, we don’t all get to be Phish. A remarkably small percentage of us will see our basement jams morph into a stadium packing cultural phenomenon. The rest of us have to live with the fact that people won’t magically find us just because we are awesome, granted, it happens, but realistically? Probably not to me and my band, and it’s not your best move to bank on that happening to you and your band.
Marketing Is Whoring?
Here are some quotes about clever marketing ideas from the comments section after an article about promoting yourself at DIY Musician
“I just can not get over the feeling of taking advantage of people, for example offering some meaningless/arbitrary reward for fan loyalty (akin to whoring yourself out) doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Me personally I think id ask Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, what they would think of this sort of behavior and they probably would say leave that up to the PR and Marketing guys who already lost their souls but if you have to DIY (do it yourself) practice your craft and be true to yourself.”
“In a nutshell, it’s degrading to musicians to have to continually ‘gimmick’ their way into people’s ears, when the music should be reward enough to keep them coming back.”
The Problem With That Attitude
If you see connecting with your fans as a ‘marketing gimmick‘ you are probably doomed to failure. In the end this is about using modern tools to achieve something that people have actively wanted since time began, and that’s to find others with common interests and connect with them. One reader lamented “rarely do I hear discussion about the importance of the song writing or emotional connection through the music.”
Anytime you’re griping about a lack of anything, you’re missing a golden opportunity. If there is a lack of discussion, then start the discussion, lead everyone to your website for the discussion, and while they are there discussing it, make sure people know you write some of this awesome music everyone is discussing. Is that a marketing gimmick or is it connecting with like minds? Both really, but no one got taken advantage of and no one sold their souls. If you did it right people went away feeing they got something of value.
Being Multi-Faceted
If you came up in a punk/indie or metal type scene, bands that appear to be over-hyped are generally viewed kinda suspiciously, I feel that, but this is not over-hyping. It’s actually an opportunity to use the other things that you are already interested in to gain listeners and hopefully customers. Let’s be real, with so many bands out there is not that unique of a thing to be a rock star anymore, but I know I’m going to be putting my other interests together so I can be something like a martial artist/carpenter/RV traveler/family man/swimmer/businessman/rock star. Now that’s more interesting, and ‘marketing’ is really just finding ways to connect with other people who like those things too. It shouldn’t be a pain, it should be fun.
This post was written by Todd Dunnigan from Roaming Royalty. Go check out their music and join their email list to hear more about things happening with their band.
If you are really looking to make an impact online, consider picking up BandWPThemes.
Tags: guest post, Music Marketing, roaming royalty
Leave A Reply (13 comments So Far)
The comments are closed.
Bryan
581 days ago
Amen brother! It’s a brave new world. A new Wild West frontier has opened up in Music Land … It’s those who take charge of their own destiny that are most likely to enjoy the real fruit of their labors … and the rest are just gonna have to make do with their bowls of fruity pebbles, as they laze around bitchin’ about why no one “gets” their music … and we all go through that from time to time anyway, don’t we … just don’t get stuck there!
Derek Jordan
581 days ago
Great post! And I agree 100% You are not a used-car salesman if you are building and participating in a tribe or network of like-minded people.
In regards to Hendrix, Cobain, they did what they had to get their art heard. Times change, and approaches adjust. You’ll have a hard time selling a walkman nowadays when there is so much superior forms of entertainment. Methods used by Hendrix, Cobain are the walkman methods.
Todd Dunnigan
580 days ago
The old rock star on a pedestal model isn’t really going to cut it in the future. Even pillars of musical integrity like Rush still stand there after the show and greet as many fans in person as they can. This is truly good news for us musicians, it means we’re cutting out the middle man.
Marcus Taylor
580 days ago
Awesome post Todd, I totally agree that the perception of marketing that a lot of musicians still have is very one way and out dated.
It would be interesting to compare PR vs. Advertising vs. Marketing vs. Branding when it comes to marketing music, do you think PR is more important now than ever because traditional advertising and marketing is more saturated and less receptive?
Todd Dunnigan
579 days ago
@Marcus, you hit exactly right when you said “one-way” and “outdated” It seems like the younger generation in particular has been “over advertised” and they can see right through it. The person who’s going to win in the future in the one who develops “2-way’ relationships. Maybe we should even stop calling it “marketing’ ’cause when people hear that term they are associating it with outdated ideas.
Phil Johnson
576 days ago
I try to just ignore people that says stuff like that. Heck, I’ve fired people that said stuff like that.
They’ll rock out in their bedrooms while the rest of us work to do what we love. Music is a business and businesses need to be promoted. I’m sure Kurt Cobain spent plenty of time handing out flyers and such in his day.
You’re absolutely right that we’re developing two-way relationships. The reason we have to kick it into high gear though is that we have to have so many more of those relationships than the average person. That takes an extended amount of work.
gregrollett
576 days ago
Good point Phil! You guys are building more relationships than the average person. But as a musician you should be aiming for much higher than average.
Thanks for dropping by.
Jason Clarke
575 days ago
The problem is that music is not really a business and if you treat it like it is, you kill it. Musicians really need to focus on what is important, the reasons why they started in the first place. The message will then be undeniable and not just some hype. I particularly love this guy’s approach (Brian Camelio of ArtistShare). They have been kicking ass at this under the radar for nearly 10 years. Learn some lessons from this and get the best of both worlds.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=36858
http://www.artistshare.com
My 2 cents…..
Name (Joe Blessett)
575 days ago
Nice post
Doing the music is fun, promoting the music should be preparation for the celebration and mass recognition is the feast.
Joe Blessett three step program.
Jack
574 days ago
“Thom Yorke and Geddy Lee don’t do silly stuff for a viral video, or tell you to sign their e-mail list on the way out of the show.”
That’s because teams of people and millions of dollars have already done that for both of them. Now the music can stand on it’s own because the fan base has been established. Well and long established.
qdaima
572 days ago
i agree with the article to certain extent, but feel that some of the comments were out of touch with the world we live in. many artist hate the business side, for those that do they need business people working for them. some artist suck at relating to their audience or the public, for those that do they need business people working for them. all artists like being creative and performing, for them they need business people working for them.
the problem is not with the companies we hire it is with the artists that are doing the hiring. make them work for your services, agree to 6 month slots, deal with freelancers, get consultants all there are people who can give a crap about taking money from you. they are in it for the art also business is an art to me, it’s my performance that matters the most to me.
Todd Dunnigan
569 days ago
@Jack, that’s a totally fair observation, but those teams of people came well after the fact. When Rush started they played 250 dates a year to nobody before having a real serious break-through on their 4th album. The Metallica legend says that their demo cassette got copied and re-copied by rabid fans, the 80′s version of re-tweeting, until it made it’s way to a Philadelphia record store owner who started label just to sign them. By the time any real record company machine came in behind these guys, they had built up their fan bases the old fashioned way, by playing as many gigs as possible and meeting people after the shows. That’s kind of what we’re trying to achieve in the new music business, only we use the internet instead of the road to build those personal connections.