Comments on: Active or Passive Promotion? http://passivepromotion.com/active-or-passive-promotion "Set it and forget it" music promotion Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:09:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Charlene Aprilhttp://passivepromotion.com/active-or-passive-promotion#comment-80 Charlene April Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:12:54 +0000 http://www.passivepromotion.com/?p=473#comment-80 Hey! I would love to add to this discussion. There are many ways to promote and achieve results...however, I often wonder if spending hours and hours promoting to many via the internet is worth while. Us indie's have to expose ourselves to hundreds and hundreds, (thousands really) of people just to possibly get one CD sale out of it, or one compliment, or one new sign up to the mailing list. It ends up being quite depressing...and it's hard not to take it personally.I am trying to adopt a new approach which is to try to find key people/companies that can do more for me than x amount hrs/week promoting on the internet could ever do (not that we are gonna stop doing internet promo completely, cause it does work to a degree). I think the answer is in music licensing and creating relationships with Music Supervisors, Producers, etc. You get paid and gain exposure at the same time. The problem is that millions of Musician's are essentially applying for the few placements that are available in film/tv/video games. Not giving up and being a bit persistent with the same few companies (I am hoping) will pay off. Sending the same people new songs as they become finished.I definitely don't think that an Indie Musician's success can be measured by anything specific, like a mailing list. Given the state of emergency that the industry is in, studio Musician's such as ourselves (especially since we don't play live) are damn lucky to just break even, and even luckier to get a few compliments and a few true fans along the way.NOTE: WOW- 2-3 hours a night promoting is a lot...if the results are really good for you than you should keep it up.-Charlene April www.BlindFaithandEnvy.com Hey! I would love to add to this discussion. There are many ways to promote and achieve results…however, I often wonder if spending hours and hours promoting to many via the internet is worth while. Us indie’s have to expose ourselves to hundreds and hundreds, (thousands really) of people just to possibly get one CD sale out of it, or one compliment, or one new sign up to the mailing list. It ends up being quite depressing…and it’s hard not to take it personally.

I am trying to adopt a new approach which is to try to find key people/companies that can do more for me than x amount hrs/week promoting on the internet could ever do (not that we are gonna stop doing internet promo completely, cause it does work to a degree). I think the answer is in music licensing and creating relationships with Music Supervisors, Producers, etc. You get paid and gain exposure at the same time. The problem is that millions of Musician’s are essentially applying for the few placements that are available in film/tv/video games. Not giving up and being a bit persistent with the same few companies (I am hoping) will pay off. Sending the same people new songs as they become finished.

I definitely don’t think that an Indie Musician’s success can be measured by anything specific, like a mailing list. Given the state of emergency that the industry is in, studio Musician’s such as ourselves (especially since we don’t play live) are damn lucky to just break even, and even luckier to get a few compliments and a few true fans along the way.

NOTE: WOW- 2-3 hours a night promoting is a lot…if the results are really good for you than you should keep it up.

-Charlene April
http://www.BlindFaithandEnvy.com

]]> By: Monty Singletonhttp://passivepromotion.com/active-or-passive-promotion#comment-79 Monty Singleton Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:22:41 +0000 http://www.passivepromotion.com/?p=473#comment-79 I remember reading somewhere that back in the day when people were still buying records that labels put 90% of their budget into image and marketing. You know my opinions on this. If you are going to grow your fan base, you have to market. The best products in the world have to market, word-of-mouth only works for small business. That's the interesting dilemma of the music business. It's a mom and pop business but needs the same amount of customers as a world corporation.Would that local market or restaurant succeed if it needed 10,000 customers per year to buy something? No, because they only have a word-of-mouth marketing budget.Monty I remember reading somewhere that back in the day when people were still buying records that labels put 90% of their budget into image and marketing. You know my opinions on this. If you are going to grow your fan base, you have to market. The best products in the world have to market, word-of-mouth only works for small business. That’s the interesting dilemma of the music business. It’s a mom and pop business but needs the same amount of customers as a world corporation.

Would that local market or restaurant succeed if it needed 10,000 customers per year to buy something? No, because they only have a word-of-mouth marketing budget.

Monty

]]> By: Dan Freedmanhttp://passivepromotion.com/active-or-passive-promotion#comment-69 Dan Freedman Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:34:36 +0000 http://www.passivepromotion.com/?p=473#comment-69 Well, it may be $5/hr if you calculate it that way, but let me encourage you to think like a dairy farmer, not a hunter. A hunter derives value only one time from each animal he hunts. But a farmer gets a continual stream of income from each animal.In your case, this means that instead of thinking of each new fan as $8 in profit, why not start thinking of them as $8 per year in profits (assuming you release one album per year). That way, over the remaining 60 years of your life (I'm making some assumptions), you would derive $240,000 from those fans. Of course, hopefully your fan base would grow between now and then. And it's not really something that inflation would eat away at either. If inflation makes things more expensive, you'll make more than $8 per album.So, in summary: keep providing the music that you love to make, and your fans will keep buying it year after year. Sure, some will come and go, and you'll have a "peak" one year that will perhaps never be surpassed, but you get the idea: farm, don't hunt.Dan Freedman www.dan88.com Well, it may be $5/hr if you calculate it that way, but let me encourage you to think like a dairy farmer, not a hunter. A hunter derives value only one time from each animal he hunts. But a farmer gets a continual stream of income from each animal.

In your case, this means that instead of thinking of each new fan as $8 in profit, why not start thinking of them as $8 per year in profits (assuming you release one album per year). That way, over the remaining 60 years of your life (I’m making some assumptions), you would derive $240,000 from those fans. Of course, hopefully your fan base would grow between now and then. And it’s not really something that inflation would eat away at either. If inflation makes things more expensive, you’ll make more than $8 per album.

So, in summary: keep providing the music that you love to make, and your fans will keep buying it year after year. Sure, some will come and go, and you’ll have a “peak” one year that will perhaps never be surpassed, but you get the idea: farm, don’t hunt.

Dan Freedman
http://www.dan88.com

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