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Artist Promotion

by Lior Shamir

When charged with the task of promoting an artist or, more specifically, promoting an event or series of events, one tends to reach out to as many people as possible within a particular demographic. For instance, a new album release may require national radio coverage, a good publicist and a progressive gig schedule. When well executed, these elements work together to draw new audiences. The success of such a campaign relies heavily on who it is targeted to, how relevant the "message" is and, of course, the timing. Unfortunately, it is not easy to determine this and, more often than not, it is a battle of who has the deepest pockets (hence the common desire to sign with a major label as opposed to a small indie label). Furthermore, the financial rewards from music and ticket sales are rarely proportional to the campaign budget. If you're in this business, you're probably not doing it for the money.

Due to the exponential growth of digital media, artist promoters are not only competing for attention with other artist promoters but also with other mediums that offer valuable musical experiences. In my mind, this means that, as an artist promoter today, I must spend more time, more energy and more money to reach fewer people (the opposite may seem to be true but keep in mind that online marketing solutions are available to everyone and printing and handing out flyers is no great feat).

Imagine if you could target only the people who are very likely to fall in love with your band's music and come to the shows. You may think this applies to everyone on the planet so let's be more pragmatic: if you have a gig in Chicago on Thursday, there is little reason to contact your fans and look for new fans in Seattle the night before, right? Moreover, if you discovered that your existing fanbase all have something in common (and it's not the love of your leather pantsuit), would you not use this data to your marketing advantage? You might be thinking, "Yeah, I know all my fans have something in common, they all like to rock!" but that's not what I'm getting at.

As an artist promoter (and marketing professional for all intensive purposes), I am looking for patterns, clues, leads, characteristics etc. that will help me learn about my target audience and build relationships. If I discovered that all of the people who come to my band's shows have one striking attribute in common and it happens to be skateboarding, I would swiftly shift my thinking to the convergence of my band's music with extreme sports. Off the top of my head, I think I would pay Chicago's public skate park and corner skate shop a visit, put up some posters in those locations, leave a few CDs on consignment, and talk to the skating community's leaders about doing something together. In other words, aim for any initiative that will bring my band's music closer to the sport or, rather, my music closer to my target audience. As farfetched as it might sound, it is possible that I will get more from my advertising dollar if I choose to advertise my band's next album release on Skateboard.com instead of Billboard.com.

Skateboarders are just an example, of course. The point is that, if you know your audience, you can promote your band more effectively and attract new fans virally.

MyDrifts provides artist promotion tools for finding and reaching new fans, promoting gigs, connecting with music industry professionals, and managing relationships. Learn more about MyDrifts.