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Help me brainstorm Warriors... Received an interesting call today...

by Texas_Guns
7 replies
Hey Warriors,

I just got off an hour-long call with a singer for
an upcoming band. Through a friend of a friend
we met recently and had a great conversation
about marketing. I've seen him perform a few
times solo and with his band. Good stuff if
you're also into rock music.

Anyway, they are back from a national tour and
are in the recording studio right now working on
their 2nd album and want to do some big things
to build their fan base nationally.

They have a basic site to sell their merchandise
on, but most of their visitors are on MySpace.

We discussed quite a few ideas today and it got
me thinking...

At the basic level, it's like marketing anything
else online. You create the product (the songs),
build a fan base (customers) and market online
and off to drive people to your events (concerts).

So how could they "pre-launch" and do a cool
"product launch" for their new album to both
increase sales and drastically grow their
fan base?

There are of course basic things they can
do on YouTube, MySpace, writing press releases,
etc. to drive traffic to a band's website.

Now let me ask you, what tips, ideas, etc.
would you have for a band to really get known
and have a huge launch for their album using
what we know works in Internet Marketing?

I'll be doing some brainstorming... I'd love to
help him; at the very least provide him with a
bunch of cool ideas. He's got one heck of a
story... one that I think is marketable and
one that would stand out in the rock world.

Any thoughts... ideas???
#brainstorm #call #interesting #received #today #warriors
  • Profile picture of the author BeeJay
    Hmmmm, interesting example of internet marketing being applied to brick and mortar (or in this case, flesh and bone) business.

    I haven't worked with a band in this situations before, but here are some ideas:

    - If they have just come back from tour, presumably they have a fan base. Set up a blog and get the band members to post on it about what they are doing. Have a chat to the group, encourage them to post a little bit about each other...nothing scandalous, just enough to make the readers feel they are getting more insight into the members than they would anywhere else. Get a dedicated readership. Use video's of the group. Get them on a webinar to talk with their fans leading up to the album launch.

    - Start a newsletter, provide the usual bonus or incentive to join. Let new subscribers know how great the last tour was, perhaps run some photo's for subscribers, run a few comp's giving away their last CD, updates on the coming album etc. Obviously when the new album is available you have their list to sell to, same with the tour.

    - Get them to lay down a track that you can host on the web site and let people download for free. Everyone loves free music. Better yet, run a competition for song titles where the winners title is used on the new album. Try not to make it tacky, there's a chance it might go viral.

    There's three to chew on. You could do almost anything with it. Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author JamesPenn
      Set up a Facebook group, tell them to let all their Myspace followers know about the group, get the group members to send invites to their friends, link to some sample music, get others hooked, and in turn they'll invite more friends

      James
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      • Profile picture of the author Texas_Guns
        Thanks for the ideas guys!

        It's been interesting getting myself
        to think about the 'flesh and bone
        business' as Ben put it. Most of
        all the normal rules and traffic
        generation tactics apply, but I think
        more twists can be put on it that
        other bands aren't doing right now...
        notice I said, "I think"...
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        Launching A New Product? Need Copywriting? Multiple services offered. 13 years of experience as a Direct Response Copywriter. Product/Company launch expert. Millions of dollars in products sold online.
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        • Profile picture of the author mr2monster
          Is there any video footage of their tour?

          Maybe they could make a special edition video from their tour and offer it as a giveaway on the site in exchange for user information.

          Pile that on top of an e-newsletter and some other free giveaways like song downloads and you could probably get a pretty viral campaign.

          Combine it with the normal social networking sites, and you could potentially get some serious traffic.


          Also, another popular thing that I've been seeing to drive traffic to a band that I happen to like is:

          Boyce Avenue (search boyceavenue on YouTube) has been doing covers of popular songs outside of their genre (i.e. hip hop songs gone acoustic rock) and posting these videos on YouTube. These videos are getting MILLIONS of views and have definitely boosted their fan base as all of them point back to their myspace page. They could launch some sort of campaign like that as well.
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          • Profile picture of the author jensrsa
            Take a look at Keb' Mo's site at http://www.kebmo.net and there are a number of videos on YouTube as well

            Jens
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            • Profile picture of the author Texas_Guns
              Awesome guys - thanks for the great ideas!
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              Launching A New Product? Need Copywriting? Multiple services offered. 13 years of experience as a Direct Response Copywriter. Product/Company launch expert. Millions of dollars in products sold online.
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              • Profile picture of the author Shannon Tani
                I believe that many well-known bands release songs on the radio and internet before their CDs come out. These should be full versions and free. It will entice people to buy so they can hear more.

                Most of my friends use MySpace to promote their bands...though several have mailing lists.

                Love
                SHannon
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