If you consider only what other artists and bands are doing, you're cheating yourself. The seeds of great marketing ideas are everywhere -- literally!
In fact, I just challenged myself to go on a Music Marketing Idea Scavenger Hunt. I'll reveal some of my findings below ... then challenge you to do the same and report back what you come up with.
Here's what I did:
Last week I went to the public library and told myself I would not leave until I had found five good music marketing ideas. Well, I ended up with about 12.
Instead of using the entire library, I limited myself to the magazine section only. AND I purposely did NOT use any music-specific magazines as a reference.
The whole idea was to generate fresh concepts using non-music related news as my starting point -- and then seeing where each original idea led me.
Here's some of what I came up with using only a single issue of one magazine ...
Source: "Publishers Weekly" - March 6, 2006
Original Idea: Some smaller niche book publishers put out a magazine on their core topic, in addition to a line of books. Example: Entrepreneur Media produces "Entrepreneur" magazine and SmallBizBooks.com.
Music Marketing Spin: In addition to a web site dedicated exclusively to your music and CDs, consider publishing an ezine or web site for fans of your overall genre. And be sure it covers a wide variety of well-known and lesser-known artists.
Examples: David Nevue's SoloPianoRadio.com and Marc Gunn's CelticMP3s.com.
Here are a couple more brainstorms from "Publishers Weekly" ...
Original Idea: An ad for a book titled "Yoga for Regular Guys."
Music Marketing Spin: How about making your CD very targeted with a built-in marketing hook in the title? Consider "Classical Music for Regular Joes" or "Punk Rock for Sassy Chicks" or "Folk Music for Vegetarians." The possibilities are endless.
Original Idea: An ad for a book titled "What Color Is Your Jock Strap?" -- a spoof of the perennial career book "What Color Is Your Parachute?"
Music Marketing Spin: Give your CD a parody-type title, such as:
- "Dark Side of the Spoon"
- "Appetite for Obstruction"
- "The Stravinsky Code"
- "Heavy Metal for Dummies"
Check back for more of my Scavenger Hunt brainstorms. In the meantime, I want you to go on your own idea-generation safari. Go to your local library or bookstore or whatever ... and challenge yourself to come up with five cool promotion ideas.
Then come back here and post a comment detailing what you came up with. Let's share our best ideas with each other and prove that good marketing concepts can indeed be found anywhere.
Oh, I gotta run. I just spotted another idea I need to capture!
To your success!
-Bob
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