10 Cents on Search
Search Marketing is one of the most exciting new forms consumer advertisers are using to reach potential customers – mainly because it’s cost efficient, highly measurable, and it reaches nearly the entire population of Internet users. Do you Yahoo?
So, there are two main companies that currently drive the majority of search listings on the Internet – Google and Yahoo! Search (formerly Overture). AOL is also an important provider, mainly because of its installed base of users through their ISP and IM services. Google syndicates its search results to AOL, so it means if you're on Google then you're on AOL, too. Yahoo used to syndicate to MSN, but MSN is expected to come out with a Paid Search offering in September 2005, which may make them a major player you should consider as well. There are many other smaller companies -- often referred to as "Second Tier Search Engines." Results can often be fed to these second tiers through the search networks managed by Google and Yahoo, or through network aggregators like the Search Advertising Network.
The list of players goes on and on. See, search is still a very new and budding technology. It is still being figured out. But if you're just getting started in this stuff, the two main players you have to worry about are Google and Yahoo...
What does this mean to you?
It means that there are prospective fans out there searching on terms like “new independent musician” every day, and you could put your name and album in front of them. For example on Google, "music" gets 21,000 clicks/day, "new music" gets 240 clicks/day, "buy CDs" gets 86 clicks/day, "buy music online" gets 80 clicks/day, "folk music" gets 67 clicks/day, and "independent music" gets 14 clicks/day. Now that doesn't mean you should necessarily go buy those terms, but it does give you an idea of how many people are searching on music-related terms.
It also means that you have an additional way to measure your market reach – so you can not only tell those Record Label A&R folks how many units you sold last year, but you can also tell him the % increase of searches online on your Brand Name. You can also learn a lot more about your fans by the terms they search to find you.
Okay, now that this all appears to be a little more relevant, I’m gonna get a little more technical…
Google and Yahoo! Search both have Paid and Natural components to their search results pages. That means some of the listings you see when you do a search are Sponsored (paid for), and some of the listings you see are Natural (found by engine spiders/webcrawlers, without payola). Understanding where the search listings come from, and how you can impact them is the first step toward determining what role Search Marketing will play in your overall business strategy.
Forms of Search Marketing & Industry Lingo
Currently, there are three types of Search Marketing recognized by folks who do it most. (People like me, I guess.) There's Site-Side Optimization (also called SEO), Paid Inclusion, and Paid Placement (also called PPC or Paid Search). There are some other advanced forms of search-related marketing beginning to appear - like contextual, behavioral, and psychographic profiling. But let's get started with the basic scales first -- then we can more onto barre chords...
SEO is when you look at the structure of your web site on its "back end" and how you have named your site, it's directories (folders), and pages (those files that usually end with .htm, .html, .asp, or .php depending on what type of server you are using and the functionality of your site). You go through your page header tags and create things called Meta-tag Keywords and Descriptions, as well as indexing commands, so search engines know what to do when they get to your site. Generally, SEO works to help you with your Natural Search performance - that's the stuff where the search engines send out spiders or crawlers to find contents relevant to certain keywords and/or subject matter. There's a lot you can do to help your performance - particularly if you have a lot of content or run a Blog through your site. If you’re the bloggy type, Blogspot is actually owned by Google, and as a result they are able to crawl the blogs quickly, with ease, and frequently.
PAID INCLUSION is kind of a way of cheating on Natural Search. Basically, through certain sites you can submit feeds of your site contents with tailored page descriptions so the engines are guaranteed to index you. Mind you, they do not guarantee high ranking. But basically, you pay them so you can send them whatever creative descriptions you want to - and in return they don't have to send their spider to crawl your site. Kinda fishy, eh? Yeah, they have to do less work, and you pay them. What's up with that? But, for some folks who have sites that pose problems for the search engines - like if the site's in frames or it has a significant number of dynamically generated pages (where page contents comes from a database and not a hard-coded HTML page), or if it is primarily in Flash - this is a good solution.
PAID PLACEMENT is not natural at all. You pay money to Google and Overture (Yahoo! and other syndicated search sites), and they put you up under the Sponsored Listings section of their engines. On Google, the price you pay per click is based on a combination of your Bid on a term and your Click Rate (CTR%). On Overture, it is based just on your Bid (what you are willing to pay for one click). Generally for you, I would recommend that you participate in PPC if you have eCommerce on your site and are directly selling something, but just to drive traffic it can become somewhat costly.
How to Impact Search Performance
Okay, so now to my thoughts on how search can be implemented to help a musician attain specific goals...
A Few Good Goals:
Find More Listeners
Drive Frequent Visits
Get Listed On Engines
Get PR Through Content
Find More Listeners:
When it comes to the Internet, the more you write, the more readers will be likely to find you. Really. Believe it or not, this is a space in which "If you build it, they will come," is actually true. However, it's not just because of karma. The more you write, the more contents you will have that is indexed by the natural search engines spiders. Just remember -- relevency is king. You can write until you're blue in the face, but if it isn't relevant then you'll come up on the wrong types of searches.
Once you think you've got the structure, meta tags and descriptions in pretty good shape, you can actively submit your pages to the engines for indexing – some engines allow you to do this for free, others have Paid Inclusion programs.
Then, the next step is to go and seek out sites and blogs with similar or kindred content - and then invite them to link to your site or blog. Part of natural search Page Rank performance is based on how many other sites link to yours, and to how many well-searched pages you link to. It's part of Google’s philosophy that relevant content should always rise to the top in their search engine results.
Drive Frequent Visits:
Newsletter newsletter newsletter. Capture reader's email addresses and send them the newest story - or a teaser message about it - whenever you put up a new posting. To do this, I use a tool from Topica - and can tell you more about why Topica is a good idea. Or if you want to read my POV and best practices about email newsletters, you can check out my recent blog on avoiding email SPAM filters – tips on email newsletter marketing for budding musicians.
Get Listed:
If you publish a web site, add meta-tags and descriptions in your web page header tags. If you publish a blog, add a description to the top of the page on your Blog in your Blogspot settings - be sure to include important and frequently searched keywords in that description. Take a look at other blogs you've found on search engines, and see how they use descriptions to match your searches. Second, ALWAYS name your domain names, page names, and/or blogs with headlines that include keywords people will use to search for your content. This is the fun part for a creative person such as yourself - to find something that is pithy and creative but also practical for a headline. So, you might want to review your previous posting headlines with your search hat on and determine where you might be able to include search terms.
Currently, your meta-tag keywords and descriptions are probably blank, or maybe you or your webmaster have thrown a few generic terms in there -- using the same ones on every page of your site. To take your natural search to the next level, you should start by creating a spreadsheet that has a line for every page of your site. In this spreadsheet you should make columns for Page Name, Page URL, Page Header Title, Page Meta Description, Page Meta Keywords, Page Index Type. Then, go to the next step of coming up with compelling titles, keywords and descriptions for each page. This way, your meta-tags differ by content, and people who search will actually be sent to relevant information.
A couple pages you should check out for more info:
- www.searchenginewatch.com
- www.google.com/adsense
Get PR Through Content:
Online PR has started to buzz. At search marketing conferences, booths about Search PR firms have started to pop up all over - and you can now purchase service through the PR Newswire and other similar tools to enhance your PR through search. I haven't researched this stuff nearly as much as I ought, but can dig up some best practices for you if this is something you'd like to work on for your site. Likely, this is the subject for a whole other blog -- so stay tuned.
Likely Online Search PR optimizations would include adding Press Releases about your blog to your blog or web site, given that many PR engines still prefer the standard Press Release format. So, when you are writing your press releases for shows, be sure to incorporate keyword terms and phrases people would search for in both consumer-oriented search engines, and also in press-oriented online PR database search engines.
Just The Beginning
Okay, the most important thing to remember in online marketing is that there is no expert. Online marketing is always changing. A form of online marketing like search enging marketing has been present since the engines launched, and has increased in its importance as engines have become more important to the way people navigate the web. People have tried to "beat the engines" time and time again -- but the engines change their algorithms, and in fact even their business models, all the time.
So, what that means is anyone can be an expert. No one and anyone. Because search marketing is primarily about relevance, you're doing okay if you just stay relevant. Simple enough. So above all other advice, don't try to trick or beat the engines. They are in place to help people find you. Just understand their rules, and work to achieve the highest results possible.
That's the general 101 on search marketing. In a separate installment, we will cover how copywriting and keyword selection alter search, newsletter, and other online marketing response rate -- specifically for music.
Happy Googling!
MM
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Thursday, February 17, 2005
The Email Newsletter Monster
SPAM filters can sink your battleship. Don't let 'em.
Okay, here's the deal. I've seen it countless times. Musicians sending out their newsletters by creating Groups in their Hotmail or Yahoo web-based email clients, and sending out to each of the groups separately. The thing they don't tell you is that while Hotmail will let you send to a number of people, your emails are likely to be filtered out (by folks like Hotmail) for doing so and never actually get to your recipient.
Here's my advice... Pay the monthly fee with a vendor like Topica, YesMail, DoubleClick DARTmail, or some other email marketing provider. It is not only worth it because of the convenience of publishing, but they also provide tools like the ability to segment your list by market/region/interest, the capability for list members to update their information and sub/unsub themselves, tracking of user sub/unsub, metrics for reporting performance of email campaigns. Not to mention they will keep you updated on an ongoing basis about something I'm about to explain - the CAN-SPAM Act.
CAN-SPAM and how it applies to the singer-songwriter.
Okay, first of all we're talking about an Act signed by George Bush in 2003, so you can just imagine how confusingly simple it is. The Act itself was intended to stop all those nasties sending penis enlargement email to sweet, young, impressionable children. But instead what it's done is keep legitimate people like you from emailing your list about your gigs. You should certainly consult your lawyer about CAN-SPAM if you have one, but if you don't, I'll give you a few pointers to keep your nose clean and keep your fans from becoming lifelong enemies.
The basic gist of CAN-SPAM is don't hide. Be completely open about who you are, how the people on your list got there, and what they have to do to be taken off the list. That may sound simple, but if you're not a real tech geek (like I admit to be) then you might hide without meaning to. Don't think too much about what I just wrote - I know - it would seem that you would know if you were hiding. But when it comes to cybespace, well, anything's possible in the virtual world.
Ten Tips for Better Email Newsletter Publishing:
1. ALWAYS send your emails from the same email address. No buts. Just do it.
2. Encourage your list members to add that email address to their "Safe List" (good idea to do this in the confirmation email they get from you that says they have been added). This way SPAM filters on the ESP side won't even think about you.
3. In your email program, set the From Name to be your name, or your newsletter's name, and always use that name in the From Name field. People like to get email from people they know. But they get nasty when they think you're someone they don't know. It's a good thing this doesn't apply at dinner parties when someone doesn't recognize you, otherwise you would never go to dinner parties.
4. Send your newsletters on a regular schedule if you can (like every 2nd Monday of the month). I know it's hard because sometimes your finger is hovering over the send button because you gotta get more people to buy tickets to your show next Friday. But people really appreciate it if your are respectful of their Inboxes. Plus, you gotta use the Cry Wolf Rule. If you ping them every couple weeks with something else, they're not going to pay attention when you really do have to send them an emergency email about a show cancellation or last minute appearance on Jay Leno.
5. If you're going to venture into HTML email, use a template so it's always the same for each issue. And, always do a TEXT version of the email too, because some people opt out of HTML to avoid downloading unwanted images and clogging up their server bandwidth.
6. Test test test. I know you're an artist, and you're an incredible writer, and everyone always congratulated you on what a great speller you are, but you MUST proofread your email. You MUST send your email to a short test list of people you trust before publication, at least until you get good at this thing. Then you can just send it to one or two people you trust.
7. You should register for email addresses at places like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, Excite, and Lycos and put those addresses on your Test List so you can see if you get filtered out into the SPAM folders on those servers. (Nifty trick, eh? Even the pros do this just to see, so they don't embarrass themselves in front of their boss when she doesn't receive the company announcement at her home AOL account.)
8. Put all your contact info at the bottom of your email, including a mailing address. Now, I know this can get hard. Musicians tend to move around. So get yourself a PO box that never changes - it's pretty cheap to do, and saves you a lot of trouble. The MOST IMPORTANT thing about the CAN-SPAM ACT says you gotta put your snail mail address at the bottom of every email announcement. I know, get with the times, GW. But that's the law. For now, anyway. You should also put the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions in that area of the email.
9. Stay on top of Email Marketing research. Right now, studies have shown that emails sent on Mondays and Fridays are getting the best traction (opens, clicks, conversions, etc). Statistics have varied on this subject. Try to schedule your emails for distribution on days market research is showing to be best for your target market, too. If you want to read more, I've put some resources up on my web site at: www.marketmonkeys.com/library/email_marketing
10. Content is king. Keep it short and sweet, but don't be shy. People opted in to receive your email because they want to know more about you, your music, they want to buy your CDs, and they want to go see you play. Can you think of a more friendly audience with which to correspond? Include listings for your upcoming shows, so they don't have to go to your web site to see that you're playing down the street from them that night and wouldn't it be great to bring some folks from work. Most important of all, MAKE IT YOUR OWN.
To read more on CAN-SPAM:
www.marketmonkeys.com/library/emailmarketing
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=CAN+SPAM&btnG=Google+Search
AN ABRIDGED GLOSSARY OF EMAIL TERMS:
BANDWIDTH - Techie term for musclepower and room to move around.
BLACK LIST - ESPs keep a black list of domains (DNS entries) that are known SPAM offenders. Kind of like McCarthy's list, but for emailers. You don't want to be on it.
CAN-SPAM - Act put in place in 2003 that says people can sue you if you send them mail and can't prove they asked for it.
CRM - A form of direct marketing that puts you in touch with your customer through a series of direct interaction. CRM stands for either Customer Retention Marketing or Customer Relationship Management, depending on who you ask.
ESP - The people who host your mail. Be nice to them, even if they happen to also be your nasty cable company.
EMAIL CLIENT - Software you use to check email (like Outlook, Eudora, or Webmail)
EMAIL SERVER - Where email messages are stored and downloaded from ISP - The guys who host your web site. Like your bedroom floor, there is a finite amount of space on people's servers, and nobody likes to be inundated with gym socks.
OPT-IN - When someone asks you to add them. (A nice smile from across the room doesn't count.) If they haven't done this, don't do it. And even when someone you know asks you to do it for them, suggest they go to your web site. If they do it themselves, they won't forget they did and get mad at you later.
Okay, here's the deal. I've seen it countless times. Musicians sending out their newsletters by creating Groups in their Hotmail or Yahoo web-based email clients, and sending out to each of the groups separately. The thing they don't tell you is that while Hotmail will let you send to a number of people, your emails are likely to be filtered out (by folks like Hotmail) for doing so and never actually get to your recipient.
Here's my advice... Pay the monthly fee with a vendor like Topica, YesMail, DoubleClick DARTmail, or some other email marketing provider. It is not only worth it because of the convenience of publishing, but they also provide tools like the ability to segment your list by market/region/interest, the capability for list members to update their information and sub/unsub themselves, tracking of user sub/unsub, metrics for reporting performance of email campaigns. Not to mention they will keep you updated on an ongoing basis about something I'm about to explain - the CAN-SPAM Act.
CAN-SPAM and how it applies to the singer-songwriter.
Okay, first of all we're talking about an Act signed by George Bush in 2003, so you can just imagine how confusingly simple it is. The Act itself was intended to stop all those nasties sending penis enlargement email to sweet, young, impressionable children. But instead what it's done is keep legitimate people like you from emailing your list about your gigs. You should certainly consult your lawyer about CAN-SPAM if you have one, but if you don't, I'll give you a few pointers to keep your nose clean and keep your fans from becoming lifelong enemies.
The basic gist of CAN-SPAM is don't hide. Be completely open about who you are, how the people on your list got there, and what they have to do to be taken off the list. That may sound simple, but if you're not a real tech geek (like I admit to be) then you might hide without meaning to. Don't think too much about what I just wrote - I know - it would seem that you would know if you were hiding. But when it comes to cybespace, well, anything's possible in the virtual world.
Ten Tips for Better Email Newsletter Publishing:
1. ALWAYS send your emails from the same email address. No buts. Just do it.
2. Encourage your list members to add that email address to their "Safe List" (good idea to do this in the confirmation email they get from you that says they have been added). This way SPAM filters on the ESP side won't even think about you.
3. In your email program, set the From Name to be your name, or your newsletter's name, and always use that name in the From Name field. People like to get email from people they know. But they get nasty when they think you're someone they don't know. It's a good thing this doesn't apply at dinner parties when someone doesn't recognize you, otherwise you would never go to dinner parties.
4. Send your newsletters on a regular schedule if you can (like every 2nd Monday of the month). I know it's hard because sometimes your finger is hovering over the send button because you gotta get more people to buy tickets to your show next Friday. But people really appreciate it if your are respectful of their Inboxes. Plus, you gotta use the Cry Wolf Rule. If you ping them every couple weeks with something else, they're not going to pay attention when you really do have to send them an emergency email about a show cancellation or last minute appearance on Jay Leno.
5. If you're going to venture into HTML email, use a template so it's always the same for each issue. And, always do a TEXT version of the email too, because some people opt out of HTML to avoid downloading unwanted images and clogging up their server bandwidth.
6. Test test test. I know you're an artist, and you're an incredible writer, and everyone always congratulated you on what a great speller you are, but you MUST proofread your email. You MUST send your email to a short test list of people you trust before publication, at least until you get good at this thing. Then you can just send it to one or two people you trust.
7. You should register for email addresses at places like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, Excite, and Lycos and put those addresses on your Test List so you can see if you get filtered out into the SPAM folders on those servers. (Nifty trick, eh? Even the pros do this just to see, so they don't embarrass themselves in front of their boss when she doesn't receive the company announcement at her home AOL account.)
8. Put all your contact info at the bottom of your email, including a mailing address. Now, I know this can get hard. Musicians tend to move around. So get yourself a PO box that never changes - it's pretty cheap to do, and saves you a lot of trouble. The MOST IMPORTANT thing about the CAN-SPAM ACT says you gotta put your snail mail address at the bottom of every email announcement. I know, get with the times, GW. But that's the law. For now, anyway. You should also put the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions in that area of the email.
9. Stay on top of Email Marketing research. Right now, studies have shown that emails sent on Mondays and Fridays are getting the best traction (opens, clicks, conversions, etc). Statistics have varied on this subject. Try to schedule your emails for distribution on days market research is showing to be best for your target market, too. If you want to read more, I've put some resources up on my web site at: www.marketmonkeys.com/library/email_marketing
10. Content is king. Keep it short and sweet, but don't be shy. People opted in to receive your email because they want to know more about you, your music, they want to buy your CDs, and they want to go see you play. Can you think of a more friendly audience with which to correspond? Include listings for your upcoming shows, so they don't have to go to your web site to see that you're playing down the street from them that night and wouldn't it be great to bring some folks from work. Most important of all, MAKE IT YOUR OWN.
To read more on CAN-SPAM:
www.marketmonkeys.com/library/emailmarketing
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=CAN+SPAM&btnG=Google+Search
AN ABRIDGED GLOSSARY OF EMAIL TERMS:
BANDWIDTH - Techie term for musclepower and room to move around.
BLACK LIST - ESPs keep a black list of domains (DNS entries) that are known SPAM offenders. Kind of like McCarthy's list, but for emailers. You don't want to be on it.
CAN-SPAM - Act put in place in 2003 that says people can sue you if you send them mail and can't prove they asked for it.
CRM - A form of direct marketing that puts you in touch with your customer through a series of direct interaction. CRM stands for either Customer Retention Marketing or Customer Relationship Management, depending on who you ask.
ESP - The people who host your mail. Be nice to them, even if they happen to also be your nasty cable company.
EMAIL CLIENT - Software you use to check email (like Outlook, Eudora, or Webmail)
EMAIL SERVER - Where email messages are stored and downloaded from ISP - The guys who host your web site. Like your bedroom floor, there is a finite amount of space on people's servers, and nobody likes to be inundated with gym socks.
OPT-IN - When someone asks you to add them. (A nice smile from across the room doesn't count.) If they haven't done this, don't do it. And even when someone you know asks you to do it for them, suggest they go to your web site. If they do it themselves, they won't forget they did and get mad at you later.
WHITE LIST - The good list. ESPs also keep lists of domains they know are less likely to be sending SPAM. If you know someone at MSN or Yahoo, you'll want to call in that favor now. You can also just send them an email, telling them who you are, and asking to be put on the white list. Sometimes straightforwardness works, sometimes it doesn't.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Postering Like A Street Monkey
On the subject of guerilla marketing...
The first thing you have to do to be a monkey is throw away everyone else's way of doing things when you set out to accomplish a task. Start from scratch, all the time. That doesn't mean ignore the learning of generations - but it does mean think for yourself. There are a finite number of tools accessible to you, but an infinite way to use them.
A lot of times people forget where the concept of guerilla marketing came from. It's not about baking cakes - it's about waging marketing warfare. You aren't all lining up in neatly packed rows, and squaring off. You've got to pick off new customers one at a time - hand-to-hand. Sometimes when they're looking for you, and sometimes when they don't even know you exist.
So that's why my very first blog is about flyering and postering before shows. As humbling as it is, it is also an important part of marketing yourself as a musician. Just like all of the other parts of your marketing efforts, guerilla marketing gets you in touch with all you are striving for in developing your career. I don't care what anyone else tells you. The most important thing about building your audience is getting in touch with the market. There is no better way to get to know your market than walking the streets and meeting the people.
Just as you have to know which newspapers to send press releases to, and which radio stations to have playing your record, and which venue you want to play in six months - you've got to get to know the streets. Get in the head of the people who listen to your music, and walk in their shoes. That's what flyering is all about. See with their eyes, instead of your own.
You'll find that you'll start seeing the neigborhoods in which you play in a whole new light. Electricity gauge boxes, newspaper stands, light poles, public telephones - they all take on a new meaning. You won't be able to pass a wall without seeing a great spot for a poster. You know you're really getting good when you start to get down the schedule on which posters are cleaned from public boards. You can start to tell which corners have most traffic, but least amount of time up.
10 Tips for Postering
1. Get in the mind of your audience. Where do they eat? What paper do they read? What's their favorite bookstore? Do they ride the subway or bus? Don't just go out there willy-nilly. Take a minute to think about your target market and plan before hitting the street.
2. Isolate neighborhoods that are most likely to expose your posters to your target market. Find coffeeshops and "the usual places" in those areas. They generally have boards to post on. It's the most respectable work you're gonna do in flyering. The rest is all pretty gritty.
3. Check the weather. If it's gonna rain today, but not tomorrow, wait. I know you need them up for as long as possible, but it's no good if they get all soggy. The day after rain can sometimes be the best cuz nobody's posted and the other posters have been washed away, leaving less competition for people's attention. If you really want to get posters up and it's raining or snowing, put them up in indoor locations like coffeeshops, bookstores, and public transit shelters.
4. Use good tape. Nothing sucks more than going out postering, exhausting yourself, and having them fall down without even being touched by the "cleaners"...
5. Don't spend a lot of money on the printing of your posters. Better to have lots of them, than have them in pretty colors. Just come up with a simple design. If you're hell-bent on spending money, get a designer to create a nice black-and-white template for your posters that you can photocopy onto colored paper. 8 1/2 x 11 is just fine for the job and easy to tote around town with you.
6. Use the same images on your posters so people get used to seeing them, and knowing it's you. Then, they'll be more likely to stop. If you have an image you use on your web site and in the press, use it for your flyers, too. Just like in mainstream marketing, repeating an image in multiple sources makes people trust is as a familiar image. They are more likely to retain information associated with it.
7. Think like a monkey. Spread out your posters - some in places you know a lot of people walk but will be taken down. Some in places that not as many people walk, but they're likely to stay up longer.
8. Don't poster over someone else, especially if they have a gig on the same day as you. It's totally wrong, and spreads bad kharma. Think of your fellow guerilla marketers as comrades at arms whenever you can. One day, they might put a piece of tape on your falling-down flyer and save your ass. If you have the tape to spare, help them out, too. If their poster falls down and the local govt gets pissed because of littering, they might take the board down and then where will you be? On the other hand, they might poster over you. Well, shit, that's life. Do what you want. We all navigate our own ships.
9. Put your posters at eye-level (not too high, not too low). Don't make your audience work to read your info.
10. Read the other announcements you are postering near. It's not bad to poster near someone who does something similar to you if your gigs are on different nights. Someone might stop to read theirs and see yours.
That's it for now. Happy monkeying...
MC
The first thing you have to do to be a monkey is throw away everyone else's way of doing things when you set out to accomplish a task. Start from scratch, all the time. That doesn't mean ignore the learning of generations - but it does mean think for yourself. There are a finite number of tools accessible to you, but an infinite way to use them.
A lot of times people forget where the concept of guerilla marketing came from. It's not about baking cakes - it's about waging marketing warfare. You aren't all lining up in neatly packed rows, and squaring off. You've got to pick off new customers one at a time - hand-to-hand. Sometimes when they're looking for you, and sometimes when they don't even know you exist.
So that's why my very first blog is about flyering and postering before shows. As humbling as it is, it is also an important part of marketing yourself as a musician. Just like all of the other parts of your marketing efforts, guerilla marketing gets you in touch with all you are striving for in developing your career. I don't care what anyone else tells you. The most important thing about building your audience is getting in touch with the market. There is no better way to get to know your market than walking the streets and meeting the people.
Just as you have to know which newspapers to send press releases to, and which radio stations to have playing your record, and which venue you want to play in six months - you've got to get to know the streets. Get in the head of the people who listen to your music, and walk in their shoes. That's what flyering is all about. See with their eyes, instead of your own.
You'll find that you'll start seeing the neigborhoods in which you play in a whole new light. Electricity gauge boxes, newspaper stands, light poles, public telephones - they all take on a new meaning. You won't be able to pass a wall without seeing a great spot for a poster. You know you're really getting good when you start to get down the schedule on which posters are cleaned from public boards. You can start to tell which corners have most traffic, but least amount of time up.
10 Tips for Postering
1. Get in the mind of your audience. Where do they eat? What paper do they read? What's their favorite bookstore? Do they ride the subway or bus? Don't just go out there willy-nilly. Take a minute to think about your target market and plan before hitting the street.
2. Isolate neighborhoods that are most likely to expose your posters to your target market. Find coffeeshops and "the usual places" in those areas. They generally have boards to post on. It's the most respectable work you're gonna do in flyering. The rest is all pretty gritty.
3. Check the weather. If it's gonna rain today, but not tomorrow, wait. I know you need them up for as long as possible, but it's no good if they get all soggy. The day after rain can sometimes be the best cuz nobody's posted and the other posters have been washed away, leaving less competition for people's attention. If you really want to get posters up and it's raining or snowing, put them up in indoor locations like coffeeshops, bookstores, and public transit shelters.
4. Use good tape. Nothing sucks more than going out postering, exhausting yourself, and having them fall down without even being touched by the "cleaners"...
5. Don't spend a lot of money on the printing of your posters. Better to have lots of them, than have them in pretty colors. Just come up with a simple design. If you're hell-bent on spending money, get a designer to create a nice black-and-white template for your posters that you can photocopy onto colored paper. 8 1/2 x 11 is just fine for the job and easy to tote around town with you.
6. Use the same images on your posters so people get used to seeing them, and knowing it's you. Then, they'll be more likely to stop. If you have an image you use on your web site and in the press, use it for your flyers, too. Just like in mainstream marketing, repeating an image in multiple sources makes people trust is as a familiar image. They are more likely to retain information associated with it.
7. Think like a monkey. Spread out your posters - some in places you know a lot of people walk but will be taken down. Some in places that not as many people walk, but they're likely to stay up longer.
8. Don't poster over someone else, especially if they have a gig on the same day as you. It's totally wrong, and spreads bad kharma. Think of your fellow guerilla marketers as comrades at arms whenever you can. One day, they might put a piece of tape on your falling-down flyer and save your ass. If you have the tape to spare, help them out, too. If their poster falls down and the local govt gets pissed because of littering, they might take the board down and then where will you be? On the other hand, they might poster over you. Well, shit, that's life. Do what you want. We all navigate our own ships.
9. Put your posters at eye-level (not too high, not too low). Don't make your audience work to read your info.
10. Read the other announcements you are postering near. It's not bad to poster near someone who does something similar to you if your gigs are on different nights. Someone might stop to read theirs and see yours.
That's it for now. Happy monkeying...
MC
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