Though we like to cover new and interesting music marketing ideas and services on Hyepbot, focusing on the tried and true is key to long-term success in music. Such methods include encouraging the press to open your press kit, creating low cost band merch that can be used as promotional items and getting people to review your music. Here are some creative ideas for traditional marketing plus bonus coverage regarding Twitter brand pages and Tumblr content discovery plans.
Get Your Press Kit Opened
David Hooper believes that press kits are more likely to be opened if the press kit packaging attracts attention. He suggests adding the following creative decorations to envelopes that hopefully won't get your mail flagged as a potential bomb:
- tickets for relevant artists
- creative directions for opening
- interesting photos and graphics
- colorful decorative stamps
Promo Merch for a Buck or Less
Though music merch can be a money maker, it's also nice to have some low cost promo products, especially if you want to give some stuff away for free to superfans and members of the press. Unified Manufacturing's suggestions for merch under $5 includes some for a buck or less:
- cloth patch
- guitar pick
- shot glass
- sticker
- ballpoint pen
Get More Music Reviews
Though I'm deferring here to the marketing pros, Loren Weisman is thinking like I do in his post on getting better indie music reviews:
"Why not reach out to a wider audience and other states or even other countries when you are going after getting better indie music reviews? This can help make you look a little more worldly...It gives you the appearance of a more traveled group that is being heard by a wider array of fans and music industry people."
Twitter Brand Pages
When I posted about the rollout of Twitter brand pages, I assumed they would have relevance to indie musicians just as Facebook and Google+ pages do. Turns out you're going to need a $25k ad commitment. My bad.
Tumblr Content Discovery
Tumblr has plans for improved content discovery which should help music marketers as well as expand the service to folks who are currently a bit baffled about what's up. Apparently those plans include hiring writers to write about Tumblr content creators.
Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and music industry resources at Music Biz Blogs. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
