“Check out my new mixtape.”  We’ve all been approached or have approached people to offer them our latest music.  Unfortunately, many artists are missing the KEY purpose behind music marketing and promotions: getting more fans!

The important thing when it comes to any form of marketing are your metrics, your ways that you are measuring the success of your campaign.  Many artists have 500+ CDs pressed up and then just hand them out without trying to capture those people into their marketing list.

To all of you smart music marketers and promoters you may be laughing and saying, “this is easy” and you’d be right.  But if you think about it the shear amount of musicians who are skipping something as simple as capturing someones name and Email address is ridiculous.

There is a huge problem in music business and that is the focus on making money NOW.  Its not so much an issue with wanting the money NOW it’s an issue of that mentality clouding an otherwise business savvy artist’s judgement.  If you’re an artist who has done shows, think of all the people who’s EMail addresses you could have captured at the door, if you’re smart you could have even offered an EMail discount (business savvy people would be able to make the discount money back easily with their new list).

When handing out mixtapes, there is no reason not to have someone who is on your TEAM (see older posts) out there with you capturing Email addresses.  You can’t create a loyal following by throwing darts at a map, and when you just throw money away with no marketing plan that is exactly what you’re doing.

It isn’t all about Emails, though.  How difficult is it to lock in a show before the release of a mixtape?  Not very.  Try advertising that show and offering discounts on the insert for your mixtape.  Mixtapes can be a costly promotion, but if you are smart about it you can easily make your money back.

Finally, if your team is lazy, consider hiring some marketing consulting from someone who has experience.  If it’s going to help you make money back on items you previously would have considered sunk costs, then it is worth it.

Until next time…make it happen.

Sometimes we all get way too focused on all of the latest stuff that we never allow ourselves to actually make anything happen.  I remember when Myspace started getting big for artists and you had artists adding all of the latest widgets and gadgets that it completely bogged down their page and made it unnavigable.  You have to be careful about this in your music career as well.

There are tons of ways to market yourself, and you should try to use all of them.  But, the key is to create a system that allows for ease of use and simplicity.  Whenever you begin exploring a new avenue for music marketing and promotion you should be asking yourself “how can I fit this into my system?”

For example, their are tons of social media sites out there, there are also tools that allow you to update every single one of them at once, you should be utilizing these tools.  I use TubeMogul when I want to upload a video, this allows me to upload a single video and then it distributes that video across multiple video sites.

Keeping it simple does not mean that you avoid new things, it means make them work in a system.  Simplicity is best met when you use a team.  Running a team to perform tasks is much easier than trying to do everything by yourself.  But, how do you find a team?  My favorite place for teams when it comes to music is to find college students who have an interest in music business.  A lot of people get this wrong though, they think they can take college students as free work by saying they’ll gain experience.  Be real with them, give them real benefits, and do what you can to give them REAL rewards.  College students tend to have a strong work ethic which is why I like working with them.

Remember: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID

-Eric “Fuse” Phillipson

PS.  You can catch me with DJ Fittd on 502FM.com today (Mon, May 10th) at 4PM EST.

Check out these quick marketing videos he did below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more Jeff Johnson check out his website www.MakingMyName.com

-Eric “Fuse” Phillipson