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I heard a line on a podcast called “Help My Business Sucks” (www.helpmybusiness.com) and the host said “Everything is marketing and marketing is everything.” This is a great phrase. Recently, sadly Ronnie James Dio died of stomach cancer. Musicians far and wide have come out to pay their respects. Story and story from fans talking about how Ronnie would stay out all hours until everyone got an autograph. Musicians who played with him said he was always a “gentlemen.” That he was the “nicest guy on the planet.” Apparently, people like Kanye West and Axl Rose did not graduate from the Ronnie Jame Dio school of tact.

It’s not just being nice when things go good, in fact its more important to keep your cool when things go bad. I remember playing a wedding once where the band basically didn’t get to eat. My singer through a tantrum, and really embarrassed the band. He forgets that there are other people there who will be getting married, or paying for weddings, and no matter good we played that night I doubt his tantrum was erased from the minds of the audience.

I leave the show with the song “Straight From the Heart” a classic Dio song from the Holy Diver album

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It’s Thanksgiving and people are now in the mindset to buy stuff. People call tomorrow “Black Friday” and its one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Stores have crazy sales, and people line up at 3 in the morning to get in. It’s crazy.

You can do the same thing. I wrote about this in a previous blog post

Two Artist that are thinking outside the box are Anne Roos who is a celtic Harpist and author of the book “The Musician’s Guide to Brides” (great book by the way). She loves E-cards. She happen to notice that one ecard company uses instrumental music. She contacted them about using her music. They liked her music so much they have hired her to do some exclusive music for their cards.

John Solitro who is a solo guitarist/vocalist who just got paid a NICE amount of cash to play a YOGA session. He played an hour and walked out with a wallet full.

He was also looking for ways to make his press kit stand out. Well most people come up with a “one size fits all” press kit to hand out to bookers and club owners. If you’re just playing locally now, you can take your computer and make them personalized. Instead of “To Whom it May concern” start off with the person’s name. Then point out how you checked out their club, and what you liked about it. This shows you have done your homework. You could go to the club and take pictures and work that into the press kit. It shows that you did some homework.

There are more tips about making a press kit in my book “Get Your Band Out of the Basement.” and in the “Black Friday” theme you can get the book for $7.99 now through the end of the month (A savings of $5.00). This applies for both the ebook, or the unabridged audio book (both available for immediate download).

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This is show 255 of the Musicians Cooler and originates at www.musicianscooler.com

Today we got an email from Scott of the band “megaphone” and he talk about how he has created a new sites for band looking to get their music into the Rock Band Video game. You can find it at www.rockbandyourrockband.com

Scott said, “I also wanted to let you know that I’ve launched a web site called Rock Band Your Rock Band (www.rockbandyourrockband.com)

InterActive Concerts

I attended a concert of Mercy Me, and in the middle of the show they stopped the show, turned on the house lights, and fielded questions from the audience. It gave people a break from the music, made the concert a little more personal, and if nothing else, that show is completely unique now (as every show will have different questions).

This also gives the show a built in “down” period so you can again build it up with a great set opening song. Another opportunity is if you are fielding these questions via writing (or website) you have the opportunity to ask for the email address to add to your list (or phone number so you can add them to you text list from companies like fanbridge.com )

If you plan on doing this (either taking them live from the audience, or having them right them down) you may want to practice a bit at home to see if there are some witty answers yo ucan compe up for questions you think you will be asked.

I also saw where Bob Baker has a blog post of another artist who is using this approach to reach his audience

Music

“Write it down” from Megaphone.  Become a fan of the band at http://www.mymegaphonemusic.com/

Support this show

Check out our show Sponsor page for discounts, and more. The easiest way to support the show is to buy Dave’s book “Get You Band Out of the Basement“

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I recently update a club’s website (www.northsideclub.com) after they came under new management. Now I did the old version of their website (you can see this on the from page of marketingmusician.com) but it was literally one of the first sites I ever did, and it looked like it. The owner was very cheap and never wanted to update it.

The new owners aren’t quite so frugal. In talking with them they were going to keep live music, but probably change the menu (to what they are not sure), etc. So they need to figure out exactly what they want to be (its hard to hit a moving target). None the less I did some research on the club and found that a few websites had reviewed them, and I took those and made the front page filled with testimonials.

I think the same applies for musicians. What if you don’t have any gigs? No schedule? Then ask yourself what sets you apart from other musicians? My band had 7 people in it (we had a horn section). Most bands playing the same clubs had about 4 or 5 people. We started pointing that out, “Come hear Akron’s most entertaining seven piece party band.” Then we had a list of all the musicians with a picture.

Is there something that sets you apart from other bands? Exploit it and embrace it.

Always open for feedback.

I wish this video had audio, but it doesn’t. None the less Reverbnation continues to add more useful functionality to your music marketing arsenal. The great thing is you can add these tools to your website and the customer never knows its coming from Reverbnation. When Reverbnation came out I thought, “These are great tools to get your music in front of people, but there were no tools to allow them to buy it once they heard it.” Now you will be able to sell everything from downloads, CDs, merch, ringtones, etc.

It is slotted to be released in October.

Reverb Store Walkthrough from Ferol Vernon on Vimeo.

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Bob “the buzz Factor” Baker has done it again. First of all he is diversifying his audience. He is the Godfather of Music marketing, and now is taking the success he has experienced in books and teaching other authors how to be successful with his new book “55 Ways to Promote Your Book on the Internet.” I know what you’re thinking, “But I’m a musician – not an author.” We can learn how to market our music by seeing how he launched his book.

He let people buy it before it was printed. You got one chapter at a time and were encouraged to read it and supply feedback. (so you get to better the book before its even printed).

You got you put YOUR NAME in his book. (making it a very special circumstance, and for me a chance to get my URL in a Bob Baker book).

You get a signed copy of the physical book when it came out. Making it a one of a kind opportunity.

In total “Bob” fashion he then through in a surprise bonus CD to listen to. This is good old fashioned “under-promise and over deliver.”

APPLY THIS TO MUSIC.

Bob sent out chapters ahead of time foe feed back. Why sell a CD up front, and then send out songs in advance. Get feedback on the first 15. Use the top 10, and let the early adopters keep 5 unreleased songs?

You could have sponsors for each song. Then list their name on the liners notes. Something like ” 1. Wishing Well written by Dave Jackson – sponsored by Bob Baker.”

By selling the CD up front you can raise money to record the CD. Then you have a few copies generated for the early adopters and start gigging. Sell a few at shows and now you’ve got money to do a mass production (or just use kunaki.com )

SPONSORS

This show originates at www.musicianscooler.com and is sponsored by Budget Rental Car. Budget.com/musician saves 30% on weekly rental or $10 off any time rental. Godaddy.com where you can get a .com domain name for $7.49 using the coupon code cooler10. Need some great clothes for the stage? Check out www.stageclothes.net becuase they see you before they hear you. And you should buy Dave’s Book “Get your band out of the basment and keep them out of the asylum” at www.musicianlibrary.com

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This show originates at www.musicianscooler.com

Adam Hoek Twitter Band

Adam Hoek is using Twitter to share his music. He has set up the Adam Hook Twitter Band. A place where musicians can work together to share tracks and build songs together. Find him on twitter at www.twitter.com/adamhoek and www.adamhoek.com

My apologies for calling Adam “Andrew” in the episodes.

Jimmy Yukka asks, “Is MySpace Dead?”

Find him at www.jimmyyukka.com

Yes MySpace is second to FaceBook, but saying to ignore MySpace is like saying we should ignore the Rolling Stones becuase they were second to the Beatles.

In my opinion when it comes to all social media, you get out of them what you put into them. Unfortunately the more popular a website gets (MySpace, Twitter) people invent robots to manage their website for them.

The Music business is about building relationship with people – no robots. When you turn your relationship building over ot a robot you are missing the boat. The bad nws is at MySpace its hard to find a person. It seems everyone is using robots. This is why MySpace lost some of its appeal. So try to connect with people at MySpace, build a relationship with them.

If you are finding that most of your “friends” at MySpace don’t login, don’t pay attention, then maybe your MySpace is dead.

Bob Baker has a great book about marketing your band on MySpace and the whole book is about building relationships with people.

Sponsors and Support

Godaddy coupon code cooler10 gets a .com domain name for $7.49

Budget.com/musician saves 30% off a weekly rental or $10 off any rental.

Buy Dave’s Book “Get your band out of the basement – and keep them out of the asylum” available at musicianlibrary.com Order now and get the bonus ““10 Stupid Things That Bands Do”

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Today we are thrilled to have another segment with George Hrab and this time George is talking about how he uses Twitter and Facebook.

George is using Facebook as an area for “Exclusive content” and when it comes to twitter he has a great plan. Deliver great content that is occasionally mixed in with a plug for a gig etc.  In some of the books I read about twitter it should be no more than one plug for every five tweets.

Music: George Hrab w/ Slau

“Sciurus Carolinensisby” Available i iTunes and CDBaby.

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Paul Bordenkircher is looking for beta testers for his new software for songwriters at www.songmanagerforbento.com (paul “at” mesassand “dot” com to get involved).

Dave King (www.davekingmusic.com) wants to add RSS to his “normal” (non blog) based website. He tried using Listgarden, but it still had issues with Yahoo!. Any ideas Dave?

Answer:
To diagnose an rss feed check out www.feedvalidator.org and it may help figure out why the feed is not working properly. Back in 2005 I had the same issue. The Musicians Cooler was a newsletter and the website was done in Front Page (and Dreamweaver). So I would update the website, update the newsletter (through Aweber) and then update the RSS feed. It was quite the pain.

Now I use WordPress and when I update the site, it updates the RSS feed (I also use Feedburner to track subscribers). I also am now (in Aweber) to send out emails simply by putting my RSS feed into Aweber. So when I update the website, it creates the podcast and the newsletter at the same time.

If you want to learn how to make your band’s website for next to nothing (wordpress is free), check out www.marketingmusician.com and watch the step by step tutorials that will walk you through the entire process.

MUSIC

“Hot Summer Night” – Dave King

SPONSORS
Go to budget.com/musician to save on a Budget Rental car. Save 30% on a weekly rental or $10 off any time rental.

Get a .com domain name for $7.49 using the godaddy promo code cooler10

This show originates from www.musicianscooler.com this is show 246

SUPPORT THE SHOW

The easiest and most beneficial way to support this show, and help make it happen is to buy Dave’s book “Get your band out of the basement” at www.musicianlibrary.com thanks for keeping the show going. If you think the last listener bought the book, you’re wrong. It’s your turn. Please support the show.

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Today we talk about how to make a link to launch your myspace player. This question is from Kyle of www.myspace.com/weareaffinity

To do this go to your myspace page.
Click on the link in the upper right hand corner of the player that says “pop out player”
A window will appear. Highlight and copy the link at the top of that window.

For Kyle the link is

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.popupplayer&sindex=-1.0&shuffle=false&amix=false&pmix=false&plid=27937&artid=799848&profid=74299621&friendid=74299621&sseed=0&ptype=3&stime=0&ap=1&rpeat=false

You then go to the website or blog you want to put this link and write some text like “Click Hear To Listen to our Music” and then highligh that text, and click the Link button (in this case for WordPress) and paste in that URL, and put it to open in a new window.  So it would look like this, “Click here to listen to affinity.”

The bad news is this will open an entire window. You may want to google “Pop up maker” and it will give you the code to make your link open up in a specific size window. The window for the MySpace window is

width: 630px; height: 545px;

WHY?
The only reason to do this is becuase you don't have your own website for your band, and you want MySpace to pick up the bandwidth bill.
However, there is nothing there for people to buy your music. The page loads slow, and forces them to watch commericials. I would recommend getting your own website, and setting up a page with music samples and directing people to that page where they can also purchase your music.
Sponsors

Save on renewals and new domains at www.godaddy.com using the coupon code cooler10 
Budget Rental car – www.budget.com/musician Get 30% off a weekly rental or $10 off any rental at Budget Rental Car
Dave’s Book – Get Your Band Out of the Basement at www.musicianlibrary.com