It isn’t enough to have a MySpace and expect fans to find you. And, it isn’t enough to print flyers and post them at Guitar Center and the club you’re playing in. Yes, you have to do all of these things but even these three together aren’t enough any more.

Add these 7 tactics to promote your band online and watch your odds of success soar.

Create a website. Yes, this is in addition to MySpace. My favorite band website builder is Bandzoogle. It’s simple to use. You don’t need to know anything about building a website to use it. You can post information, photos and even music. You can sell your music or give it away. You can create and house a database of fan emails and send emails out. And best of all, you can try it for FREE!

Craigslist. As mundane and monotonous as it is to post to Craigslist, you must do this every week. Yep, every single week. Learn to write creative headlines and drive fans to your website.

Ideas for headlines:
“Music Download At No Cost This Week Only” (You do have music available on your Bandzoogle website, don’t you?)

“If You Like (Name An Artist You Sound Like) You’ll Love This Band.”

“Just Get Dumped? This Song’s For You.”

“Not Suitable for ________” Fill in the blank with your exact target market. Then in your ad put something like “unless you’re really cool.” People can’t resist knowing why they are excluded from something.

Zvents/City Pages/etc. Be sure you list your upcoming gigs on EVERY FREE EVENT site you can find. Zvents is one we use all the time. But there are many more. Not sure where to look? Try googling “live music” + your city and see what sites come up. Find those that list your genre of music and begin submitting your gigs to every one of those sites. It takes a bit of time to find them all and set up accounts but once you have, it doesn’t take so long to update them for future gigs. Just be sure to keep a list of all the sites, your login and password information.

Internet Radio Many internet streaming radio stations accept submissions from unknown artists. Black Velvet Deluxe worked with Maximum Threshold when we first got started. Great guys to work with. We had our guitarist record “This is Nate Beck with Black Velvet Deluxe and you’re listening to Maximum Threshold” on a usb drive and we mailed it to Maximum Threshold to use. That got the band even more exposure than simply playing the band’s tunes.

It’s also important to build relationships with the internet radio stations. Befriend them on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Promote them on your social media as well. “Shout out to Maximum Threshold for playing our tunes” type of thing on Twitter will go far.

Jango If you have a little money to invest, I highly recommend Jango. From a listener perspective Jango enables you to select the bands you like and stream their music for free. From an artists perspective you pay Jango to play your tunes. You tell Jango the bands you sound similar to and they serve up your music to fans of the better known bands. Those fans, when they hear your music, can reject it or become a fan. If they become a fan, your music is played for them in their rotation.

You can target fans by age, sex, geography. You can post information for your Jango fans. Your fans can email you via Jango and you can reply. Fans can elect to share their email address with you to get ongoing information from you.

It’s a great way to start to build an online fan base.

YouTube Yes, post videos of you playing on YouTube, but you can do so much more. Have a friend conduct an interview with the entire band. Watch a TV interview of a band. Jot down the questions that the interviewer asks and have a friend ask you and your band mate those same questions on camera. Post it to YouTube. Take a video of you and your band at rehearsal, creating new music. Post it to YouTube. Take video backstage before or after a concert and share that with your fans on YouTube.

Become Friends With Your Fans Seriously. Build relationships with the fans you develop online. Email them. Ask them for help. We had one fan who emailed a local music festival, telling them he and his friends had been to their festival three years in a row and they’d really like to see our band, Black Velvet Deluxe, play at the festival. We had another fan who went to a taping of a Eddie’s Trunk and took our CD and personally gave it to Eddie.

A band needs three things to be successful; talent, marketing and luck. Unfortunately most bands only rely on the first one – their talent- and wonder why they never “made it.” But you have control of two of the three elements of success. Do you want a 33% chance of success or a 66% chance of success? Use these marketing tactics to promote a band and double your odds of achieving success.

I thought about writing this post on band promotion because I often hear new bands and struggling musicians wishing they got more paying gigs. Getting a paying gig is good, I mean… you spend a lot of time, energy and even money on getting your act together.. rehearsing, traveling to rehearsals and gigs (gas can be a pain if you travel by car), buying your gear, etc. But getting paid gigs for new acts can be very difficult.

While I believe it is great to get paid, I don’t mean to say you should think of a band as a business. What I am saying is, it would be practical to at least have your costs covered.

Of course, that would depend on you and your reasons why you are in a band in the first place.

Some bands want to play; love to play; feel that playing and getting their music out there is the best compensation there is.. and the return of their investment in effort, time and money is that opportunity to get up there and PLAY. There are also others who work towards a long term goal like building their own following and getting their music across to them.

The reasons why you do it, pretty much sums it up.

But, if you wanted to get paying gigs, here are a few things you can do.

1. Work on Your Product

Once in a while I come across a client who struggles with promoting their product or service, and put in a lot of effort only to get minimal results. The main reason is, they have not been able to accurately develop, define and refine their product, which is why aggressively promoting something mediocre will always yield mediocre results.

So what is your product? The band, and your music. The key question is how do you set yourself apart from the rest. What is it you do that is unique, or what is it that you can do better than everybody else?

“What do you want people to remember and LIKE you for?”

2. Define Your Music/Repertoire

Repertoire defines what type of band you are. It also defines who your audience is. I believe writing and recording original material is great because by having your own music you create an asset that others do not have. It is that that final sum of a collaborative creative effort that brands your band. BUT, does not guarantee success, since for your band to be successfully recognized for your music, you would first need to attract an audience that gets to hear and appreciate it.

On the same note, being a cover band does not mean you cannot get paying gigs. There are a lot of cover bands that get paid well for small bar gigs or even major events.

What it comes down to is the novelty of the band, and your draw. Novelty is that something about you that people will want to come see; and your draw is the size of the crowd you can gather at your gigs.

3. Market Yourself

You would need to sell yourself to people who you believe would appreciate your band and what you have to offer. There are basically two types of people you want to market to; there are the people who you want coming to your gigs and appreciating your music, and the people who are in a position to hire you for gigs.

This can actually be the classic “the chicken or the egg scenario”, where you actually grow your audience and get more exposure by being playing more gigs, but to get more gigs you got to get invited or hired by people who have a hand in making gigs happen.

But it need not be complicated. You just have to do both at the same time.

Networking is key. The more people you get to meet, the more contacts you establish, the closer you get to your goal.

Ways to Network.

a. Use the Internet, put up a website that tells people about you and your music. Use social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace to build a network. Use media sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and DailyMotion to spread your music and build a list of followers/subscribers.

Always mention these sites during gigs; when you talk to other people about your gigs, during shows, and include them on printed materials such as stage back drops, fliers, calling cards, etc.

Make people WANT to go to your site by offering them some sort of benefit they get by going, for instance.. you can tell them that they can listen to a live-stream of your music on your site, download your music from your site (if you allow), or tell them you give away free merchandise like shirts on occasion and mechanics on how to get free stuff are on your website.

b. Print business cards, or calling cards. That way you are able to hand people you meet something that they can refer to when they need to contact you or if they refer you to other people who might need you for gigs. A business card says a lot of things about you, it pretty much says, you mean business, you got it together, and your can be relied upon to deliver if contacted for a gig. It creates a good impression about your band.

c. Do quick sets at small parties that you are already there to attend in the first place. Parties or gatherings are a great way to build up a following. This grassroots approach can lead to viral promotion. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth. If you know that a friend is putting together a party, offer to do a few songs. Let’s face it, being in a band is cool, that may be one of the top reasons you even started one.. so don’t wait for an opportunity to play fall right on your lap, you create your opportunities.

d. If you are not that established, volunteer to front for other bands who are friends of yours AND are established. Established bands typically have a huge following, grab the chance to get yourself in front of that audience, their audience. You might not get paid for this, but it is an investment that will yield long term benefits. Through this opportunity, you show people what you can do, tell people about your website or where you are online, you can hand out business cards and talk with people in the audience or show promoters.

e. Find radio stations that play material from unsigned bands. Getting your music played on a radio station is one of the most difficult things to get done. You will be turned down by a few, but you cannot let that setback stop you from being persistent and trying them again later or trying to find other stations that will play your music. If you are in college, get your music on your campus radio station, if your university has one. That said, I personally found it a lot easier to market your band and network when in college, it was so easy because in college you meet a lot of new people all the time, and get invited to a lot of parties and events.

If your music does get airplay and attention, your band WILL get attention.

4. Management / Representation

You have to have a manager. An authority figure who you trust and count on to work for nothing less than the success and well being of the band.

A manager should be a tenacious businessman. He is a negotiator, understands marketing, and most importantly he believes in the product he is entrusted with. His main goal is to sustain and develop further the product he manages.

Having a manager can have many advantages, and one of the things I see managers being able to do that bands that manage themselves cannot, is be objective. The manager sees something that individual members in a band do not see, this is especially true when some members of the band develop egos that cloud their judgment. Members have a tendency to get tunnel vision and might not respond well to other people’s opinions that may not be flattering, a manager knows if criticisms are valid and take these not emotionally but objectively.

A manager is both a member of the group and outsider; a member because he works with the group to achieve their goals. He is an outsider who can make rational decisions and even be critical of the group if it fails to deliver what their audience expects.

Musicians can sometimes be the most stubborn of people, and the least receptive to criticism, and a trusted opinion from an authority figure can help the band work to better the product. Remember that the manager is above all a businessman, and he runs the band because it is “profitable”… the easier to market a band, the more money it makes, the more money the manager makes as well.

Managers should also be very aggressive and persistent, a friend of mine (a manager for a huge act) once told me a story about how she approached bar after bar only to get denied each and every time and was given all sorts of reasons and excuses. She never gave up, and did not give up on her band… today that band is a major recording artist… and actually they have been big for some time now.

So, if you are a new band that needs to promote yourself and get more gigs, and hopefully paying gigs…

- you have to be a band that can draw an audience

- you have the ability to make people who catch your gigs, like you or your music enough to want to be in touch with you so they know where to go for your next gig

- you have to build your reputation and brand yourself and your music

- you have be aggressive and get gigs and not simply wait for them, and if you are able to successfully do this and your band becomes successful, the offers will actually start coming to you

- you have to have someone.. a manager, who takes care of business and does this well, so that you are left to do what you do best which is put on a good show or create music that your audience appreciates.. as a performer it might be best to not worry about anything and let the manager do that worrying.. all you need to think about or focus on is having a good show or having a good time on stage.

(Photo Source:Fotosearch)
Make your band’s own website! Promote your band over the internet. If you don’t have a website yet for your local band or garage band, Get one now! It’s a valuable tool for indie promotion in today’s internet world. Once you have your web address, start submitting your URL to local band listing websites. Do a research on your city and nearby towns and see what sites list local bands and show dates. Once you found one, email the site and ask to have your web link added. Moreover, e-mail concert calendars and have your band gigs and shows listed. You’ll be surprised how many you will find in your area and nearby town. In addition, email your local clubs with your website and see if they would like a press kit. (Source:Mediawebsource)

Like everything made under the sun, your guitar is subject to wear and tear. There are many things that you need to take into consideration along with your guitar practice and one of such is your guitar maintenance.

There are special parts in the guitar and they all require special maintenance or else, you’ll not get the most from your guitar. I will examine a few things along the lines of guitar maintenance.

As part of a good maintenance, you must store your guitar well. A lot of young guitarists seem to take this very lightly. For example, they keep their guitars in such places where they are very likely to slide off on fall.

If your guitar has fallen once, unless it is in a flight case, it is not the same guitar you bought again. I know this may seem like laying it on too thick. But believe me, this is so because anything that cause the neck of your guitar to take such impacts compromises its performance.

For no reason should you keep you guitar anywhere that it’s slightly likely to fall. If you don’t have very good stands, wear it with your strap or put it back in the flight case. I know you may argue that those rock stars don’t do all that with their guitars. And my response is “Those stars only need to ask and several top guitar makers will make them a few guitars to their minutest specifications.”

Apart from storing your guitar well, it is a good practice to always clean your guitar after every use. Pay very close attention to the fret board and the strings. You know that sweat from your hands can easily corrode most strings.

Take time to oil your guitar’s tuning machine. This is especially true if your guitar uses the open tuning machine. Anything made of metal that has moving parts does better with oiling. Just make sure you drop only a little once in a while. This is not one of those tasks you should undertake on a daily basis.

These are just a few guitar maintenance tips. However, if you use them judiciously, your guitar will serve you for years and years on end.