Indie Radio Inbox Hip Hop Blues
As a DJ/radio personality my Email inbox is filled with music from so many different indie artists, but not so many well written bios, Electronic Press Kits (EPK), or press releases. It is paramount to effectively interact with the publicity aspect of your promotional mix. Let’s talk about marketing for a moment.
Independent Artist Marketing Strategy
Marketing is all of the activities involved in the transfer of goods/ services and general communication from the brand to the consumer, including: promoting or selling a particular brand or product/service and communicating the value of a brand to customers. It’s something that all brands need. While a lot of concepts are fairly straightforward, it’s a large endeavor and can be done in a lot of right ways but also a lot of wrong ways. Promo and Publicity are two concepts that often get used interchangeably. While they both are important pieces to your marketing mix, especially when communication about your brand is concerned, they are two different things.
The marketing mix is commonly known as the 4Ps: Product ( design, production) Price, Placement (distribution) and promotion (marketing communications). These aspects are where one would plan activities and strategies to get the visibility that hopefully converts into sales for a brand. There are many theories built around the marketing mix and marketing strategy buildings, but that is a whole other article.
Promotion: Technically Speaking
Promotion is an activity aimed to
Bring awareness of a product, cause or brand
Generate sales
Increase loyalty
It is an important component in your marketing mix and is meant to differentiate your brand from others. Promotion deals with communication about your product and reaching the mass market with that communication. The elements in your promotional mix that will accomplish this are:
Personal Selling
Advertising
Sales Promotion
Direct Marketing
Publicity.
These types of communication support each other and reinforce the awareness of the product or brand that is promoted.
A Piece in the Promo Puzzle
Publicity creates mass visibility for your brand via media or through direct mass communication from the company. Usually it consists of issuing news releases about the activities of an organization and is used as a tool to create positive images in public arenas. Utilizing free media sources to relate and engage with the public. The goals of publicity or to present a positive image and increase brand awareness and excitement. While a brand may have control of, the content of the message, it rarely has any control regarding placement and the overall impression that the media source has about the brand.
Promo and Publicity Applied to the Performing Artist
Promotion and publicity are alike in that they are important components in your marketing strategy. Getting the word out about your brand using publicity is a component that may not cost anything to get besides time to research, media relationship building and story placement. Publicity is extra important for independent artists because it’s a part of how you increase your buzz and popularity. When you have a strong media presence, it increases your chances of getting booked.
