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[H1221]How To Get Your Music Heard

by Harmanjit, Har

First, don't buy that. You're one of hundreds, maybe even thousands depending on your city. Your disc will probably end up in the trash or, for more enterprising DJ's, on Ebay in a one-cent CD sale. If you want to be heard and make potential sales, you have to stand out from the crowd, and in this jewel of an article, I'll show you Five(5) Knock ?em Dead Ways to Do Just That!:

#1 - Get your CD into the right hands. The intern that's too busy to getting coffee or typing up a report for the station manager isn't going to be the one making the airplay decision. So find out who the head honcho is in that department and touch base with them. If the club you're playing at charges an admission or you have a show coming up offer to send the stations tickets to give away to listeners. Now keep in mind you can't give the tickets to the staff, since that's illegal and called payola, but you can offer free giveaway items to your potential audience.

#2 - If you've got one station in your pocket, then drop names. Let them know that WABC is playing your music and it's getting a great response.

#3 - Make genuine friends in the business. If you've got a disc jockey that's got you in rotation and really likes your sound, get to know them. Find out why they enjoy it and see if they've gotten any responses from listeners. If they haven't, ask if perhaps they might Q & A their callers about your music so you get a feel for your target audience. It's not a bad idea to ask them for a testimonial or quote if they're well known in your area if you know them personally. People help people. That's a fact so if you treat your area disc jockeys like a living and breathing human and not dollar signs, that's a foot in the door. Another good source is club owners. If they play your music and the fans go nuts ask them to say a few words about your sound that you can pass along to prospective stations, but be sure to sit down for a drink with them. Ask them about the picture of him and the woman and two kids behind the Magic Kingdom. Don't be fake, but be genuinely interested.

#4 - Network. Find out if someone you know (or someone they know) has connections to the music stations. Remember six degrees of separation - you're only six people away from knowing anyone on the planet and yes that includes station managers, concert promoters and record execs. The trick is it takes a great deal of work and time, but if you're serious, it's well worth it.

#5 - Go local, state, national. Don't think you're going to skip your local and state stations and be the next Matchbox

Twenty. It doesn't work that way. Start small and then get big.
The TIYP is helpful and loaded with contacts you can start using immediately without doing all the legwork yourself.

Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to music, CDs, downloads , musical instruments, releases and criticism do please browse for more information at our websites.

Is there another way?

Well yes, there is. What we have useful to us all is the Internet. This great medium is so underrated it is unbelieveable.

The key to getting yourself known is to spread yourself all over the internet. Pretend that the Internet is a slice of bread, a bagel....hmm...yum.

Sorry, stay with me, you need to follow this one. If you bought some really nice spread, costing $100 and you only spread one quarter of the bagel (this expensive food doesn't go far). Now you have only one bite, only one and a random one at that, so you randomly bite into the bagel, more than likely you will have much less chance of being found than if you spent less money on a similar spread and used all of it, all over the bagel.

Now this is what happens everytime someone logs onto the Internet.You have one shot, you are being targeted roughly by random and too much money spent in one area is a very bad idea. So what do you do?

Well, the main thing is not to spend any money if possible. If you have music to distribute then do that.Sign up to all the MP3 hosting sites that you can find, there are so many now on the Internet that they are free and offer some cool incentives (like unlimited bandwidth, hardrive space and such like). The more you apply to, the more likely that you are not going to be missed by anyone.

This technique also reduces the possibility of your paid site being shut down, having any failures in the future, or being ranked less in the search engines (with so much competition this is a high possibility).

Phase two, make sure that you have your own website. On each site put a link back to your own site, this then increases your PR rate with the search engines and increases your link status (roughly: more links in the higher you rate). Also you gain free traffic for many years from these sites.

Make your homepage appealing, offering blogs and newsletters, even "guides and DIY articles". Why? Well once someone comes to your site and goes away the likelihood of them returning is very low, and then you have lost them. This is why the newsletters and blogs are so important, they keep the one-time visitor coming back for check-ups to YOUR site, without them trying to find you again (very unlikly).

One thing that I can never understand when I am searching through MP3 hosting sites is "why do people give a range of their work on one page?" All fair and well, and much kudos for doing so, but I think that this is a waste of Internet real-estate. Your site should be targeted, your name should be targeted. I am into Techno etc, so it is rare that I will hunt out jazz songs. But this is what I find when I go onto a techno artists site. My tip would be to call yourself something different for each genre that you do. For example: DJ Harsh for your electronic music, Earthly for your New Age music, The Fields for your Country and Western music...you get the idea.

Having a separate name for each of your styles will then target 2-3 (or however many genres you do) times more visitors- a possible 100-200% increase in visitor downloads. But again, you would link each site to each other just in case. You would even make up separate websites for each genre anyway. Most people in the artist world do this.For example: Les Rythmes Digitales who made "Jacques your body (make me sweat)"- a cool techno song, and Stuart Price are one of the same. Who is Stuart Price? Madonnas new producer under his real name. The KLF, The Doctors in the Tardis, and The Justified Acients of MuMu (no joke) are all one of the same.

Diversify yourself to get yourself known, apply to everywhere that you can and keep on adding great music.

Article Source : Pg. 70

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Both Harmanjit & Dominic Hough are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Harmanjit has sinced written about articles on various topics from Finances, Green Tea and Flirting Tips. . Harmanjit's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.

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