The great P.T. Barnum - yes the circus guy - was an expert at the BIG SELL. Even though he was a marketing genius he was incredibly diverse in his methods and a real model of creative thinking. One of the masterful things Barnum always managed to do was to make his "product" NEWSWORTHY. He created a story behind the product that contained excitement and emotional content - things that struck a real chord with news agencies and individuals alike.
My old guitar player, Mike Jacobs was our P.T. Barnum and used this principle to make our band, Evil Jake, newsworthy. A brilliant Internet marketer, Mike knew from the beginning that we needed something to set us apart from the hundreds of other bands touring and scraping it out all over the country.
Anyone remember Mountain Dew Red? Well, here's the short version of this story. Macy Gray was featured in this commercial set in Central Park. Mike and I, as part of the crowd standing around the filming, got some face time on film - approximately 1 second.
Mike saw 1 second in a commercial as a golden opportunity to get some press for the band. He sent out a press release highlighting Evil Jake's "appearance" in the Mountain Dew commercial which resulted in thousands of hits on the website and a huge amount of internet coverage which still exists today. Just search Google for "Evil Jake" and "Macy Gray" and you'll see.
Why would news agencies even care? Because they're STARVING for news! That's right! Most "news" outlets don't create their own news. They get their stories from Reuters, or in this case, press releases. Mike Jacobs used the power of the press release to repeat this success on a number of occasions to increase Evil Jake's visibility and make it easier for the band to exist on the same level as other bands with 100 times the ad budget.
Listen, we're surrounded by spin. Use the machine to put your music in the spotlight by making it newsworthy.
For more information on press releases, check out prweb or Google "press release distribution".
For more information on how to think big like P.T. Barnum, check out Joe Vitale's new book, "There's a Customer Born Every Minute" on Amazon.
An idea:
1. Use your band to break a world record.
2. Tie in a local charity for support.
3. Release a free limited edition EP in honor of the event.
