TweetThe following headings all in bold are ideas to help you get in to the physical marketing side of things.
Trying to find a good balance between your effort online and physically (in the real world) can be a bit daunting. The majority of the ideas may be new to you. Either way your going to be spending at least 4 hours online a week to make sure that your routine is fulfilled. Try to spend a little more time on it if possible, but four hours will get the mandatory routine tasks out of the way.
With a physical routine, try to keep it as simple as possible. Involving it in your life for a few weeks which will be hard work, but after you have got use to it. You can be your own marketing machine without thinking much about the marketing. Dedicating an hour or two a week to new physical marketing ideas will not be a bad idea either. Here are a few ideas to get you started in the real world;
- Stickers
- Business Cards
- Posters
- Flyers – News posts physically
- CD’s
- Magazines
- Junk Mail
- Band T’s worn by band members
- Contact list
- e-team goes street team
- Single instrument covers of your own material – Help someone learn play it
- Write, to big companies, football clubs, anywhere that plays music. Keep your licencing simple. (How to get films, games to purchase your music because copyright SHOULD be simple, unlike record industry bands)
Business Cards
Decide the layout and information to be put on, choose your source to buy(list below), have them on you at ALL times and keep on top of quantity you have available. You never know, some one may wish to also promote you using your business cards. Take a look at this link for inspiration. http://www.reencoded.com/2008/05/20/42-awesome-business-card-designs-with-links-to-100s-more/
Here are some places you may be able to purchase such physical promotion aids from.
uprinting.com/Cheap-Business-Cards.html
Stickers – Badges
Having them on you at all times is a must, you never know where you might think putting a sticker will work until you see it. Giving them to close friends and family with certain instructions means you could always be direct marketing without even seeing the effort being put in. If you wanted a cheaper alternative there are white label stickers you can purchase from most high street stationary stores, you then buy yourself an ink stamp and you have an even cheaper set of stickers on you at all times to ‘stick’. Maybe save the more expensive ones for fan give aways or to sell on your website, again try to keep on top of number of stickers required per month, your average use when touring, recording or any other task your band is currently in.
bandstickers.co.uk/ – Uks cheapest band stickers apparently
Posters
There are often local band and promoter poster services. In Leeds, UK, there are huge octagonal wooden advertising boards specifically for local bands, club nights and tours coming to the area from bigger bands.
Around places with high amounts of foot traffic, many pairs of eyes can see your name, even if they won’t directly remember it.
Flyers – Physical News Posts
CD’s
Designing a CD putting it together will have to be done in bulk, by the services online which already do this for bands. A cheap way is to have a few PC’s available and plenty of old CD cases. ( e.g. Through friends and family you may be able to muster a few hundred in a week). Getting your brand or graphics on a CD sleeve and looking good enough is probably the hardest part of this particular section. Again if family or friends can lend printers with ink and quality paper then this is a start. If you are wanting to give away your E.P. For free then im sure fans will not have any quarms over its initial look.
If you really want to go physical with your music distribution, look through both local and international cd creators to see how the prices compare.
jetmedia.co.uk/wallets.htm – for wallets
Magazines
The list of online magazines are a great resource to take advantage of, if you don’t ask you will never get. So head over to the list of online music mags and get publishing your news.
Band T-Shirts Worn By The Band
Whether you think this is good or bad, we think this is worth a try. When using as merchandise to sell online, after gigs or other events you set up, here are some points to think about in your routine;
Colour of T’s
Sizes
Design
Re ordering & Stock Levels
Any Where Cheaper To Purchase?
Contact List
Every time you network, keep that contact safe, you never know when you will next need to contact them with an idea. You will soon realise that contact lists can explode and you will soon have many contacts covering many skills. Your label are not the only people that can help you.
E-Team Goes Street Team
Use your fans, if there are plenty of them, then plenty of things can be achieved. Check out our 21st century e-team and street team ideas page here in this guide.
Cover Yourself
So you have some songs, by already being able to play them you can record your own instruments seperate from the others and add a low volume back track of the recorded song. Posting it on various websites will get you some new site visitors and hopefully teach some budding new musicians some new tricks.
Chalk The Place Up – Active Advertising
Take advantage of a huge foot fall of people, maybe in front of a university or city walk way.
Letter Boxes
Living in a busy city specially in northern England means on the outskirts i am provided with houses very close to each other. Posting a flyer through ten or so letter boxes each morning will work out to atleast 3000 being done over a year, then quantify this by the number of band members willing to do the same.
If you have any other ideas, we would love to hear about them in the community forum, go check it out here.
Want to know more? Follow the band self promotion guide we wrote The Introduction
Read our News Updates for music marketing info.
Check the Directory for new music service websites and tools.
Or subscribe by Email for all updates on the website.
