7: PROMOTION IN GENERAL

More..... 2, 3, 4

What is promotion?

Despite its importance promotion is one of the most misunderstood and overlooked concepts in the music business, especially to beginners. It is present in nearly all aspects of the industry in one way or another. In its simplest form it consists of advertising for products on sale - CDs or concerts, for example. In a more subtle forms however, promotional concepts are present in most activities.

Promotional behaviour exists throughout the music industry - some places more obvious than others. For instance, playing a gig is a common tool for the promotion of records, CDs and tapes, as well as the artise and the venue. Others are less obvious but equally important; the way someone speaks on the telephone or how a person conducts themselves at an audition, the efficiency of an artiste in turning up for live appearance, or attitude on stage. All of these done badly will have a negative effect. Being aware of doing these things well can be an important source of development, and are consequently promotional in this sense.

This section deals with the obvious ones. The links to the other pages in this section are to very common specific areas where promoton is very important.

If you are only interested in learning some aspect of the industry for your own pleasure, for example playing an instrument or learning to record or use a sequencer, then fine! But if you want other to people to become involved - either as an audience or as colleagues - there needs to be inspiration for them to get involved. You need to show people you are talented, serious, and reliable. The point is that your attitude towards what you want to acheive has a major effect on the way others will view it.

Aims and Objectives

The general idea of promotion is to get known/noticed with a view to increasing your influence and gaining some power. The reasons for this are to try to get some popularity in order to achieve your ambitions whatever they may be. These in turn could be a variety of things, such as; making money, getting a job, getting a record deal, management deal or publishing deal, etc. If you have a record label you will use promotional techniques to sell records or get a deal with a distribution company to get records and CDs into the shops, and to encourage potential customers to buy your products. If you are a promoter you will be trying to get people to attend your events - gigs or dance nights, etc.

What are you up against?

This not meant to sound rude. What I mean is that your (and my!) lack of knowledge about what to do next and what's going on 'out there' is the biggest stumbling block. Its difficult to make the next move in the business without really knowing exactly what it is going to be or how to do it. It pays to know what's what and who's who.

One of the biggest problems, apart from ignorance, is of course competition from other people. That means people also promoting the same kind of commodities, and people promoting different activities but to the same audience. Be prepared to look into whatever else is happening which could effect your promotion. For instance, if you are promoting a gig it is fairly obvious to make sure there are no other similar gigs in town on the same night (unless you know for certain that everyone will come to yours!), but a football match might have a detrimental effect or even a film on the TV.

Peoples tastes change over time and that could mean that you have to change with that in order to get the interest you want. The quality of your product or band makes little difference if it is not what people want at that time. If you do not want to take to much notice of fashions you may need to find extra effective promo techniques to get an audience.

There are people out there who will let you down. Don't despair too much, its par for the course, and it helps you gain experience and begin to develop a way of telling who's who.

There are people who will rip you off and people who will let you down through incompetence and laziness. You will soon find out who they are and quickly list them as 'no hopers'.

This is not necessarily your biggest obstacle to success, but is a biggie. It always pays to be aware of the cheapest venues and PA companies, for example. Don't get tricked into using an over the top sound system when you don't need one. Don't deliberately underspend either if you can help it. Its too easy to put on a bad night because of a miserly approach. If this happens it could effect your future audience sizes and the attractiveness of your promotions to artistes and venues.

What are the solutions?

Research and targeting

In general you have to know what's going on in your area of interest; which venues pay the best, which use agents and which don't, which band is everyone talking about, are they any good........etc.

To get this information you have to make an effort to put yourself about in venues and music shops, etc - asking questions, making contacts and generally networking. Some of the media may well be useful for finding out about artistes and venues, trade papers for equipment, etc. There are usually local scene papers and magazines, especially in the cities. The sources of your research will depend on the area you want to work.