IOTM Blog
Posted: Jul 7, 2014
Category: Live Performance
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**Guest post written by Wade Sutton of Rocket to the Stars.
"Saxophonist Dave Goldberg has been getting a lot of attention lately for an open letter he wrote to operators of venues that host live music. The letter was Goldberg's way of sounding off against venues not paying artists as much money as they feel they deserve. The text, while not hostile in nature, was extremely misguided and managed to ignite another round of firestorms by similarly misguided artists. It was missing a lot of important information concerning why the music scene is the way it is right now and really offered little in the way of how to improve it other than to say venues should simply pay bands more money..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jun 30, 2014
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Alan VanToai of SimpleCrew - the mobile app for street teams. This article originally appeared on the SimpleCrew Blog.
"Street teams are a powerful force for independent artists - they’re a win-win all around. You get to engage your fans, give them a chance to get closer to you and “in on the fun”, and you get to spread the word about your shows." Read on for ways that you can use online and offline technics to power your team...
View Full ArticlePosted: Jun 9, 2014
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Patrick Hertz of Tinderbox Music. This article originally appeared on the Sonicbids Blog.
"College radio is a unique mix of non-commercial stations that range from small-watt student-run operations to huge, vastly influential public and/or community stations. This spectrum allows for most any independent artist to find terrestrial radio airplay – that is, of course, if the music is good..." View Full Article
Posted: Apr 28, 2014
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Carlos Castillo of Schwilly Family Musicians - music marketing strategist, web designer, live performance recordist, international road-tripper, lap steel player, and Captain of the Schwilly Family.
"The truth of the matter is that if you want to take a proactive approach to getting attention for your music, you have to think about that kind of stuff [your story]. Whether you are looking for some press or simply to connect on a deeper level with your fans, your story matters. That’s right. Not only do you have to write and record the songs, but you also have to tell an engaging story..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Mar 24, 2014
Category: Online Presence
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**Guest post written by Brandon Seymour, musician, SEO analyst, web designer, and social media marketer.
Independent bands and musicians in particular stand to gain a great deal of exposure if they put the time and effort into creating quality, engaging videos and marketing themselves on popular video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo and others of the like...Plain and simple, videos work. It's just a matter of figuring out how they can work for you...
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 24, 2014
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by David Priebe of Green Room Music Source, a full time agent/artist manager and also part time instructor of music business at the Institute of Production & Recording in Minneapolis.
"It official- it’s now impossible to make money in the music industry." There are scads and scads of articles and commentary that sound a lot like that statement. What you hear much less about are the people who completely disagree with that sentiment. I’m in that camp, and I’m going to tell you why...
View Full ArticlePosted: Jan 13, 2014
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Brandon Swift, musician and creator of Yovigo.com.
Music marketers and artists who have come after The Grateful Dead have been trying to emulate this marketing model since the group's success with it. The model casts a wide net of influence for any artist or group hoping to make a serious mark in the music industry. Here are some reasons giving away your music works so well and has the power to help those who are willing to make a considerable profit.
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 11, 2013
Category: Fundraising
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**Guest post written by Dae Bogan, Music Industry Insider For The Indie Artist, of Dae Bogan Music.
"What do you do when you don’t have a label underwriting your career and you have to choose between paying your personal bills and paying a studio engineer, publicist, or rental van company? You fund raise!" But how...
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 17, 2013
Category: Renman Music & Business
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There isn't a bigger problem in today's business than getting your music heard. There are hundreds of thousands of releases and different places to host music like YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, traditional radio, and Pandora to name a few, so how are you going to get people to discover your music? Getting a publicist is a great start. But like most things, you can't just hire a person and expect it to be successful. You need to present your music and band with a story. Something with a catch and creative angle to promote. In this clip, publicist Lesley Zimmerman talks about what you need to do to get yourself above the other artists you compete with and how to do it.
View Full ArticlePosted: Sep 23, 2013
Category: Sponsorship
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**Guest post written by Justin Stang of Science!, Seattle based acoustic guitar duo.
Tour sponsorship is one way that a band can generate funds for a tour in order to start off in a place of relative financial security. This is particularly important because the first few dates of a trip might be a few tanks of gas apart, and you never know if your Tuesday night show in San Francisco is going to pan out quite the way you had hoped. Bands commonly desire endorsement deals with music companies in exchange for gear; however, this idea is something completely different...
View Full ArticlePosted: Sep 3, 2013
Category: Facebook
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**Guest post written by Chris Lee of The Shakers, a melodic high energy Rock act from Los Angeles, CA.
"I would like to go on record and state that, with every fiber of my being, I vehemently HATE social networking. I hate it. I hated Myspace. I hate Facebook. I hate Google+. I hate Tumblr. I hate Twitter. I hate Pintrest. I hate Instagram. And god help your mortal soul if you so much as THINK about sending me something on frikkin LinkedIn. Unfortunately for myself, and hard working musicians everywhere, the fantasy of being discovered over night came and went with my TMNT feetie pajamas as did almost the entirety of what I once (thought I) knew of the music industry."
View Full ArticlePosted: Aug 21, 2013
Category: Renman Music & Business
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It's easy to understand that there wouldn't be a music industry without music, but sometimes we forget that the creation process is only the beginning. Once created, a major part of the battle is having the right people, plan, timeline, and creative ideas to get your music to an audience. In this clip Pat Magnarella, manager of Green Day, talks about marketing an album a year and a half before release and some of the pieces he used in the campaign.
View Full ArticlePosted: Aug 5, 2013
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post by Mike Vial as featured in his blog.
"The fact that it’s free or crowdfunded shouldn’t be the story; those are footnotes to the actual story, a story about the music."
View Full ArticlePosted: Apr 25, 2013
Category: Renman Music & Business
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So you've outlined your marketing plan like in step #1, and you know what areas of promotion you want to focus on. That work begins in this step with the music. If you don't get that right out of the gate, you are toast. No marketing plan can save a record, if no one wants to hear the music. Jack Hedges, Director of Marketing at Canvasback Music, goes over step-by-step what you need to do in this phase. Of course, you have the elements of physically making the record, but then there are other considerations to be made. Do you want to make mechanical reproductions like vinyl or CDs? Is it going to be a digital/streaming release? Is it smarter to go with an EP or a full album? Jack walks you through all these things and more in step #2 to Building your Marketing Plan for your Album Release!
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