industrial
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
by Mark Carras
The long tail vs the short tail
A couple days ago I was asked why I became part of the team behind the “Tweet #metal Chart“. Well to be honest my entire purpose was selfish. I wanted a way to find my target audience. I have found that the best way to find a ton of people that are in a very small niche group is to provide a free service for that group of people. Give them something that they will really want and they will come in droves. It always works and almost always works well. So I continue to provide tools for the hard rock and metal community. Why? Because it is the best way to find the highest quality people within that category. Now of course they are using me as well. That’s the whole point. If I always do my best to make sure they get the most out of what I do, I get what I want. The Tweet #metal chart can of course be used by anyone who wants to find these high quality people just as well as it can be used by me, but it would not have been as useful of a tool if I kept it all to myself. Helping others helps me more than being totally selfish.
Now there are some that are always trying for the quick and easy. The local bands that are happy to play the same clubs, screw the same local groupies, get paid the same crap door money, drink the same crap beer, and somehow expect a record company to somehow find out about them and hand them the world. There are the promoters that will book bands, put up a couple flyers in a few windows, draw the same crowd, and pretty much go no where. Everywhere in every part of life you will find the status quo. You will find that the majority of people will either just be really lazy or they will go for the quick scam. All it takes is one out of every few million to gain from this line of thinking to keep people buying into it. Look at the lottery. My wife and I call it “The idiot tax” because you are being an idiot if you think you are going to win. We still play, but we at least joke about it being the “Idiot Tax”. So even we are guilty of this small minded way of thinking at times. Almost everyone is, but what can we learn from that and when should we go the extra mile to get out of this rut? How do we get out of this rut?
Well, I have found that just about anything you can do will put you above the majority. Take a look at how far everyone else is willing to go. Then go twice as far to win. If the standard local bands are putting up a few flyers and updating their MySpace page, then you should do that and then some. Buy radio and newspaper ads in the local area. A few thousand dollars investments will put you way above the pack. If your band members are all spending their hard earned vacation time from work to do a mini tour, advertise! You are on a national tour, so advertise as such. 3 grand at FixionMedia.com will kick things in high gear for an entire month. Two weeks before the tour starts and for the two weeks during you will be impressing local clubs around the country. Labels will start to wonder why they keep hearing your name. If you can afford a few thousand to toss at IndieClick.com as well you are getting close to pro level marketing for a tour.
In fact I will make a deal with any band out there. First UNSIGNED band to follow the following directions exactly wins a full year of advertising on all three of the sites I am connected to. These sites are MarkCarras.com, RockMyMonkey.com, and HeavyAsHell.com. I will give said band a banner at the bottom of all three sites (pretty much every page and at least the highest traffic pages) for the term of one year. They can change the graphic of the link connected to the graffic once per month.
Here is what you need to do to win:
1. Buy $3,000 of advertising from Fixion Media, $5,000 of advertising from IndieClick, and $2,000 from Blast Beat with all campaigns starting on the same day.
2. Have this all connected to a two week tour with two weeks of advertising before the tour starts.
3.Contact me before the ad campaign starts so I can track it.
4. Do this before June 1st of 2010 because after that this deal has to die.
Deal? Why am I doing this? Honestly it serves me if a band “makes it” because they followed things from this blog doesn’t it? What would happen to my traffic if some band makes it big and they go around telling people they made it because of advice from this blog? My traffic goes through the roof and my word is then respected. Now I could just go around ripping bands off, getting them to sign shady 360 deals, and probably make a quick buck and get out of town before anyone knew what hit them. This is how the music industry is done most of the time. But that is short term thinking and I would rather do what I love for a very long time. To do that I have to keep it honest. I have to actually help bands. That is the long tail vs the short tail. Call my bluff. I dare ya!
Monday, May 4th, 2009
by Mark Carras
What your band can learn from the swine flu hysteria!
This weekend CNN posted one great article about the over blown hysteria over swine flu (along with probably 50 very irresponsible articles fueling the insanity). We have all seen people go nuts over this for very little reason. The World Health Organization said that as of the writing this article there have only been 20 deaths world wide! There are probably more people that die from a smack upside the head every day. This is proof that people have zero interest in facts. We have become so addicted to being controlled by fear that we will latch on to anything hyped at all. It’s as pathetic as a worst case heroin addict.
So how can bands use the knowledge on this to benefit their band? Well, like most lessons, it is something anyone paying attention would have learned many times before. It’s always about hype. When advertising something it is never really about just letting people know about the event. You can have millions of people know about your show and still have an empty nightclub. Why? Because if it doesn’t seem like an out of control hype of hysteria people just don’t care. People always want to be part of something big. On Twitter people are going nuts posting articles supporting the paranoia over the swine flu. Why? Because they want to be part of the big party of everyone over reacting to the swine flu hysteria. When you have a show you want to create as much hype about the event as you can. You want to make it look like it is the event of the year and the club will be packed.
I stopped reading press releases many years ago, because the press agents pile on the B.S. a mile high. It’s like the bands that keep talking about their livers going on strike because they are such wild party maniacs. The truth is that most of them barely drink at all. Not too mention that that line has been over used to pathetic level. The press agents for metal go on and on about how the cd they are promoting is the most brutal thing to be recorded since the dawn of time. They find several ways to repeat the same thing Ad Nauseam. They are trying to hype the band to the point of hysteria because they know what that is worth. So even the pros do it, so why don’t you?
Now of course the press agents do several press releases a day and get so bored with the project that it comes off with zero integrity. You have way more time and can put more passion into your campaign. This is also why you should not play a city more than once every three months. Part of making the event hyped as much as possible is to make it special. How is it special if you are playing the same clubs, in the same city, every weekend? In fact, I have seen bands do very well if they don’t play within an hours drive per season. Starve your local scene! The other thing you do is to save up as much money as you can so that you can advertise on radio, print, flyers, internet, and whatever else is available. Bands that spend their own money to promote a show end up with opening slots with the majors.
Like anything else, you will get out of it what you put into it. Expect things to just fall into your lap will get you no where. Work your royal ass off every second you can and you will see a difference. If you don’t see a difference you should have worked harder. Or maybe your band just sucks? That’s ok. I hear we will all die of swine flu within the week anyways if the media hype is to be believed.
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
by Mark Carras
Top Ten ad networks to promote your band!
1. Fixion Media
Focused on hard rock and metal. Best if you can only afford one network and need to get to your band’s specific audience on a budget.
2. Indie Click
They cover metal, rock, punk, goth, and even horror movie fans. Great place if you get a hold of a good chunk of ad budget.
3. Blast Beat
If your band has a style that can be described as metal elitist, this is an ad network you really should check out.
4. Ultimate Metal
Just one site, but they are cheap and will give you more than your money’s worth.
5. KNAC
Another site that is not part of a network. They are a bit over priced, but they do have a following you could use if you can afford it.
6. Google Ad Words
Sure it is the largest ad network, but not at all what I would call target audience.
7. Microsoft Ad Center
This is a brand new one, but I hear great things. I hope Microsoft will challenge Google to be as good as they should have been this whole time.
8. YouTube
Yes I know they are owned by Goolge. However, I am not talking about the text ads. I am talking about that little link that says “Promote” next to videos you submit. Ever think about paying a little extra to get more eyeballs on your bands YouTube videos?
9. Stumble Upon
Did you know that you can pay to have people “stumble” on to your band’s website? The bad news is that this will burn ad dollars so quick it will make your head spin.
10. Buzz Net
I have checked out this site and it makes no sense to me. A few websites I go to claim that their ads are done by Buzz Net, but yet Buzznet seems to be it’s own webzine. So try as I might I could not figure out anything about this one. Of course I’m sure I could do some research, but I feel that if you have to contact the people to find out info then they have some issues that need to be dealt with.
So there you have it. This is the best info I have right now. Over time I will try to tweak the info I have so this can be a great resource for everyone. Ok, to be honest I really don’t care about any of you. I will keep this updated for my own purposes and if you benefit from that I really don’t care.
Just to be clear, the only ones I have used myself are most of the top 6. However, top 6 lists don’t seem to get any attention. So I added the others. I may try the others if I’m ever in a situation where I have a regular ad budget. Until then feel free to talk smack about this info in the comments.
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
by Mark Carras
Does your band have “Local Band” Disease? What’s the cure?
When you have been doing this as long as I have, you start to notice why bands stay local. It has less to do with talent and more to do with paranoia. Sure there are very talented bands that do everything right and still end up nobodies (Forced Entry), but this is very rare. Most of the time it seems to be a case of “Big fish in a little pond”. In their local town they are the heroes. The local bar has their new cd in a glass case like they it went multi-platinum. However, in the big bad scary world they are no more cool than the bum on the street begging for change. It’s a brave step to totally put your self out there. The world is a cruel harsh mistress and she will eat you up and spit you out (again, see Forced Entry). So what should you do? I say stop being such a wussy and grow a damn spine!
Many of these bands will dip just a toe in the water, not become world wide famous, and then give up and go back to becoming nothing more than local heroes. They say, “Well, we tried.” They really didn’t but they tell themselves that. You have to try everything and everything every chance you get or you might as well not try at all. You can’t keep playing the same gigs at the same local clubs and expect someone to walk in one day and hand you everything on a silver platter. Sure that happens to 2-3 bands a freakin’ decade, but the odds on that are worse than the state lottery. Walk outside in the sunshine this summer and see if you get hit by lightning. If not, then you don’t have that kind of luck. Do the old school “get in the van” style tours when all the band members save up a couple weeks vacation from their real jobs. However, promote the living hell out of it too.
A band will think nothing of it to spend thousands upon thousands on all their equipment, but when it comes to promoting the band they spend nothing at all. Maybe they might make up a few hundred flyers and pass them around if they happen to be going to another metal show a couple days before their own show. What about putting an ad on Blabbermouth for your little mini tour? What about assigning one band member to find out what the local music rags are for the town you will be playing. Then buy ads from them as well. Another band member should be in charge of finding out what the local college stations are and if they have a metal show. If so see if you can schedule a phone interview a week before hand. Don’t just email them links to mp3 files and call it good either. Send a full cd with a cover and everything. Toss in a XX-shirt as well. I know all this costs money, but is your music worth it? How much has your drummer invested in his set? How much are all your practice amps worth? Did your guitarist pay more than $100 for that Marshal amp? How much do you all spend on beer and Denny’s every month? You spend all this money on buying the right equipment to get the sound just right, but nothing on getting people to hear that sound? You blow the money you make on playing shows with piss beer and crap food.
So here is how a band can get the money needed to do all this stuff. What if instead of splitting the money you make from shows all the time you created a band fund. Then on top of that you all paid dues. Not a ton, but enough so that when you had a new cd you could actually promote it. If each band member put in $100 a month for two years, you would have enough for a very strong campaign with Blabbermouth, Brave Words, and all the websites in the FixionMedia ad network.
So be a brave little toaster and jump out of your small little pond. You can do it! Your strong enough, your good enough, and gosh darn it…people like you! Right?
Friday, February 13th, 2009
by Mark Carras
So yesterday I talked about why search tags are so important and why you should never be lazy about them, but how often should you update your site? Well, first off you need to know one thing. Google loves blogs. Don’t think of a blog in the standard way. Think of it as a content management system. Now I must beg you to not use the crappy MySpace Blogs. They are not search engine friendly, don’t have good RSS feeds, and just suck overall. They are the worst blog systems on the Internet. If you are going to blog from MySpace then you don’t care enough to even read my articles. Just give up and enjoy your burger job you lazy piece of crap!
So what bog should you use for your band updates? Well, this site is done with Word Press and it is very search engine friendly. Google owns Blogger, so you know that is going to be logged into their search engine. Those are the two best for what a band needs. Now I must mention some advice I currently do not follow yet myself. I was recently informed by Pamela Weir that I was not using “search engine friendly urls”. At first I didn’t get it to be honest. It seems that in the control panel of Word Press you have the option of having either nice short url’s or search engine friendly urls. I picked the wrong one when setting this thing up, so now when I switch I have to set up a bunch of re-directs so links back to these articles work. So I will be fixing that this weekend I hope. So make sure you have search engine friendly urls. This would mean that the headline is part of the web address.
Now how often to post? Well, this is all about new people finding your band. Post often. In fact post as often as you can. If you can get into the habit of posting at least once a day it would be a good habit. Why? Because Google loves blogs. The more pages, the more words for the Google bot to log in. The more words Google has loggged into their search engine that are connected to your site the better the chances a search result will link to your bands website.
So it can do amazing things for your search engine results to run a daily blog. I know you think most will not care that the band didn’t practice today but instead just hit the local Taco Bell, grabbed some brews, and hung out and watched the football game together. However, think of all the key words I had in that one sentence alone! If you can post 300-400 words a day it will get your band a ton more traffic. More trafic means more fans. More fans equals pure awesomeness…right? So get blogging already!
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
by Mark Carras
Now this one should be more easy for you bands to swallow. We live in a world where people don’t just want to hear a band, they want to see and hear the music. Now it doesn’t need to be some major production either. Just toss a few dozen still camera shots into Windows Movie Maker along with a song from your latest cd and call it done. Windows Movie Maker comes free with every Microsoft operating system so you probably have it and just didn’t know. You can use this to edit your videos pretty easy.
You can also just record your band playing live. Try to get soundboard audio if you can, but if not just use a really good microphone with a digital recorder of some sort. In a pinch most digital still cameras can record video and use one of those crappy mics that are already built in. If you go total “Gonzo” with this method at least try and get far enough away from the speakers so it sounds halfway decent. My point being that the most important thing is to post new videos often. It doesn’t even have to be actual music all the time. It can be just a short “news” update. What about footage from the band in the studio recording the new cd? I would post about once a week if you can.
Now many might be asking why posting a new video every week on YouTube can help your band. Well, YouTube has a ton of people on it. Just like with Twitter, Plurk, & Friend Feed you will end up with new fans just because of all the people bouncing around the network. Plus it gives people more chances to check out your band before they go to a show, buy a cd, download a song, or vote for you in some contest. The more material you give them to sample, the better chances that they will fall in love with the music you make.
Now of course once you create the video file on your hard drive, you might as well upload the video to any other social networks you might be part of. MySpace, Facebook, Metacafe, Vimeo, or any of the other free video hosting services. The important thing is that you at least get the video out. Of course after you post a video you should send in your floods of fans and friends using some of the tools I have talked about in the past week. It’s all about networking.
Friend me on YouTube too!
Monday, January 26th, 2009
by Mark Carras
Now some bands may not get this one, but Skype is a tool that can help both the unsigned local band and the worldwide rockstar. Skype is a VOIP service like Vonage or Oovoo. The difference is the Skype is free. Skype is also well known for it’s high quality. Ask anyone that knows me and they will tell you that I am one very picky customer. I hate all cell phones and media players because I think they all suck. Not one on the market is worth a crap in my opinion. So when I say that Skype has amazing quality and is shockingly dependable, it means something.
Now if you are in a signed band, please do all your interviews over Skype with a good quality headset like the one you probably play World Of Warcraft with. Nothing is more annoying than trying to listen to an interview with a band that has a crappy cell phone connection. There is no way your cell phone, land line, or any other traditional phone type device is going to come anywhere close to the quality of Skype. If the person doing the interview doesn’t have Skype, they can call you on your Skype number. They don’t have to know why you sound so crystal clear. They just need to be shocked at how easy it is to understand you and how clear you sound to their audience. Now to get a Skype number you will have to pay a VERY small amount. You pay $60 for a full year of an online number or $18 for the 3-month online number. Your band will stick out like a sore thumb with all your interviews sounding more clear than any other interview they have done before. This is a good thing.
So what if you are an unsigned band? Ever get a sore ear from holding a phone to your phone all day? Sucks don’t it? What about when your ear gets all itchy from the cell phone headset? What about the phone bill you get when calling around trying to set up that do it yourself mini tour every summer? You can call real phones with Skype while using a soft Plantronics GameCom type headset. Not only will this be way more comfortable, efficient, and cheaper, but it will also be more productive since you will sound more professional with your crystal clear sound quality.
Now of course once bands and labels wake up to the concept of Skype it will be a great method of networking and communication. Skype not only does voice, but it also does text. So one service for sending instant messages to other contacts online as well as making tons of phone calls. Of course you can also try and set up a bunch of press using the voice service. So no matter what level your band is at, Skype can help you save money and help you become a self promotion machine!