As an independent artist you don’t have a whole staff of people working behind the scenes to promote your music. That’s why being organized and disciplined is so vital to your success - however you define it.

ORGANIZE YOUR AUDIENCE
Your biggest asset is your audience so it’s important that you help each listener figure out what role they want to play in your community. Here are the categories that I’ve come up with:

1. Visitor - this is someone who just visits your site for the first time. They may have clicked on a link on a friend’s blog. Maybe the read about you in a magazine. They are interested.

2. Listener - this group of people own your album and enjoy it. It’s from this group that you’ll try to find those who are interested in helping you get the word out.

3. Participator - this group of people visit your site regularly and subscribe to your mailing list. When you have news you can be sure that they know about it and can take action.

4. Promoter - this group actively promotes your music. They don’t just respond to your newsletters by attending shows or buying the latest cd. They invite friends to the concert, buy multiple copies of your cds to give to others, they put up posters and call radio stations.

It’s you job as the artist to help everyone you encounter to find out what role they are most comfortable with (Cach - sorry I ended that in preposition). It’s not your job to try to coerce, manipulate or convince people to “move up the ladder.” Not everyone is going to like your music. Of those that do, not everyone will want to take an active part. It is your job to make it as easy as possible to people to play a role in your music career and to figure out what role is best for them.

MAKE IT EASY
Here are some ways that you can make it as easy as possible for people to figure out if they want to be a part of your music and how.

1. Visitor - The visitor is at your site to hear your music. They’ve heard about you. Perhaps they’ve heard a snippet of your music somewhere and they want to hear more.

MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC
Don’t just put your music on a “music page.” It MUST be on your front page in a very obvious place. Don’t just link to your Myspace page either. Let me say this again, MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC. This is such an important point. I have left literally dozens of artist sites because I couldn’t find (or it took too long to find) their music.

MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO REMEMBER YOUR MUSIC
Another recommendation is that you offer a free mp3 as well. Put it on your homepage or make a giant and obvious link that will easily lead them to the page where the mp3 resides. Don’t put up any barriers. Andrewosenga.com does this well. He has a free song on his site and it’s clearly labeled on his homepage. Honestly, I don’t own Andrew’s new cd yet, but the more often that his free mp3 plays in rotation on my iPod, the more likely I am to remedy that situation.

Getting your song on someone’s iPod is something like those nifty calendars that insurance companies send out every year. It’s a way for people to remember you even when they get busy or distracted. If a visitor comes to your website and leaves with nothing, you just need to hope that they remember to come back or hear your song on the radio or are somehow reminded that you exist. By giving them a song, you establish trust and you have a permanent spot (because not many people ever delete music from their library) in their music collection.

I’ll discuss how to establish relationships with Listeners, Participators and Promoters in my next post.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Real world advice?

I know its good advice, but there’s a large pill to swallow to give your music away.  Especially after you spent 10-20K making that music :(

But I hear what you’re saying.  We’re working on a player that will play 20 sec. clips of various songs off the new CD while people are browsing the site. 

Do you think its bad to send them to MySpace or Purevolume for that Free Download?

I can imagine that “"giving" you music away is a tough step to take, but I think it’s really worth it. You don’t have to give it all away, just one good song that will keep you on people’s ipods.

A good and inexpensive player can be found here.

I don’t think it’s bad to send people to MySpace or PureVolume, but I do think it’s better to offer the free download at all three places - your site, your MySpace page, you PureVolume page. Why? Because sometimes one more click is all it takes for people to lose interest. Sometimes MySpace pages don’t load properly, or they load too slowly, so I think it’s best to offer the free download on each site.

That’s just my 2 cents, though.

Thanks for the feedback and questions Ryan! I’m a bit swamped with projects right now, but in the next week or so I hope to continue this series. I hope you’ll continue to give your input.