Music Marketing Secret – Don’t Ever Book a Gig

music marketing secretThat’s right, unless a friend or club owner, or if you are at a higher level, agent, concert hall, or festival promoter, contacts you about a gig, the best music marketing secret is – Don’t Book Them. Do not waste your time chasing and trying to convince anyone to book your act. How will this help you get ten-times more promotion?

If you come to a nightclub that showcases bands, for instance, and tell the owner that you want to fit in to one of his 45-minute time slots, you are literally the last person he wants to speak with. He has many other priorities dealing with inventory, payrolls, accounting, and various other business related duties. If you can track him down at all, he might just tell you to come back another time, when, of course, he will be unavailable. He has a handful of proven acts already that bring decent crowds, and he doesn’t want to deal with reordering a schedule. And for higher-level gigs, it is even harder!

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Trust me on this music marketing secret. I have booked gigs for my own original bands all over the US, and it is not the way to do it.

Then How do I Promote my Songs if I don’t book for gigs?

This is the greatest Promotional music marketing SECRET that took me years to learn. The answer is, CREATE AN EVENT. Below is my 3 Phase process.

PHASE 1: If you tell the same club owner: I want to book an EVENT at your club, I have four bands, with YOU AS THE HEADLINER, and they will each bring their fans, you have just taken a huge weight off of his shoulders. With a little networking and Internet searching, it will be fairly easy to organize a few bands for an event. Most of them will be as hungry as you are for gigs, and will JUMP AT THE CHANCE!

PHASE 2: Make it a multi-artist-genre event. Imagine telling the club owner that you will also have local artists displaying their paintings, comedians doing stand-up between bands, dance teams from the local dance school performing opening routines, and social activists speaking about pertinent community issues, and they will each be binging their fans. With similar networking and Internet research this can easily be organized.

PHASE 3: Contact a few dozen local TV channels, college radio stations, and entertainment new papers, and tell them about the event. Make note of which ones are coming, and tell the club owner about the press that will be attending.

You have just become this club owner’s best friend! He will make lots of money and get lots of publicity for his club, and you will never have to worry about bringing enough fans to satisfy him, because you are now both the MC and the Star of the show.

Is this a lot of work, actually it can be a lot of fun connecting with so many cool people. You can make sure that most of them know from the start that the gig is for promotional purposes primarily, that way you can pocket most of the profits (if you decide to make it a paid event), in exchange for the time and effort spent. Or you can divide the profits however you feel is fair.

This is my MASTER 3-PHASE PLAN for getting exposure for your songs at a local level. You become the Center of the Music Community!!!

There will be much more info on local promotion and marketing, from regional to International levels at Songwriting Planet, in addition to info on getting your songs into TV and film, and published or recorded by successful performers.

Kevin Thomas

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  • Kweku

    This is really a good idea and am sure with a bit of tweaking here and there to suit what type of audience it will bring the desired result

    Reply
  • Malcolm B

    A while ago, I got an idea myself roughly along these lines, and my only hesitation was that I thought it might be a lot of work. However, you’ve encouraged me to try it, so thanks for that.

    Reply
    • Kevin Thomas

      Malcolme, yes, it can be a lot more work than you are used to doing for a gig, but not an overwhelming amount.
      To boost your career up above the average band or artist, you will always have to work for it.
      But the payoff is worth it.

      Reply
  • nomadyag

    This is a great idea and I have seen amateur theater troupes and other performance artists do this.

    So how do you get paid for the event you put on? Are you selling tickets? Or do you work out payment from the club/venue owner?

    Reply
    • Kevin Thomas

      Payment could go either way, it depends on how the venue usually handles it, or you could negotiate something different because you are creating a unique event that the club does not have to manage.

      Reply
  • Sean

    Good post

    Reply
  • Jeremy Holtom

    A really good post with which I wholeheartedly agree!!

    Reply
  • Andrew

    I really liked this article. I found you through the Telesummit going on this week and figured I’d check some of the websites out people are posting. Really like what you’re doing here! Thank you!

    Reply
    • KT

      Great Andrew, thanks for coming by. Kevin

      Reply

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