Marketing Creatively
"Making It"
Knowledge, Wisdom, and Guidance for The Talented
by
David Hamilton
Marketing Creatively with Cheryl Khaner ( VP of Promotions RCA Records )
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Later in this book I will cover Internet Marketing extensively to give you some good marketing tips as an artist, however I wanted to share with you the Martyrs and Poets experience, so you can get an idea as to how "Marketing The You" can often be successful if you simply become creative with how you sell yourself. When I first started working with Jason Koiter and Nate Picard of Martyrs & Poets, we had the product a national band could ever want, and we had an incredible manager getting ready to take the helm of the band. We needed to market our band creatively to radio and records to get an idea of how successful we could promote to people out on the street. This is a simple form of test marketing, to take our product and let professional in Radio and Records hear us, and that would determine the feed back we might receive if we promoted our band to the masses, VIA Radio. This is simply because people that work in radio are every day people that hear soooo much music, if you can satisfy them with new music, you can get to anyone with something new. I knew getting the attention of people in my business was next to impossible as well. Radio professionals are given 100 new songs a week to listen to, and sometimes more. When I was in radio, I worked 12 – 14 hour days, and e-mail and press releases weren’t important to me. I wanted to send e-mails out to the people that mattered the most in regards to getting the band some national attention. As you know being a reader of E-mail, if you don’t know the sender, the chances of your e-mail being read is SLIM, and if the subject line isn’t appealing ( the sell ) then consider your e-mail DOA ! Since Cheryl Khaner was becoming our manager ( known in the industry for her successful RCA Records work ) and we had a song featuring the Gin Blossoms Jesee V, I had all the ammo I needed to make a strong subject line:
Subj: Cheryl Khaner takes on the band Martyrs and Poets as manager! Read for details
Of course the e-mail was the next catch; it had to be
short, to the point, and interesting enough to make people come listen to us.
e-mail:
Cheryl Khaner has taken on the responsibility of
manager for Martyrs and Poets. The band has been ultra successful in LA and on
the road. You can hear a track off the Fiction and the Faith CD they recently
recorded with members from the Gin Blossoms and M&P. Check out the track
“Saturday Smiles” featuring Jesee V from the Gin Blossoms.
www.myspace.com/martyrsandpoets3
Please send us back your comments and advice on what song you suggest we release
first. If you go to the Martyrs and Poets site at
www.martyrsandpoets.com you can
actually see the turn out on the notable quotes section posted.