Bob Baker's Indie Music Promotion Blog

News, notes and ideas on music marketing, self-promotion, artist empowerment and more


May 16, 2008

Go Straight to the Fan!


A new blog post by Bob Lefsetz echoes the direct "focus on fans" mantra I've been preaching for years. Here's an excerpt that addresses the age-old need artists have to "get the word out there":

"Realize the focus should not be on the media, but the fan. Just like the Internet rid the music business of the need to manufacture and ship, this same Net allows an act to forgo interacting with the media, to go straight to the fan. You must go straight to the fan."

Here's another gem I highly endorse:

"A Website is no longer just a repository of information, it's the front door to your fan club. You may be a musician, but second to that, you're running a club. You have to spread the word on your music, you have to create demand for your tour."

That's right. You're no longer simply an artist. You're also a community builder, a party planner, and a social director all rolled into one.

-Bob

P.S. I'm not suggested you should ignore the media. In fact, I'm doing a three-hour workshop on effective music publicity June 1 in LA. The real lesson here is that all your marketing efforts are for the sole purpose of attracting fans and building relationships with them.

Indie Buzz Bootcamp Music Conference & Workshop
Register now and get discounted tickets!


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posted by Bob Baker @ 9:11 AM   2 comments


2 Comments:

At May 16, 2008 2:45:00 PM, Anonymous Stephen Dolle said...

Bob,

Good point about how artists must promote more than their music, i.e. role in community, national, and international concerns. Let me add the following in light of financial pressures facing record labels today. The real value of an artist today is more in the value of what the band/he/she offers to fans, communities, consumers, business, etc. at large, as opposed to their music. Labels can then market the complete package.

 
At May 20, 2008 9:54:00 PM, Anonymous Shawn Hessinger said...

I agree with Stephen's point and with Bob's post above with two caveats:
1. Yes, an artist's music may have become less important in terms of the recorded music stored on CD and marketed via a large corporate distribution network, but in a sense looking at the artist's role as communicator and at his/her music as their means of communication the music has never been so important. In that sense nothing has changed.
2. Though the "new media" has added considerably to the role of the artist in promoting his/her music, in a sense this is a return to the way things have always been. Many people do not think about the fact that before the advent of the modern record industry these are percisely the kinds of things artists always had to do to promote their music with or without the Internet.

 

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