5 Offline Music Marketing Strategies that Gain Fans, Sale CDs, & Create Awareness

The internet has brought on a great wealth of music marketing reach to emerging artists, musicians, and independent record labels. So much so that many forget that hand to hand promotions and other offline music marketing strategies can still get new fans and in many cases further online music marketing efforts. Offline, better known as street team promotions, is the back bone of the music industry. It is where it all began and where “the magic” still happens for many up and coming artists and groups. There is nothing better than talking to potential fans face to face. This type of music marketing lets people really know who you are, what you are about, and it allows them to feel the passion of your music through your gestures and facial expressions.

Since the shift in the music industry has been to internet only music marketing, street team music marketing is currently a wide open space and ready for an artist or group to take it over and dominate. With more and more artists and groups choosing the internet for all music marketing activities, street team music marketing could be a very valuable secret weapon. Sure, street team music marketing costs a bit more than online music marketing, but not really if it’s within your home City or region. Street team music marketing actions that happen close enough to go home at night, stop by moms for a bite to eat, and do not require being away from sources of income can cost as little as FREE!

The following 5 music marketing strategies for street team promotions will help you gain new fans, sell more CDs, and create a strong awareness among potential fans. It is important to remember that no marketing strategy will work if you act upon it once and forget about it. Marketing music, anything for that matter, takes time, devotion, and repetition. You must continue your marketing actions daily, monthly, and yearly. No matter how big of a star you become, music marketing will always be job number one... It just gets easier because you can pay someone to do it for you!

1. Flyers, Flats, & Posters at Retail Locations

Barber shops, beauty parlors, head shops, mom and pop music stores, gas stations, pizza joints, car washes, laundry mats, lumber stores, or any other place you can think of is a great place to put your poster in the window and flyers or flats at the register. Don’t think they will let you? Then why were so many emerging artist’s and group’s careers launched at these type of locations, through street team music marketing efforts, for decades before the internet was even a thought? The only reason you do not see more music marketing material in these locations, now, is because most emerging artists and groups are too young to remember the time when this was the only way to get the word out. This has made emerging artists afraid to ask the retailers for permission to place their music marketing materials in retail locations. Retailers want to be a part of the City. They want to show the neighborhood that they support local activities. It makes them look good and retailers feel that by looking good within their community the community will support them and buy their products or services. Do not be afraid to market your music through your community by asking for their support. You will be surprised at the amount of support you will receive by simply asking for it!

2. Free Give-A-Way Retail Promotion

Once you have your music marketing material around the city at retail and service locations you will begin to build relationships as you visit with retailers, weekly, to make sure your material is stocked and still in place. As these relationships build you will find that a few retailers really like your music and want to help you succeed. Once you have developed a relationship you can extend your music marketing reach through by means of offering a “joint venture” partnership. No, this is not where they give you cash. Joint venture partnerships are where two or more people or companies each have something, that when combined, increase the perceived value and cause people to buy.  What you have is music. What the retailer has is a service or product. Ask the retailer if they are interested in giving away your CD for FREE to customers that spend a certain amount of money on products or services. What they get out of the deal is customers spending a bit more money because they see a higher value in spending a bit more money. What you get our of it is a lot of music marketing reach without having to do the work. Retailers will work for you because it means they will ring up higher sales. Try to find retailers that do radio, TV, or newspaper advertising for their products or services. Make sure they add a tag line or mention you or your groups name and the promotion in their marketing efforts. Be sure to that your music is used in the commercial if it is for TV or radio!

3. Cross Promotional Live Shows

Somewhere in your hometown or region is another artist or group that is similar to you or your group. Many emerging artists and groups do not want to admit it, but it is true. Hopefully, the artist or group is not exactly like you or your group, but similar enough that you can respect what they are trying to do musically! What you want to do is become friends with this artist or group and start a cross promotional music marketing campaign. What these means is that you help one another out by introducing each others music to your own fan base. You allow them to open for your live shows and they allow you to do the same. You allow them to put their CDs and promotional material on your music marketing merchandise table and they do the same for you. You allow them to pass out flyers and flats for upcoming events at their shows and you do the same for them. Get the point? You help one another out by allowing each other to promote to each others fan base. Better yet, you help one another out by promoting the other to your fan base. Nothing is better than another artist or group telling their own fans how good you are. Their fans already like and trust them. It will make potential fans listen and take a chance on your music faster than if you promoted to them yourself. For all you haters reading this... Get OVER YOURSELF! A City or region is plenty big enough for multiple artists or groups in the same genre to prosper. Don’t think for one moment that your fans only listen to your music 100% of the time. They don’t and you don’t want them to because it would burn them out on your music. By helping other artists and groups in your City or region you are actually helping yourself tremendously. How? Because you are helping the genre of music in the area grow larger. The more people your genre of music attracts the more potential fans you have to win over!

4. Go Where the People Go

Think about your City or region for a minute. What do people do if they are not going to clubs or venues to see live music? Do they go to parks, baseball games, skating rinks, movies, the mall, racing events, or other non-music activities? Go there. Pass out flyers and flats. Talk to people. Give away FREE CD singles or full CDs. Get your music in the hands of potential fans at any location you can think of. In fact, when you stop to fill up your gas tank hit the little button on the nozzle that keeps the gas going without you holding on to it and walk around the other pumps handing out your flyers and CDs to the other folks getting gas. I assure you, the moment they get back in their car and drive away your music will go into their CD player... well, unless they are still driving a 1988 Honda civic that has a cassette player! The point, no matter where you are, what you are doing, or when you see people, your job is to promote your music. Do not leave home without CDs, flats, flyers, and other promotional material in hand no matter where you are headed. If you are a college student do no go to school without having a backpack full of your merchandise. As you walk from class to class make sure every single person you pass gets a flyer in their hand. Stick your poster on the common bulletin board in every hall you have a class. Go to the other halls around campus and do the same. While you are there go to the common room and pass out a few CDs to the folks sitting around!

5. Clubs, Live Venues, & Concerts

Clubs, venues, and concerts around your City or region offer a wealth of potential fans. Find the locations that play your genre of music and be there. If there is a concert in town with a major artist or group that is in your genre of music, go and pass out flyers in the parking lot. Place your posters in the bathrooms of every one of these locations on the back of stall doors and in front of the urinals. NOTE: Be prepared to have them ripped down by the management, but do try! Stand outside the location and pass out flyers as the people are leaving. Do not try to give them something as they are walking in the club. It will end up on the floor, sitting on the table, or in the trash can. Give it to them as they are leaving and at least it will make it to their car!

Conclusion

Music marketing with a street team is a numbers game. The more people that get your music marketing material the more chances you have at gaining a new fan. Do not be afraid to blanket your hometown or region with your music, flyers, posters, and other music marketing material. Don’t feel like a fool promoting yourself or group for fear of the haters that will hate. It is going to happen and you can not stop it. They are hating because they are not marketing their own music as effectively as you or your group. The key to street team music marketing is action, repeat action, and prolonged repeat action. You have to continue your efforts. You have to put your music marketing material in the hands of each person you meet, cross paths with, or see on the street. You have to become unafraid of meeting and talking to new people. You have to learn the art of conversation and how to work your music into any conversation you find yourself in. Now, go hit the street and start generating new fans, selling more CDs, and making more people aware of you or your groups music!

Peace,
Jai
Love the Music in Yourself, Not Yourself in the Music!”
©2009 Jai Hutcherson All Rights Reserved