[mplpost] Promoting and Marketing

[Jay Linden]

A week late, sorry.

I haven't been on the PR/marketing side of things in about a decade, but
I have some old war stories from the publicist viewpoint.

Even if you win, you don't necessarily win.

Publicity is only one component of the marketing plan.  

If nobody is doing any advertising, you have to compensate for the lack
of advertising.  

If you don't already have a "name", you have to overcome the fact that
the media will choose known commodities before they choose you about 90%
of the time -- they're not necessarily being mean or unfair; they know
that their audiences want news about known performers, and their bosses
are paying them essentially to sell newspapers/magazines or to increase
ratings.

If you're not getting any play in the appropriate locations (usually
radio, often video, in the clubs, wherever, depending on what kind of
music you make), it's a near impossibility that you'd translate
publicity into sales, and it's also a long shot that you'd interest the
media in giving you the publicity.

If you're not supporting a release with tour dates, if you don't have a
really compelling story (the folksinger who also invented sliced bread,
or what have you), you have more things to overcome.

After all that, as I say, even if you win, you don't necessarily win. 
Let's say you get some significant coverage.  What happens if people
can't find your CD?  What happens if you don't have tour dates to
support when the media coverage comes out?  People see the article, may
or may not read it, quite probably won't remember your name very long.

I've gotten *great* publicity on really good shows (theatrical,
long-run) that we still couldn't sell.  Why not?  Bad location, almost
no advertising, we never got over the hump with word of mouth because we
never generated enough mouths.

I've also gotten great publicity on shows that sold so well we couldn't
meet the demand for tickets.

The components all have to come together in a favourable alignment. 
Some of it requires luck and mirrors.  All of it usually requires talent
and good quality, buyable "product" (man, I *still* hate that word when
it means music and art).  But most of it (assuming the music is good
enough to pay for) really just requires good planning and good
execution.

Jesse is exactly right: if people, from the media to the bookers to the
audiences, never hear your name, you're not going to get anywhere.  And
if you go through the exercise the first time and, for whatever
alignment-of-the-stars reason, it doesn't take off, the exercise and the
education are still worth their weight in gold.

But you should plan a whole marketing campaign, not merely think that
someone can get you famous by getting you some media coverage.  That
plan may have to materialize over the course of several years and more
than one CD, and the best marketing plans can always benefit from good
luck and accidental good timing as well as from covering all the basics.



Jesse Kumagai wrote:
> 
> >On promotion:  Last year I hired an apparently experienced and very
> >enthusiastic publicist to promote my release, much as an experiment
> >(actually most of the things I've done I've viewed as experiments, which I
> >think is a good idea).  Anyway, she didn't have as much success getting
> >press for me as she expected.  Why?  Was it her?  Me?  My
> >music?  Circumstances?  Timing?  Strategy?  I have lots of theories.
> 
> Here's my theory.
> 
> I think many artists emerge from their CD release feeling let down that
> they didn't make as big a splash as they had hoped.  The thing is,
> promoting the hell out of your release is a valuable exercise purely for
> the sake of getting your name on media and industry radar.  It'll pay
> dividends later.
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