I’m Bringing Christmas In May!

Every year I walk into the mall on a nice fall day and at some point it happens.  I start noticing the red and green decorations and find myself humming “Chestnuts Roasting” (Yes, I know the real title is “Christmas Song”.  I choose to not use it as I think that’s a cop out title!) Last year, they literally had Christmas music and decorations up the first week of October! Before Halloween?!?!  Seriously guys! What’s up with that!?!?!

Here’s The Good News

The good news is that Christmas can be a really good time for independent artists to expand their fan base and exposure.  Every year right after Thanksgiving radio stations start switching over to their Christmas formats and that means there is a ton of potential for unknown artists to not only get exposure, but to get some serious consideration for future quality radio play! Bottom line…score with a Christmas song on radio and they will ask you what else you have for the rest of the year.

Christian Radio, Mainstream, Pop, Rock….eh, it’s all the same at Christmas

All radio formats will at some point play Christmas music even if its just the final two weeks of December or after a certain time of day. They still may stylistically separate a more rock sounding Christmas song for the rock station or a pop sound for the pop station, but almost every Christmas song has one thing in common.  It’s OK to be spiritual during Christmas. (Side note – Christian artists this is huge for you!)

Christmas in May

Here is a quick list of elements that you need to be successful during Christmas.

1. The right song

Do not pick “O Holy Night” (I love this song too!) Everyone and their mother will choose this and you will lose to a bigger artist. After all a radio station can’t play five versions of the same song in a row, can they?

2. The song has to be up to pro production standards

There are lots of producers, including myself, who you could contact. Its amazing how useful Facebook is! Be sure to be polite after all they are just people. (I used my mom voice while typing that one.)

3.  You will need a quality Radio Promoter

Think of radio promoters as booking agents for the radio waves.  You pay them to promote one song and they use their connections at stations to get radio play. Understand you may hire the best radio promoter in the world, but there are simply no guarantees. That’s the simple truth. Here is an awesome company to check out if your looking for radio promotion!

http://www.rocktheshamrock.com

4. You had better get a move on

Radio promotions last on average 4 months, which means that when you hit July or August your already pushing your luck. Now is the time to start working on your new Christmas hit!

I still want my candy!

Christmas in October still really gives me the creeps and I’m not quite ready to trade my Halloween candy for mistletoe and tinsel. But as a professional musician and independent artist, it is great to have a longer Christmas season to make the most of it.  And more time for my music is always a pretty awesome present!

Bill Gaither Is The Future Of The Music Business

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”  ~Pearl Buck

           

Complete panic. People are downloading and not buying music, record labels are closing and even radio is seeing their listeners wander away from their favorite FM stations for YouTube or Pandora. The music world is ending, as we know it. You may be thinking, “OK Mr. Smarty pants, what’s the answer to the music world’s problems?” Two words:  Bill Gaither. 

            For those of you who may not follow Southern Gospel you may be in the dark. Let me fill you in on a man who may very well rival P-Diddy and he did it with little to no radio!           

            Bill Gaither is a songwriter, performer, label owner and entrepreneur.

Gaither's Homecoming tours, which started in 1991, brought together major stars of the southern gospel and CCM industry, sparking a revival of the genres. The tours have sold more than 1.1 million tickets across the world and have included such notable venues as the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. Pollstar listed the tour as selling more tickets in 2004 than Elton John, Fleetwood Mac or Rod Stewart.

Quick rundown on his major achievements

▪                Among the top 75 American entrepreneurs: Entrepreneur Magazine

▪                Grammy Awards in 1973, 1975, 1991, 1999, 2009; additional nominations in 1969, 1974, 1984 (x2), 1987, 1993, 1997, 1998

▪                Dove Awards in 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974 (x2), 1975, 1976 (x2), 1977 (x2), 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 (x3), 1995, 1999 (x2), 2000.

▪                Multi-platinum albums: 2. Platinum albums: 22. Gold albums: 21.

Say What!

Here’s my point.

The future of the music industry is utterly and completely about niche marketing and Bill is the perfect example. He knew that his fans were older Christian folks.  He went to where they already were. (Look around the Cracker Barrel restaurant store sometime)  He connected with them on a emotional level and he never ever strays from his Gaither brand.  But most importantly he gave a select group of people that nobody cared about exactly what they wanted...constantly and continually.   Since 1991 Bill has released One hundred and eleven different “Homecoming” DVD’s! Understand that’s not including any of his bazillion (yes I know that’s not a real number!) CD’s.  So why are they so successful? Simple. Bill makes the emotional connection and his fans feel like he’s a good friend from just down the street.

Do yourself a favor and don’t be to cool!

            Isn’t it amazing that one of the “oldest” and most “dated” genres would be the prime example to show us the future! Go check out Bill’s empire and I promise you, musicians, if you aren’t to cool to learn from him, Bill might just be the one to take you down memory lane and show you the way to the future. 

Swiss Cheese And Toilet Paper

What I learned From Justin Bieber -Part One

Baby, baby, baby oh…Ok I’ll stop right there.  So the story goes that Justin Bieber and his mom uploaded videos of Justin singing at a talent competition on YouTube in 2007.  The next thing you know he’s having a meeting with Usher and on his way to stardom.  Wow!  That is one crazy story!  So anyone can do the same thing and just wait for that major record label to call them,right? Lets just say the odds are not good!

Instead of kids getting their new favorite artists from pop radio, kids discover music on the web. We live in a fast instant gratification world and there is a vast amount of information.  Which means for artists that your 15 minutes of fame (AKA Vanilla Ice) is now 15 seconds of fame.  So as artists, how do we use internet marketing in a way to get real results?

Well lets go back and look at Justin Bieber and break that story down.

A.     Justin Bieber has talent and is a good looking kid

B.     He focused on a specific website where his potential fans (i.e. 10-18 year old girls) already were.   YouTube is the second most used search engine next to Google!

C.     He used an already popular song (i.e. Ne YO) to grab the YouTube user’s attention.

D.    He moved quickly after there was a fan base to get constant songs, pictures, video’s out to them as fast as possible. I believe that more songs of average quality are more valuable in this market than one amazing song! (Man that really hurt to say that!)

E.     Justin had an interesting story that made the media take notice.

F.     Lightning struck and he’s making the most of it.

G.     I’m still not convinced that this wasn’t a record label manufacturing a rag’s to rich’s story.  Even so, it doesn’t matter because it worked!

Less about Justin Bieber and more about You

Let’s make this less about Justin and more about you. No matter what website you use that website has a shelf life. Remember when MySpace was the greatest thing ever? Facebook and YouTube at some point will be replaced so throwing your career to the internet fates is not a wise thing to do. Instead stop and think about who your potential fan base is? If you’re a finger style guitarist then 40 - 60 year old men are right in your target market. Find websites where those people are already hanging out and focus your efforts there. There are even websites for certain religious denominations, so if you’re a Christian band then go find the websites that you know people will identify with you.  Check out shoutlife.com

One of the mistakes that I made as an artist is that I tried to sign my band up for every website in the world in the hopes of being at the top of the search engine listings.  Here is what happens when you do that: you end up spending all of your time signing up and loading music and images when you could be focusing in on the right two or three websites and constructing a plan that would build as you go and not just be Facebook “Likes”, but real fans.

The Benefits Of Video

Try to use video as much as you can! Honestly, this is something that I need to start working into my blog! These days people don’t like to read so try to use video as much as you can. It’s amazing what you can do with a $200.00 flip cam and imovie. (Every band or artist better have one!)

Your Website Needs To Be Your Anchor.  Find ways to funnel traffic from your Facebook, Youtube, or whatever it is back to your website. Example: post a few pictures on Facebook as a teaser.  Then post,  “To see the rest of the photo’s click on this link”, which takes viewers back to your webpage. Always, always, always make your website more of a priority than your Facebook page.

There Is No A+B=Record Deal!

There is so much to cover on internet marketing, so in the coming weeks expect more on this topic as we are just scratching the surface. Remember there is no A+B=Record Deal, so what works for you in internet marketing and what works for someone else maybe be all together different.