Ariel Publicity

I travel a lot to speak at music conferences and I see this all of the time: Musicians squirming in their seats as I present ideas on how to improve their marketing. The idea of having to do one more thing is just unbearable to them, and they literally begin to melt down in front of me.

One of my best friends is an artist – a dancer – and she literally takes to bed after she has to write a press release; it literally makes her sick.

You will NEVER achieve the success you want it if you try to do it all alone and take on things that stop you dead in your tracks!

I can not stress this enough: You MUST learn to delegate, and get the stuff that makes you completely stressed out off of your plate.

Two issues are up for you right now from reading this:

1. You can’t afford to pay someone to help you
2. You don’t want to give up control and you feel a need to do it all yourself

Right?

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A few weeks ago, I threw a book launch party for my friends, Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan to celebrate the launch of their new fabulous book, “The Indie Band Survival Guide,” published by St. Martin’s Griffin here in New York, and I was honored to be interviewed and prominently featured in the PR chapter. Weighing in at 329 pages, it is jam-packed full of incredible information.

“The Indie Band Survival Guide” is a book that all artists, independent or not, need to own.

Randy & Jason are founding members of the Chicago based independent band Beatnik Turtle, and this book started out as their blog where they chronicled their personal experience releasing a whopping 18 albums, touring, building a formidable following, and writing music for film and TV. This book was not motivated by money or a desire for fame. It came from the 12 years of experience as independent artists that they achieved directly by releasing albums, and as they learned along the way, they wrote it all down. As their lessons and experiences grew, so did their blog, and because of their blog a literary agent approached them, and they got a publishing deal.

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One key thing I have learned over the past few years of attending workshops and garnering techniques from some of the worlds most successful people is: Those people did not get there alone. Success takes support and this issue of Sound Advice will show you how to create a support group that can help you stay on track and achieve your music career success. It’s called a Mastermind Group.
 

I hear it all of the time – musicians call me up and say: “If only I had a manager,” or a booking agent or a record label etc. And I in turn say: It’s hard to get a manager when you are just starting out However its not hard to get some help!
 

For those of you in bands: Does this scenario sound familiar? One person is in charge of doing all of the business affairs and the other members of the band just show up (sometimes they don’t even show up on time!) If you’ve got a band of hired guns, this sadly is your cross to bear. However, if your band is considered an equal team, I highly suggest that you include your band members in your mastermind group. If you are the only active member of your band on the business side that’s OK – you can build yourself some great support with non- band members.
 

What a Mastermind Group is
A mastermind group is a small team of people that meets one to two times per month, sits down, and brainstorms together, creates goals, makes lists, talks about objectives, and keeps each other accountable so that that you will move forward with your goals and achieve them faster.
 

What a Mastermind Group is Not
A Mastermind is NOT band bitch session where you air your dirty laundry and get angry at each other (We call that a band meeting ). A mastermind meeting is a place for goals and a place for action and a place where you can really focus on yourself and your career.
 

Setting Up Your Mastermind Group
I suggest you create a group of four to six people – if you are married or part of couple and you want to set and achieve goals with your spouse or significant other I suggest a group of 3 couples (it’s OK to have different goals). If you are not part of a couple, I suggest a group of three to four others in addition to you. These people do not have to be in the music business, and it may actually be better if they are not. These people also do not have to be reaching for the same type of goals – they will however need your good input to achieve them, and you will need theirs.
 

Steps To Take

1. Choose fellow masterminders to invite that you admire and that you look up to.
2. Choose people who are strong self-starters and who know how to get the job done, who perhaps own their own businesses. Having someone in your mastermind group who runs a business will really help motivate you.
3. Preset a scheduled date and time every month or twice a month. The third Wednesday of each month, perhaps. Or a dinnertime every first and third Tuesday of the month – Don’t break your commitment – you need to keep this set time to achieve results. How you handle this mastermind is critical to your success.

 
Setting Achievable Goals Is Key
Be careful when setting your goals. Start with ones that you can achieve within the first month (redesigning your newsletter, re-writing your pitch, booking one gig etc) so you feel like you are accomplishing small victories along the way.
 

Please read my previous article on how to set goals and achieve them here:
http://www.arielpublicity.com/sound_advice/setting-goals.html
 

At Your Scheduled Date and Time

1. Come to each meeting with an agenda.
2. Don’t make this a social hour – you are getting together to work – Dive in quick and socialize when you are all done with your meeting.
3. Choose a scribe. One person should be in charge of writing down what happened with measurable goals, actions, and results with dates set for each one and the scribe will e-mail the notes after each and every meeting so that everybody can keep up-to-date with each other.
4. Hold each other accountable – Set check in times to stay on track.

 
Between sessions, you should be in touch a few times to make sure measures are being met.
 

Set up a Wiki
A Wiki is a great way that everybody can stay in touch without losing track of e-mails. I recommend
Ning – http://www.ning.com
PB Wiki – http://www.pbwiki.com/
 

Keep a Reading List
Have a reading list of books and links to articles that may be helpful to the group and reasons why you are recommending these books on your group Wiki. Books on Time management or on small business or on how to tour – whatever you are trying to accomplish there is probably already a book or an article out there.
 

Join My New Mastermind Group For Extra Support
I just started a mastermind group that already has 80 artists in it helping each other out with goals. To get a free membership all you have to do is purchase my book: Music Success in 9 Weeks http://www.cyberprbook.com
 

Have Fun
The last piece of advice I’ll give is This process should be fun!
 

This is you creating your career as a musician and it should feel like a joy, not a dreaded homework assignment.
 

I’d love to hear about your Masterminds. Please report them to me at Ariel@arielpublicity.com

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Google, in my humble opinion, is the most amazing invention since anything else I can really think of. And Google is not just a big search engine, although it would still be awesome if that’s all it did. Google is, quite simply, a portal truly puts all of the worlds electronic information at your fingertips – there’s a good reason why the word “Google” has become synonymous with searching online. Here are 3 Hot Tips designed to help you through all of Google’s awesomeness and use it to your benefit.

1. Google Alerts
Have you ever spent hours trying to track down articles on a certain subject, topic or even about your band / your brand? With Google Alerts, whatever words you select will be searched by Google and emails will be delivered to in your in-box.

To Setup A Google Alert

1. Visit http://www.google.com/alerts
2. Choose your search terms.
   1. You may include wildcard characters (*) to expand the search to find words containing the search terms, i.e. “fi*” will return results for “fish,” as well as “ficus”
   2. Use quotation marks (“ Cyber PR ”) to search for only the exact words in the search, in the exact order entered
3. Choose the type of alert you would like.
4. Select the frequency of alert emails.(Daily works best)
5. Enter the email to which you would like the alerts emailed

2. Google Blog Search
This is basically a filter for only searching Blogs; and with 80 million Blogs out there, on top of all the websites, this is a great filter for all the noise. This is also a great place to track your band on blogs. To search on Google’s Blog search, go to this link: http://blogsearch.google.com/

3. Google RSS Reader:
FIRST: Watch this video: It only takes 3 minutes and 43 seconds
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
Now that you know exactly what this is from watching RSS in Plain English,
Setting up your RSS reader is the perfect way for getting the information you want (not only from blogs but from also from other sites you frequent) to come to you instead of having to check constantly to see what has been updated.

4. Gmail
If you still have an AOL or hotmail address, you’re in trouble. Gmail just may be the best e-mail program/website on the planet. Many bloggers and new media people use Gmail and it shows your in the know, so get signed up. Just a few great features of Google e-mail are searchable by topic or word and they provide a huge amount of storage space.

Using Gmail as your default -mail host, you can set up an URL and add GoDaddy for 7.95, then point it to the server and voila! You have a customized e-mail addresses for free.

5. iGoogle – Your customizable home page
Whether RSS, certain news links or weather, Google home pages tools can certainly help you. Google does not have to be this one-frame box. By opening a Google account, you also gain access to iGoogle, your personal home page. Here you can add just about any sort of information you like; from the silly, such as small Flash games, to the more serious such as tracking mentions of your or your brand’s name on the Web.

6. Froogle
I love getting a great deal and the Google shopping site, Froogle, will help you find all of the sites and tell you where to get the best price. For example, my best friend’s wedding dress that was $1,500 in New York City, was $695 on Froogle. This is a great place to search for deals: http://www.froogle.com

Hope these 6 Hot tips help!

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So – as you know I am a newsletter evangelist! I believe it is the NUMBER ONE thing that will help you create a career in the music industry.  Communicating with your fan base regularly and consistently.  If you do not already have a schedule mapped out for sending your newsletters – get your calendar out NOW and pencil in 12 dates – 1X per month (I suggest you send your newsletter 2X per month but start with once a month and grow from there).  Studies show that the best days to send newsletters (for the highest open rates) are Tuesdays and Wednesdays so make sure to send them out mid week.

Here are 5 critical things to keep in mind as you are crafting your newsletters:

1. Keep Your Subject Line to 55 Characters

Most e-mail programs cut off the subject line after  55 and 60 characters, so keep your subject line short and sweet, and to the point; five to six words max.

2. Get Personal

Saying something personal brings you closer to your fan base.  So share a photo of something you love (your pet, your kids, your friends), or something fun and non-music related you did recently like a vacation.

3. You Don’t Have To Have A Show To Send A Newsletter

How about just inviting everyone on your newsletter out for drinks evening, or to join you for a show, or share something fun that you’ve done recently; again, or maybe you just purchased a new album and you love it, and you want to talk about it.

4. Mailing Address & Unsubscribe Link

Know that by law you need to put your mailing address and an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each of your newsletters.  If you are uncomfortable adding your home address, then open up a P.O. Box and use that.

5. First Names Get Attention

Use their name.  The best way to get anyone’s attention is to include their first name in the subject line of an e-mail, something like this:

Hey Kevin! Summer News From the Darrin James Band.

It’s catchy, and it gets people’s attention immediately to the subject of your e-mail.  Bandletter can help you customize your e-mails so that your first names of your e-mail list appear in the subject line.  Testing shows that the response rates will go up 50%-70% or more if you include first names.

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We get a lot of e-mails and calls from artists who are not yet ready to hire a publicist but have a lot of questions about how publicity works. For those of you in this situation, I wrote this article back in the late 90’s. It was re-published in many places and many artists have approached me at conferences, called and e-mailed to say thanks for writing that article – I followed what you said and I got results! This makes me feel wonderful and I am very glad I can help!

Because the music industry is changing so rapidly I feel a a 2007 re-vamp is way overdue ! watch for that within the next few days.

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