1. Never leave your promo up to the next man. Depending on your point of view don’t count on the label, band or publicist to do their jobs. Do it yourself or it may not get done.
2. Know your niche market(s) or hire/befriend someone who does.
3. Always think of the fans first when making decisions.
4. Start early. Pre-promote. It allows time for viral buzz (aka free promotion) to build and ensures you’ll get you a larger share of a discretionary spending.
5. Take the time and spend the money to get a great publicist to get free media.
6. Produce great promotional material and send it out early and often. Don’t wait until they need it.
7. Email lists must be your new religion. Make sign up simple and easy to find. Put it visibly on the top half of the front page and watch it grow.
8. Segment your email lists (genre, location) to fight email burnout.
9. Produce and send great e-cards. The best ones get forwarded to others
10. Make your web site a destination by keeping it updated and including news, giveaways, polls and things to make it worth visiting.
11. Put your promo online in downloadable form for easy access by the media and your fans.
12. Enable and encourage others to do your promo for you. Ask fans to put up flyers and send out emails. Put a poster online as a free downloadable PDF for fans to use.
13. Create, utilize and reward a street team. Here’s a short article on the subject.
14. Talk to people and take informal polls. Have they seen your ads? Where? Did they grab them and provide useful information? Survey your audience via email, on the web and at shows.
15. Add a free poll to your web site or blog via http://www.yourfreepoll.com.
16. Get every free listing everywhere you can no matter how obscure or far away. Maintain an extensive “listings” email list and use it.
17. Enhance the value of press releases by always attaching a photo or graphic file or a link to one.
18. Aggressively seek sponsorships. Big sponsorships are great, but no sponsorship is too small to consider even if its just cross promotion in ads or free give aways.
19. Always think yourself as a brand that needs to be defined, marketed, and protected.
20. Try local cable TV. Some local spots on Fuse or other targeted channels go for as little as $7 each. Check out Spotrunner, dMarc or your local cable company.
21. Try local internet advertising via Google Adsense, Facebook or local web sites. MySpace is added targeted advertising late last year aswell. (*WARNING;seek help from someone who is well versed in analytics and media buying unless you want to waste your hard earned cash.)
22. Advertise on internet radio and blogs that serve your market.
23. Create consistency by creating ad mats and radio spots beds.
24. Sponsor non-commercial radio and get mentions. NPR is great, but don’t forget college radio.
25. Think out of the box with radio tie-ins. Rry talk radio for a classic rock or jazz radio for a fusion. Radio stations want to expand their audience too.
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