6A

I have completed an interview with an artist similar to Tom who has done all of his own marketing and managed to successfully promote himself to a point where his tracks are being sold on iTunes!

Here is what I asked and his answers:

When you first set out with your career did you realise how important marketing was to your success?
No not at all! I thought I could just get by on my talent, I thought that people would realise I was good and my career would take off from there. I spent a whole year getting it wrong and getting frustrated as I could see others succeeding where I was failing. 

When you did realise the importance of self promotion how did you start putting it into practise?
The first thing I did was to create a logo for myself using my name. I started displaying this at my gigs so that my name had an image that came with it. I then got posters made and started displaying in the venues before the event. I then used the same poster to advertise my events on Facebook.

Did you think of putting posters up around the whole area surrounding the venue?
I did not do that at the time as budget was always an issue. I did not know if the cost of printing the flyers would benefit the ticket sales enough to justify it.

Do you think if you could have read someone else's inquiry into marketing a new artist that you might have done better in the first place?
YES YES YES! I had no idea what I was doing. At first I didn't even realise I should be doing anything and even when I did I was clueless as to what. I looked on the internet for ideas but there is just to much information! There are hundreds of ideas and reviews but it is all dotted all over the place and it is hard to know who is right. If there was a review that specifically looked into what methods are best for promoting a new artist it would have helped me! A lot of sites I looked at don't take cost into account and obviously for someone just starting out that is a big issue. 

Did you ever think of fundraising?
I fund raised for myself all the time! But I never thought to do it specifically for marketing. It was always to buy a new guitar or mic. If I had done it for marketing I might have got further faster! 

Did you realise how powerful and necessary digital is to promoting new music like you?
I used Facebook to promote my events to my friends but I have never been that great with technology so probably still don't use it as effectively as I could.  

I have been researching how pages and events get so many views on Facebook and have found out that for a relatively small cost you can advertise to a targeted audience. If you had known this at the time would you have done it?
Now I definitely would use that promotion method but at the time I would probably have felt the same about that as I did of the posters. I would not have known that my money would have a definite improvement in sales. 

What do you think of leafleting?
I think that as long as the leafletters are enthusiastic about the artist they are great. On the other hand I think they can also have a very negative effect if they are not. People who just try to shove leaflets into peoples hands to get the job done just annoy the people they should be targeting. I think you need to be very careful about the image they give out and consider if it is the right thing for the artist.

What do you think, from a marketing perspective, helped you to get where you are now.
I think the best decision I made was bringing someone in to help me with the promotions side of the business. I couldn't see what needed to be done from the inside and needed an outside view to help me! 






These answers have helped me to come up with lots of ideas for how to go about marketing Tom! I think I am on the right track and he has already got through the hardest part of allowing me to help him!!