It Starts with Self Promotion


You are in a band, all amped up and ready to perform. The band mates are present, ready to rock for everyone. Everything is ready—well, almost. The only left missing—which is the most important of all— would be your audience. Every band or musician needs their audience especially when performing. They need people to listen and enjoy their music in order to give their music its worth, and at the same time, the audience can appreciate the music and spread the love to others.

Getting enough people to watch your gig may be quite difficult if you do not know what to do. Hunting for your audience is part of music business promotions, since promotions would be of great help in making you a hit in this music business.

Many musicians that are starting usually miss the easy opportunities in getting people in the seats of their upcoming gigs. There are some inexpensive ways in promoting your garage band, indie band, or just yourself, which would not be too expensive. Simple and cost effective methods are essential when promoting on a budget.

Word of mouth is free. This would be the first step in boosting up your band and in music business promotions as a whole. Basically, everyone in the band needs to take a proactive role in getting the word out on future shows and gigs. Word of mouth works by telling friends, family, coworkers, and anyone else your band knows that may be interested in your genre of music. The pyramid style works: have your friends tell their friends, and so on. It can be very surprising when you get to see the results of spreading your music gig to others.

Flyers play a big role for starting musicians out there. This type of music business promotion is cheap, and can be done by having them printed out at any local copy store in the area. A cost effective strategy, flyers contain all the information people need in watching you play. Design a simple flyer with the band title, logo or artwork, genre of music, original or cover tunes, date and time of show, the website (if there is), contact information, and the phone number and name of the venue where you will be playing. For this, handing them to the bar and/or owner may be the best choice, so that you yourself can be sure that the flyers will be seen by patrons of the club. It would also help if flyers are pinned on bulletin boards at music stores, and to places where your potential crowd hangs out.

After this, try and contact any local newspapers or any music or entertainment magazines in your area. They usually have weekly band listings for free, so use this to your advantage. Concert calendars on the Internet would help too. They also list concert dates and gigs, so find out the popular websites that has more traffic. Remember, the more fans you get to the show, the better your chance of getting booked there again, and hopefully build your music career. Good luck and have fun!

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