What is sales copy?

Sales copy is text that sells.

Your Band Bio is Sales Copy.

You Band Webpage is Sales Copy.

Your CD Description, that you put on your website is Sales Copy.

Your Track Description, that goes in the Tags inside an mp3 file, is Sales Copy.

Every single word that is related to your music is sales copy. It has to sell your music!

You may feel that your music will sell itself… but if no-one listens to it, then it will never get that chance!

To get a good idea on words that may help selling your music try this.. load up i-tunes, and browse around every different type of music. I find that the “i-tunes essentials” usually has well written descriptions, as these are trying to sell you large collections of an artists work. Also the “Album Reviews” are usually well written descriptions that help to sell the music.

What phrases do they use to establish the musicians credibility?

What words do they use to describe the music?

How do they entice you to stay on the page and click on tracks to play the samples?

If you let your eyes not read it fully, but just glance at it, what are the words that stand out?

I spend many hours searching through i-tunes looking at the sales copy that is written - try it, you’ll find some great ideas for how to write good text for your music!

Firstly, the Term Blog

What is it?

A blog is simply a type of website. This website, kevintuck.com is a Blog.

The word Blog is short for Web-log. At some point the ”We” got dropped and it became a “Blog”. At first it was intended to be an online diary - a collection of thoughts and opinions that can be read by anyone, or specific users if the blogger is so inclined.  

The Blog can contain any sort of content. It can be news related, specifically genre related, or it can be a mixuture of topics. 

The application for musicians is obvious - they can post their Band news to the Band Blog, upcoming tours, album releases and more via the blog.

The Blog is also associated with something called an RSS FEED. An RSS feed allows you to read the content not just via the blog website, but via special reader software such as the “google reader”. Therefore if you have several blogs that you enjoy reading you can subscribe to the feed from each of the pages, and have the latest content just “appear” on your computers reader the next time you are on the internet… neat huh?

Blogs can be done completely for free, using services such as Blogger and Wordpress.com. The better choice is to have your own domain name and hosting account, and host your own blog using blogging software such as Wordpress.

Now the term Podcast - what is it?

The simplest definition of a podcast is an audio or video presentation that is broadcast over the internet.

The “pod” comes from the Apple i-pod… but you don’t need an i-pod to create, view or utilize podcasts.

What happens is that the user will search for topics of interest, either on the internet via a search engine such as google, or within a specific podcast directory.

The most common application for searching podcasts is i-tunes, which is used with the Apple i-pod. Inside i-tunes you’ll see a little button called “podcasts” - and inside here you can search for topics which are interesting to you.

Podcasts are generally delivered FREE. There are some “premium content” podcasts which are starting to appear, but the users generally expect the “podcast” button inside itunes will not cost them any money to listen to.

Podcasts can be an excellent source of entertainment - if they are funny or engaging they will quickly gain a good subscriber base, much like a television show. They can also be educational - there are many self development, marketing and training type podcasts which are very popular.

If you are thinking of doing a blog or podcast to help promote yourself.. ask yourself these questions…

WHO are the potential readers or listeners of my Blog or Podcast?

WHAT are they going to get from listening or reading?

WHY would anyone subscribe to my blog or podcast?

If you think about these things first, you’ll have a better chance of creating a successfull blog or podcast, which can help you with Marketing your music more effectively.

This is a term that I’ve learned a lot about through my reading and marketing training that I’ve been doing recently.

If you think about it this is something that is a basic fundamental for all musicians, or anyone who is wanting to promote themselves.

There are three aspects to the Unique Selling Proposition

They are:

1. Unique
2. Selling
3. Proposition

Pretty obvious, isn’t it! Its amazing how many unsucessfull people dont get part of this equation right, and how many successfull people get all three of these bits right.

1) Unique

What you do has to be unique, you simply cant re-do what has been done before, and expect that you are going to be completely successful.

When elvis broke onto the scene he was unique - he swayed his hips in a suggestive manner which at the time was extremely controversial. This was unique at the time. When the beatles came along, they had a unique sound - No one had combined male vocal harmony with guitars in the way that they did.

When Eminem started his rap style he was unique as well - and so the story goes on. One after another sucessful people in music start with something that is quite unique and unknown, and build up a reputation based on their ability to do something different to anyone else.

2) Selling

Its the selling part that many artists fall down - They can get the unique bit - but the problem is that what they’ve got to offer no-one really wants to hear.

Something has to have the ability to sell - and in order to sell something has to move someone emotionally, or be able to create a response in someone that says “I like that” or “I dont like that”.

Remember that selling is not about selling your product to everyone. One really important aspect of selling is not to try and sell your product to people who would never be interested!

3) Proposition

What is your music trying to do?

If its a song - what is its purpose?

Is it to make someone dance?

Is it to make someone feel sad?

or is it to make someone feel happy and inspired?

If you can get the proposition bit right, then your music will sell.

When your music is heard your music needs to say “If you buy me you’ll feel a certain way…”

and if you can do that.. your music will sell.

So therefore think about all three aspects of the term Unique Selling Proposition when you next write a song - and it could be your biggest hit ever!

Do you want to know how to sell more of your CDs?

Do you want to make more money as a musician?

Then I can help you a little bit with the insights on this page, but if you are really serious about making more money as a musician, then I highly recommend you do further reading on the subject, and on this page I’ll be reviewing various books and resources as I find them.

Bob Bakers Guerrilla Music Marketing handbook is an excellent starting point for musicians wanting to get more people to their gigs.

This is one of the most complete books I’ve read on this subject - it contains a wealth of insights on marketing on a budget.
It includes:

• How to use blogs and podcasts to promote your music
• How to effectively use Myspace and social media sites, so that you’re not wasting time but effectively using them as a marketing tool
• How to create a killer press kit that will get attention from Journalists and get you write ups and interviews
• 39 Ways to sell a lot more CD’s, DVD’s and music merchandise - real practical tips so that you dont end up with piles of CD’s holding up your bookcases!

Bob Baker does know an awful lot about music marketing, having written this book in 1996, and revisted it many times. There are testimonials all over his website talking about how his strategies have helped independent musicians get started in the industry.

Click here to check it out for yourself »

Its called Article Marketing - and it is one traffic strategy that many successful entreprenuers use to drive traffic to their websites, and ultimately make more money on the internet.

What you need to do is create short articles, and then allow them to be republished and repurposed over and over again. The idea is that website owners get instant material for their websites, and you

The Recommended length, from most of the experts I’ve read is somewhere between 500 - 1000 words, or around 2-3 standard pages of text.

The article needs to be interesting and relevant to your target audience, and be well written and unique in what you’ve got to say. 

I’m testing two different article submission services in the next six months, and the one I’m using at the moment is SubmitYourArticle.com, which seems to be working fairly well, although I’ve only used it for two weeks.

I can already find my articles being republished on blogs and website, and they all have links back to my websites, which builds both direct traffic from people who visit those websites, and search engine benefits from the link back.

If you can write a few new articles every month, and you do it consistenly over a few months, then you’ll be sure to generate a stream of steady traffic to your websites - just from this strategy alone.

have a website address that is easily memorable!

I’ve been to many gigs in the past, and the band members will say something on stage like “we’ve got a website - you can find us in google or on myspace”.

Instead of:

“Check out mybandname.com for details of our next gigs - we’d love to see you there”

even if all you’ve got is a myspace band page (which really is a fine starting point for a band) then all you need to do is get yourself an easily memorable domain name and redirect it to your myspace page.

This strategy will cost you around $10 per year, and about five minutes to set up (assuming you already have some sort of webpage)

tips:

- don’t go for domains with hyphens or anything - they are difficult to say out loud on stage.. which is where you really want to promote it

- Try and get a .com domain if you can - 80% of all websites use this extension. Others are not as well known or understood.

- Go as simple as you can, don’t try to be too clever!

Ideally, the website address you want is:

www.yourbandname.com

If you can’t get it then try something like

www.yourbandnametheband.com  

or even

www.yourbandnamemusic.com

A domain name costs around $10 a year - and if this is your only marketing strategy it will work, as long as your music is good and people enjoy your gigs of course!

Don’t ASSUME you know what the market wants!

If you think you know what your market wants - through informally talking to people and working in your own industry.. then most likely you don’t!

You probably only have a vague idea… I know that I did when I started!

So how do you find out what the market wants?

1) Keyword research

Keyword research has to be the biggest single advantage that the internet has over almost any other marketing and distrubution medium! You can tell exactly what people write into search engines and you can tell how many websites are competing on those keyword phrases.

Of course you can find out limited data from free tools like the Overture Keyword Tool, and the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, but I’ve been recently using a new keyword tool called Micro Niche Finder which gives me amazing level of data on what people type into search engines.

Using this tool I’ve been able to write targeted blog posts which answer very specific questions and gets me absolutely amazing amounts of free traffic.

Since using this tool… organic traffic has doubled on some of our blogs!

2) Customer Surveys

There are some free tools that I highly recommend when it comes to finding out what your market wants.

one is Zoomerang.com - They allow you to do a free survey (which is great if you already have an existing mailing list and you just need to know a litle bit of data and see if a new product is worthwhile persuing.

There are a number of other survey services out there which I’m currently trying out, and I’ll let you know more about them when I’ve tried them fully!

On this page I’ll share some quick insights which musicians can use to promote themselves on the internet.

One of the most obvious, and yet neglected tools for Musicians and bands is the email list.

Here is why…

What does a musician need to do?

1.  A musician needs to get more gigs
2.  A musician needs more audience at their gigs
3. A musician needs to sell more CDs

Creating a whiz bang, flashy website and providing great audio samples will help, but they won’t do these things.

If you have a band that has been around for a while, more than likely you have a fair amount of people who will come regularly to your gigs if they hear about them.

But….If they don’t know you are playing – they won’t come!

Usually gig guides that are published in newspapers are the only way that regular followers of bands will get to hear about them, however just imagine..

On Thursday night, when Jane is thinking about something to do on the weekend…   An email arrives…

Her thought process goes like:

“Oh one of my favourite bands “yourbandnamehere” is playing Saturday night – maybe I’ll ring my friend and see if she wants to go….”

If however, Jane is just looking through the gig guide, her thought process is:

“Oh.. I see that “yourbandnamehere” is playing Saturday night, hmm but then there is “Someotherband” playing, and they are pretty good too. Hmm. There is also “Somethirdband” playing as well somewhere else. Maybe I’ll ring my friend and see if she wants to go out.

You can see how Jane’s thought process works. In the first scenario, Jane is almost certain to make it to your gig. In the second scenario, Jane might make it to your gig – if you are lucky!

If you have a couple of hundred Janes, or better a couple of thousand on your email list, you can be guaranteed that when you do a gig and send out your reminder email, then you will be almost sure to get an audience at your gigs.

These days, agents love bands with email lists. If you have a list of over 1000 local people who have signed up to your list, then you are far more likely to get regular work through agents.

You are also far more likely to get private work, as people who might be looking at a band for a wedding or private function on your list are more likely to remember you and your band if you regularly email your list.

An email list is an essential part of your marketing strategy as a musician. It isn’t that hard to implement, and you can visit this page and follow the links for some email services that I recommend to help you build your list.

So How do you build a list?….. There will be heaps more ideas at this website for list building strategies coming up soon - so subscribe to this blog for more…

On Tuesday, Every Tuesday I’ll be sharing with you my marketing insight for the week. I’ve done so much reading and study on marketing and internet marketing, and I see so many mistakes being made all the time when people start internet marketing for the first time.

At first, we all think that we need a web site. We also try and make that web site DO everything - it has to have all the information about your company, about your products, about what services you provide, and it has to sell something too!

What people often don’t understand about the internet is that you need various TYPES of websites to do certain jobs. There are four basic types of websites, as I see it:

They are: Company Branding Sites, Landing Pages, Sales Letters and Blogs.

What are they all?

Web site type #1 - Company Branding Site

The Company branding site is simply the means by which the users can find a little bit more about you and your company, and they can most importantly CONTACT you for customer service, advertising opportunities, and possible joint ventures. It has to be relatively simple, and yet put forward a company image that cares and is genuine about what you are doing in life.

Our example is www.funmusicco.com

The company branding site can of course have links to your products, but its job is NOT to actually sell the products - that job needs to be done by the sales letters and/or squeeze pages.

Web Site Type #2 - Landing Pages

The Landing page (or “squeeze” page as it can be known) is simply a page where visitors are asked to give some information (usually the first name and email address) in return for some valuable information and an ‘ethical bribe’. It might be a special white paper or report, or some other kind of valuable information.

In return for this valuable free information the user is asked to sign up to an email list, and is then sent a carefully structured program of email communications, timed after the visit. The visitor of course has the option of “opting out” of the mailings at any time, so that you are complying with SPAM laws.

An example of one of my landing pages can be found at www.djembesecrets.net

After the user has put in their information, usually they are redirected to a sales letter page, to get more information about the product or service.

Web Site Type #3 -Sales Letters

It has been proven many times over, by copywriters old and new that long copy sells better than short copy. The more you tell, the more you sell!

Single Long scrolling pages are often hated by some internet users, however remember that they are often not the customers!

The idea of a long scrolling sales letter is that you are giving the visitor reasons why they need your product or service - and quite simply the letter needs to be as long as it needs to be!

The sales letters job is to sell - if you do it well the sales letter will be your best sales person!

Crafting well written sales letters is a job that copywriters get paid many thousands of dollars for - and the reason is that without good copy you’ll be unlikely to sell anything at all!

Very often you can write the sales letter yourself, and then get a copywriter to critique it and give you advice. This is because YOU know your product, YOU understand the benefits that someone gets from buying it.. so you are still the best person to write it. However copywriters can certainly help you craft it in such a way that it more clearly demonstrates the benefits to the reader, which is what will help you.

The example I have is www.djembesecrets.com

(Notice how I’ve used two extensions from the same domain name for the squeeze page and the sales letter! - this means that I can either direct traffic to the sales letter directly or through the squeeze page if I wish, depending on the type of promotion I’m doing)

We’ll have loads more insights about copywriting in the Tuesday marketing insight!

Web Site Type 4 - The Blog Site

The page you are reading is a blog! or you are viewing a “feed” from the blog!

Blog is short for Web-log. It was origionally intended as an “online diary” of sorts where people could share random thoughts on a continually updated basis.

As it has developed blogs have turned into websites where valuable information is shared, and where you can search and find incredible amounts of information on virtually any topic.

Your blog is essential for driving traffic to your site. Why? because people don’t bookmark or re-visit company branding pages, sales letters or landing pages. They want quality information and will return time and time again if you provide it.

An RSS feed is also a mechanism whereby the user can subscribe to the content and have it delivered directly to their computer. This means they don’t have to actually visit the website - they’ll just have it in their computer on a regular basis.

You’ll find an invitation to subscribe at the end of this article!

Blog content also needs to be consistent, and thats why I’m doing the Tuesday Marketing insight every tuesday! Blogging software such as wordpress (which I’m doing this one with) has the ability to pre-shedule posts, so even if I’m doing other things on a Tuesday, I’ll still be able to get it published every Tuesday!

This page will be about all the things listed in the title….

Music - I’m a passionate Muso and I’ve played all sorts of music from Grunge Rock Bands to Symphony Orchestras!

Marketing - I’m really into marketing.. My personal library of marketing books is huge.. but I’m into street smart, real world business tactics that work!

Publishing - This blog exists to help my company The Fun Music Company move forward with its publishing on the internet.. so watch for exciting developments there!

The Internet - I did my first website in 1997 - when the web was still in its infancy! I’ve done heaps online, and I work on it full time now… so this website will discuss anything and everything related to it.

If you’ve found this site because youre looking for my Percussion Education Blog, you’ll find that it has moved to www.percussioneducationonline.com

Catch you soon!