One of my recent blog entries (and a subsequent comment therein) talked about the momentum needed in marketing your music. This is a point that I feel I didn’t emphasize enough. I can clearly remember back to my days of event promotion and how how momentum played such a big part in the popularity (or lack there of) of certain events.

When I threw my first music event, I distinctly remember how much buzz my partners and I had to create to get the word out and make it a success. In addition to chatting up the event and advertising in online communities and forums, we had to print physical advertising such as flyers, and would also have to go out and promote out via word of mouth. This took considerable amounts of time and money. When the event was over, it had a lot of people talking about it for several weeks afterward. Our next event wasn’t for at least six months, and at that point, our last party was a distant memory for most people. Because of the timing, and a series of other reasons, most people had forgotten about us and our last event, which led to a mediocre turn out for our next series of small events. After this, we took about a year off to recover financially and came back to throw another big concert that was quite popular. Again, this had the local scene buzzing about us, and again, we took too much time off between events.

I have a colleague who was also in the event promotion scene, and worked a little bit differently. He was able to systematically time his events and also be involved with other people’s events, and use this momentum to gain a consistent following and remain in the forefront of people’s minds. At the time, we were both in our late teens to early twenties, and had not been running our respective selves as if we were a business — or at least, I was not. It wasn’t until completing business school that I was able to go back and understand why my parties were so inconsistent with turnout — some of them being wildly popular, and some being complete flops. But I guess hindsight is 20/20.

A lot of music groups and organizations exist specifically to spread their art, and in doing so, have to spend a lot of time and money promoting; but nothing promotes better than the event itself. I learned this first-hand from my experiences promoting. This is the same reason why major record companies send bands on tour to promote CDs. The event itself is what holds a powerful memory and an ability to move the audience, whereas the CD and the merchandise help remind people of their experience, perhaps helping your audience identify themselves as loyal followers or satiating them until the next event. When you combine all the time and money spent on promoting an event, or series of events, along with the unmeasurable power that your events could potentially hold, you have to tools for success.

The key is timing.

According to Jay Conrad Levinson’s “Guerilla Marketing,” it takes between six and nine months of consistent marketing before a return is really noticed and a momentum can be built. He also argues that the biggest mistake of many businesses (and in our case, musicians/music promoters/music businesses) is that the owner will buy an expensive round of advertising (say for example, a month of cable TV advertising) and quit after a month or two (and thousands of dollars later) when they say don’t see a big return. Remember high school physics and the Law of Intertia? Objects at rest tend to stay at rest and objects in motion tend to stay in motion, unless a force acts upon it.  It’s this “force” acting upon the object that creates the momentum.

In my personal experiences, I would create a big force by flyering, networking, pumping the concerts online, and so forth. After the event, there would still be a good deal of momentum, but it would slowly subside and eventually bring us all the way back to square one. Let’s say we spend $500 on a mix of flyers, advertising, and promotional goods for a concert. Assuming all goes well, people are happy and we make our money back. One year later, we have to spend the same $500 dollars for the same event, but we can’t count on the same people returning and we really can’t gage how we’ll do; it may flop, it may be a success, it may be the same people coming back, or it could be an entirely new group of people. Now let’s say we do a concert a month later. Chances are, you can advertise it at the first concert (which saves you money and time in advertising), but you can also be fresh in people’s minds when they see your next show coming up. It may only take $200 to advertise your next event. After that, it may only take $50 or some free online promotion to advertise your event –in which case, you can spend your $500 on merchandise to increase your revenue, recording time, or you can overhaul your website.

Beyond this, it takes constant reminders to maintain awareness; but perhaps most discouragingly, it only takes three weeks for people to completely forget about you. Three weeks. This is perhaps a little different for music groups that are already established, but when’s the last time you remember hearing a band, dj, or small orchestra group –making a mental note to look them up later– and then 6 months later saying to yourself “what was the one group I saw that one time?” This happens all the time in the business world and the music world.

Your goal is to have a conversation with your audience. –not necessarily in the literal sense, though it could add a personal touch.

CONSIDER THIS

You advertise –> Some audience comes –> the end. (6 months later) You advertise –> Some audience comes.

VERSUS THIS

You advertise –> Some audience comes –>  You tell the audience about your group, give away promotional items, sell things, etc. –> they feel more connected and see that you appreciate their support –> You advertise –> They come back and bring friends –> You interact and make sure they have a good time and feel appreciated –> You advertise –> More people come, same people come back with more friends.