Yesterday I posted on our blog about my current gripe with the marketing of young acts in the music industry. I had called for a renaissance of creative music marketing, utilizing new technology and innovation in conjunction with social media tools, after noticing quite a bit that young bands have been resorting to social media, which does help quite a bit with boosting initial presence but prevents them from really standing out as original artists. I wanted to continue that discussion over here and post some helpful tips, ideas and help brainstorm a bit about some other great ways to creatively promote new bands. I realize that each of these ideas won’t work for everyone, but it’s more intended to be a starting point for a discussion on other creative ideas you might have.

Let’s begin!

1) Take your street team to the next level with some innovative guerrilla marketing
As I said in my previous article, some artists are able to find a great deal of success by surrounding themselves in mystery or notoriety. In addition, these days it is nearly impossible for a band to be successful without creating a business model for that band to follow — thus you’ll need a team in place to help execute this. While you don’t need to do anything quite as elaborate as this, take advantage of your friends, fans and local contacts to help create a tight network, and innovate!

For artwork, there are so many student and amateur artists looking to get their big break like your band — there’s no need to hire an award-winning artist to do your artwork and build your website anymore. Plus, young minds are usually fresh with new ideas. Same goes with marketing and music business students. Spend some time to sit down with these people you’re working with, and really develop a unique plan to market the act to a larger audience. Creating something really unique and eye-catching will force the general population to stop and maybe check you out.

Independent bands already get their music out there by giving it away, as part of their marketing strategy. One thing that came to mind when developing an innovative marketing strategy echoes the Nine Inch Nails Year Zero example I mentioned in my last post: add some mystery to the equation! Perhaps give away your debut EP on flash drives, but add some bonus content to the mix to intrigue the listener. Hide a copy in the venue’s bathroom to see what lucky attendee picks it up. Make it into a game. The options don’t end there.

One other goldmine for marketing innovation is the artistic branding of your act. Prince was known for about 7 years as an unpronounceable symbol, which garnered him a TON of media attention. You don’t need to go that far, but creating a sort of symbol or overriding theme in your music or brand gives something to your fans to connect with, easily identify you, and could again add a level of mystery.

Boston locals and Sonicbids artists Boston Molasses Disaster do one additional cool thing: they keep track of their setlists for every show, and then post them online. This is a great way to help fans and newcomers familiarize themselves with your music. Suppose a new fan thinks, “I love these guys, especially that third song they played! But I don’t know what it’s called or anything.” He/she can then go to your website, track down the setlist and then know what to look out for at your next show.

Then, once you have this plan ready, execute it! Make sure you post some evidence in your Sonicbids EPK — not only is it good to prove that you are active and dedicated as a band, but again, these kinds of things make you stand out.

2) The EPK and the online listening party
Here at Sonicbids we talk a lot about the different possible uses of the EPK, and one idea that came up was that of an “online listening party” through the EPK. Conducting an online listening party for your next album could be quite different than a conventional one, which would require a fair amount of planning and expense. Hosting the party online is cheap and easy, and can help you gauge your fans’ interest before moving to the actual CD release party.

Since your EPK presents you in a much more professional light than, say, a MySpace or Facebook page (you’re working with promoters rather than interacting with fans), use it as a “secret base” for certain fans, and link them there to access the tracks to your new album. Then, they can contact you easily with feedback if you like, and you can later track the song plays on your EPK Stats page — a great way to see which songs are getting the most attention. You can also use it in conjunction with Twitter, to get some immediate feedback if you like, and track your buzz easily in your Sonicbids account so you don’t have to leave two windows open at once. Finally, you could also have fans share the link with their friends, so that newcomers can get easy access to your press info, upcoming gigs, and whatever other information you have posted.

3) The band pamphlet and the interactive live show
Lou here has mentioned several times the use of a band pamphlet, which you can use to give some additional info to showgoers while you play your set. You can take that to a whole new level if you want, and possibly work it into an actual element of the live performance — perhaps give the audience some of your lyrics, to engage in some fan interaction.

4) Learn some newfangled technology
I don’t know about you, but I love going to show and watching the band do something completely off-the-wall that I’ve never seen in my life. There’s something exciting about watching innovation in live music performance. A good way to take advantage of this sort of phenomenon is through music technology. You no longer need to spend thousands of dollars on dozens of synthesizers, and you no longer need the best guitar to get a great guitar tone. (This should NOT stop you from getting that guitar or bass you’ve always wanted!)

For my project taken by name, I’ve been working with a program called Max/MSP to create some tools to aid the more electronic aspects of my music in live performance. (Disclaimer: this is not for the technologically faint of heart.) I had an idea to create a massive “Max patch” to do this on my laptop and set up various instruments, controllers and other found objects to do cool things live with my music. To further this, I came up with the idea of sharing these tools and patches via my website, to:

1) allow for viewers to play with these patches themselves
2) cover/reinterpret my music with the patches, suggest some ideas
3) post new ideas for patches that I could incorporate into a live performance

It’s just an idea right now and requires the right audience and dedication, but it could be a good way to really interact with fans.

Hey, this just turned into an open forum. If you have any other creative ideas regarding music marketing, social media, or just want to share your thoughts, post ‘em here. The possibilities actually are endless.

So here is another Sonicbids how to video. For those of you who don’t know about it, we have an advanced search tool that you can use for drilling down in our listings to pull even more relevant gig listings. Narrated by our very own Tess, and in the background is the song “Montañas” by Taken By Name.

So here is a nice little tour that will give you the rundown on what happens to a submission after you hit the submit button on Sonicbids. You get a good look at the inside of a promoter account, and get a rundown of the different status types.

Also last but not least enjoy the grooving upbeat sweet tones of Joe Cameron and the band with their song “lovely” check em out at sonicbids.com/JoeCameronMusic

Many songwriters have asked me what makes a winning song. As VP of development of USA Songwriting Competition for the past 14 years, I have heard winning songs years through the years, and I think a winning song should be creative in both music composition as well as the lyric composition. A good example is the top winning song of 2008 competition “Home” written by Jordan Zevon, Jordan Summers and Morty Coyle. Musically, it displays surprises in Chord changes and the lyrics about coming home are not the clichés of what you hear on radio. It didn’t hurt the song that chorus was catchy.

Another example is the winning song of the country category in 2007 “I Can Live Without You,” written by Mary Danna and Troy Verges. One would think the song is about someone who doesn’t want to live with another. However, there is a twist at the end of the sentence in the chorus “But I just don’t want to.” They have taken a love and heartache song and given a “surprising twist” in the end. Also, the bridge was short, surprising and also emotionally high (with the melody hitting a high note at the end) and yet sad. That song still remains a favorite at the USA Songwriting Competition.

I have heard submissions where songwriters try to write the derivative songs that were number one on the charts at one time and end up being awkward. One case was a songwriter who took the entire track of Jennifer Lopez’s song “If You Had My Love” and wrote a similar melody to the background music, even the melodic line’s rhythm was similar. The chorus even copied the melody of the original song. Our judges thought the song had been plagiarized, let alone not being creative as the judges left the room singing to the Jennifer Lopez song instead. Needless to say, that song didn’t win.

I realized an interesting fact that the top winning songs of the past two years have been a three-way collaboration. The winning song last year was written by three songwriters and so was the year before (”Where the Music Takes You,” written by Ari Gold, Joe Hogue “JOJOHO” and Sean Petersen). That song also hit top 10 on the Billboard Charts after winning the competition. “Where the Music Takes You” was unique, it had no intro, the vocals start as soon as the music plays. The chorus was so catchy that the judges left the song singing to it.

Speaking of catchy, the winning song in 2004 was written by five songwriters (”My Three Wishes,” written by Patrice Pike, Wayne Sutton, Sean Phillips and Darrell Phillips). The opening hook in the chorus of the Alternative song “My Three Wishes” was accented in an off beat way that would draw the listener to want to hear more. You can tell that the song took extra effort and creativity.

A song may sound nice to listen to but please note that a lot of work is being done to the song: musically, lyrically, artistically and more. Cher’s biggest hit “Believe” was written not by one but six songwriters! Paul Barry, Matt Gray, Brian Higgins, Stuart McLellan, Timothy Powell, and Steven Torch wrote that hit number one in 23 different countries. Where would Cher be without this great hit song like this?

Also note the incredibly funky background music by the Chicago based Spare Parts with their song “Disco”. Which you can check out here : http://www.sonicbids.com/SpareParts

This tour will give you a rundown of how the EPK Inbox functions when reviewing submissions. If you have a promoter account this should give you the know how of all the features we include that are at your disposal for reviewing submissions.

Also note the incredibly funky background music by the Chicago based Spare Parts with their song “The Junction”. Which you can check out here : http://www.sonicbids.com/SpareParts