Marketing Music

  On-line Web Sites and Free Hosting:

    Those who send their material to web sites that any artist can submit material, usually find themselves disappoint that their artistry is "lost in the sea of MP3". 

    Too many choices makes it tiring for listeners of on-line music and music searches, who wish click and get.  This also reduces the likelihood a major or independent label, producer or promoter will find your music. You also need to show yourself different than those artists who record at home and load something up on someone else's web site.

    A professional indie site for an artists should have full feature, bio, contact/e-mail, audio clips, on-line CD sales, on-line order form, and other artist information and promotional items. These independent labels also have their own web site and domain name, such as Independent-Artists.com or another site/indie label that is a site where the company, not a flood of indie artists and kid bands, posts the websites, links and clips for the artists who have signed with them for this on-line and other production and promotional services.

    Using sites and clubs and free web sites like Geocities and Yahoo and other clubs are really too limited of markets to make even doing the efforts of creating a site and uploading clips or full songs.  It also shows that you do not have your own web domain name (your name registered), your own web site, with individuality, hosting, nor can you control your own mailing list and fan club.  Just like all other sites where anybody can call themselves an artists, even those who do not have legal (AFM union) recordings, these web sites are not the venue for getting notice for professional recording and performing artists.  They also allow for downloading of an artists product for further P2P file sharing, where the artist then doesn't make the money to recover the costs of producing a professionally and legally recorded CD.

    Having your e-mail to be you@yourname.com is much more credible than having some name with @hotmail or @yahoo and others which are available to anybody and are known for their anonymity, when you as an artist need to be you and show that you are who you say you are.  Certainly, if you wish to sell your CDs and get bookings from those meeting you for the first time.

    Also by submitting to free sites, doesn't mean you got something for free, but perhaps in contrast to pay dearly for what you've given away for free.  If you record someone else's song, you will still owe them for royalties for using your music, and if you are using your own song, uncopyrighted, then you have given anybody and everybody the right to steal your song and make money from your music and you will find it very difficult and expensive to try to collect, if not also a profound need to prove that you indeed wrote and own the songs.

    Therefore, your on-line marketing should be something that you have created for yourself or you have hired a company to do for you, where you have your own domain name and independently hosted web site.  If you are with an independent label, they should likewise create a mirror site for you, to help you drive more traffic and sales to your own web site. 

    Doing this is not free or cheap, but it is the most effective for any chance for recognition and success.  The fees for this are not as expensive as what the major labels charge, but there are costs to do this.  Fees are negotiable and if you own the publishing of your own songs, then this may be something you can use to make an agreement to promote your CD for sales and to get more and better paying live gigs.

    For more information:

Will Griffin: griffin@desktop-radio.com
Shelley Yates: syates@desktop-radio.com