You
want to play. You might want to play just
for fun. You might want to have a career
in the music industry, earn a living
as rock musicians and build up a discography.
Either way, you need
to promote your band. So what is that all
about?
You need to be heard
Bands need to have tracks
- either on a web site, so people can listen
online, or on a CD which you send out to
venues and promoters. Preferably both.
You need to be seen
When you play, get someone
to take some photos of the band with a
digital camera. Put these on your web site.
Make sure that the photos give a clear
and representative image of what your band
looks like on stage.
Don't be tempted to go
for blurry, artistic images - it's not
about creating an a nice feely impression
- it's about giving an clear and accurate
portrayal of what the band looks like when
performing live - that is what venues want
to see. Making an effective press
or promotions pack
The GYBO office receives
about 20 promotions packs a week from bands
both in the UK and abroad. Some of these
are professionally design and of a high
standard.
90% of what we get in
here is crap. Poorly produced, completely
failing to give basic information - e.g.
how to contact the band - and leaving a
bad impression rather than doing justice
to what well be a great band.
You need to make a good
impression! Your promo pack will not promote
your band if it's badly produced and lacks
vital information about your band.
GYBO has been through
the hundreds of promo packs sent to us
(which we do keep!!) and has analysed what
a good publicity pack should look like
and what information it should contain.
To help bands be more
effective in promoting themselves to venues
and record labels, we have started a promo
pack production service.
GYBO will design a professional
looking promo pack containing all the right
information; we can also help your band
to get this out to the right people and
organisations.
Contact
us for details
about this service
Get linked up
If you have your own
web site, get it linked in to other web
sites. If you have a page on MySpace, WildPlum
or Overplay, cross-link these. The more
links INTO your web sites the better.
Set up band pages on
several web sites that list rock bands.
Keep these updated with your shows and
CD releases.
Tell your fans what's
going on
Ask your fans to give
you their email addresses. Reassure them
that they will be safe with you and not
given out to spammers. Send them a newsletter
every month with your gigs listing. Your
fans are your biggest asset. The more fans
you have, the more tickets will be bought
for your gigs, the more gigs you will get.
Get more fans by going
on to online communities and forums and
telling people about your band. This will
take at least one hour every week. If each
band members takes it in turn to do some
online work every week, it all helps.
All this is not rocket
science; its common sense. Get Your Band
On does all this for our bands - but we
don't do it for free. We are not a charity
and we don't get grants for it. But we
charge a price that is fair to the bands
and to us.
Find out about our Band
Development Workshops. |
