27 Self-Promotion Tips

Overcoming Self-Promotion Obstacles and Retuning Your Brain
1. If you have negative associations to sales and marketing, get busy curing yourself of “antimarketing-itis.”
2. Create new associations to self-promotion if the old ones don’t work for you.
3. Your brain is your greatest asset, so use it to adjust and fine-tune the way you think about and approach self-promotion.

Laying the Foundation and Offering Value
4. Realize that your music is a special gift that should be shared with the world.
5. Be driven by a burning desire to reach as many people as possible with your musical gift.
6. You have musical integrity because you are spreading the word about something you’ve created yourself that touches people and enriches their lives.
7. Self-promotion starts and ends with YOU. No one else understands your music and passion
more.

Understanding the ArtistArtist-Fan Relationship / Focusing on Fans
8. The artist-fan relationship is a two-way transaction. You get recognition, satisfaction and money. They get a valuable physical and emotional payoff.
9. You must understand how your music positively affects your fans – or what’s in it for them.
10. Focus on the benefit your music offers fans, not the category of music you play.
11. Avoid “middleman-atosis.” Focus on getting and keeping fans – not on the media, the industry, record labels, retail stores, distributors, etc.
12. Every morning, ask yourself: “What can I do today to connect with more fans?”

Reaching and Attracting Fans
13. Motivate fans to identify themselves and give you permission to show them more.
14. Create a brand identity by clearly communicating who you are, what you do and the unique
way you do it.
15. Use the VFW Hall Principle: Find at least one fan out of every thousand people.
16. Know who you are as a musician.
17. Be able to clearly describe your music in asfew words as possible.
18. Know who your fans are - based on the benefit you offer them.
19. Determine the best avenues to reach people most likely to become your fans.

Using Additional Fan-Building Tactics
20. You don’t have to be a household name to be successful.
21. Understand that fame and fortune are merely byproducts of being a good self-promoter consistently over the long haul.
22. Be consistent with your identity and selfpromotion message. Changing them too often will
confuse people.
23. Obliterate the “local” and “starving artist” mentality.
24. Cross-promote with other artists and combine your marketing impact.
25. Use testimonials and guarantees to help firsttime buyers give your music a try.
26. Exploit talk shows and position yourself as an expert related to your musical niche.
27. Do something every day to promote yourself and connect with fans.

E-Zine Directories

http://thefreesite.com/Email_Freebies/Free_newsletters/index.html
http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/submit/
http://www.list-city.com/subform.htm
http://www.nerdworld.com/nwadd.html
http://www.topezineads.com/submit_ezine.html
http://amazines.com/
http://emailuniverse.com/
http://ezine-dir.hypermart.net/
http://ezinelinks.com/
http://ezine-marketing.com/
http://ezine-universe.com/
http://go-ezines.com/
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/submit.html
http://inkpot.com/submit/
http://jogena.com/ezineform.htm
http://www.bestezines.com/submit/
http://www.ezineadsource.com/submit.htm
http://www.ezinelisting.com/
http://www.ezinesearch.com/search-it/ezine/ezine-add.html
http://www.ezinesplus.com/links/cgi-bin/add.cgi
http://www.jogena.com/
http://www.netterweb.com/submit/
http://www.newsletter-directory.com/
http://www.theideaspot.com/directory/register.html?pfm
http://www.advertisingknowhow.com
http://www.ezinesandnewsletters.com/
http://zinos.com

MySpace Marketing

Myspace is the most visited site on the internet. This gives its member profiles a very powerful tool. The first place you must post your links is on your own profile. I use the “About Me” box to talk about my products a little, but focus on
talking about you. The SEO benefit won’t change if you become a spammer.
You can use their search function to find others that deal with your niche and comment on their profiles. Make sure that the member profile you’re posting on allows html, or you’ll look like an idiot.
Myspace groups are a great place to post your links, as well. Respond to posts related to what you know, with good information and you’ll get traffic from it too.
There are many other social networks, but my favorite is Stumbleupon. Following the same tactics above will work great for Stumbleupon. Your profile page can contain links to your website. There are groups as well. Stumbleupon lets you drive targeted traffic to your websites by submitting them to a category and allowing other “Stumblers” to wander through to your page.
MyBlogLog is becoming one of the most used blogging tools online. Most major internet marketers are using it on their blog. Their widget actually shows pictures of who has been reading your blog. Again, this site consists of the same
types of interaction as Myspace. There are communities and your own profile page. This gives you the ability to gain great exposure for your blog.