March 5, 2012 Music Marketing: It's More Than Just Putting a Bird on it
The comedy series Portlandia kicked off their tv show with a brilliant music video entitled “Dream of the 90′s.” There’s one punchline that has become a running joke in the city: “In Portland, you can put a bird on something and call it art!” Of course, this kind of shortcut logic doesn’t work in most areas, let alone indie-hipster art created in the City of Roses.
In the world of musicians, it’s easy to think that we can just sign up for social media or put a QR code on something and call it online marketing. There are countless bands as well as promoters who think that mailing posters to venues counts as tour promotion. I get at least a dozen emails every week from artists whose idea of getting sponsors is emailing as many companies as possible.
There’s no quick and easy all-purpose method that creates the ultimate marketing or online engagement plan. How does a person create art? It is an artistic expression that captures creative skill, imagination, and intellect. Marketing your music should be no different…in fact, it’s more of an art and less of a science. It should be something that is bold, imaginative, creative, and done with passion.
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks for this short but meaningful post Simon. It pains me to see art being devalued and taken for granted nowadays. I think technology is partly to be blamed for that. It's so easy to retouch and redesign "art" and call them another form of art again. I wish we could all change our ways for the better with regard to our attitude for music and the arts. What do you think about the way art is being commercialized now? How should we look into this in order to preserve the main use, purpose and definition of art?