Creative ideas for advertising your studio

[if6was9]

Been thinking alot lately about different ways to market my recording/mixing work.

There's the usual facebook profile, spam local forums and approaching bands that you think might be worth recording who might still be undecided on where to record but there's always different things you can do. I've seen some pretty cool stuff done by bands/promoters to get people talking and figure there must be some for studios/engineers aswell to help raise the studio profile and get the name out there.

Thought it might be cool for people here to share some ideas for what to do to help drum up business. I know word of mouth and doing good work is the best way to get clients but I've noticed the studios that put themselves out there here do get the work.

 

[JeffTD]

I have business cards that I give to local bands I know/play shows with and ask that they pass them along to friends, have some posted in venues, and generally just give them out to whoever I meet that is band/music oriented.


Another option: (@ 0:52)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX72qVqCs1w&t=0m52s[/ame]

 

[StefTD]

business cards are a good thing to start, but there's a big difference between business cards
and business cards You could press cds with demo stuff from you, all your contact infos and
so on to give away.
A guy I know for example has usb sticks with his logo on one side and his contact on the other
side, there's a flash file on it with a short walkthrough video of his studio, photos, music, client
list and so on-he did all the video stuff and so on himself with the help of his brothers so it was
almost for free, the usb sticks cost around 300€ for 100 pieces. Pretty expensive, but he got
some great jobs through this and lots of talk about his studio.

Imho it's not enough to just have a facebook page or myspace page, a real homepage is worth
more, easier to find via google and you could set up a google+ profile now, not that many users
but it's great for seo.

you could try to get in contact with youth clubs/locations where smaller local bands play, leave
some flyers for your studio there, talk to the foh there, so if anybody asks them if they know
someone there's a good chance they're going to mention you.

Add infos about your studio in every forum-sounds like shit, but I just put a link to my site up in
the memberinfo on another forum, it's a musician's forum and my site is about design&marketing
consulting, still got a question after 10 hours.

Try to get to know as much local bands as possible, in this branche the word of mouth counts
alot and try to make everything as professional as possible, not only mixing/recording, but make
your invoices look good and so on.

 

[Adrian Warren]

Get someone to draw your studio name/logo on your butt and go outside naked. If it gets you into the local news you will get a lot of attention and therefore advertising for your studio. If you get arrested you will at least get a free meal. Well pretty much a win/win situation isn't it?

While this idea might not be very practical it is at least more creative than business cards. Please don't take it serious...

 

[mr nice]

There's some great ideas guys. I have cards but the majority of time I know they gonna end up as roach.

 

[StefTD]

A guy around here works with a youth club that has loads of shows and a rehearsal place, he does
bandtraining workshops every 2-3 months for a whole weekend, helps the bands to setup stuff in
their rehearsal rooms and so on, gets loads of contact due to this.

Like I said before, in my opinion word of mouth, networking and contacts are the best advertising.

 

[topsoul182]

Get someone to draw your studio name/logo on your butt and go outside naked. If it gets you into the local news you will get a lot of attention and therefore advertising for your studio. If you get arrested you will at least get a free meal. Well pretty much a win/win situation isn't it?

It won't work they'll blur out your ass covering up the whole logo. So just draw it on your chest and then run out naked

 

[Tommy Evans]

I'm in favor of Jeff's idea!

 

[barricade]

sry i haven't read the full thread (lazy)...but

if you have a little more cash, this is a cool idea IMO

CD business cards...

 

[Melb_shredder]

^^ wouldn't they get scratched easily :S

 

[barricade]

i think they come with a "credit card" case... but that just sounds too fancy now...

 

[Melb_shredder]

A peelable plastic film on the back would work equally as well ??

 

[barricade]

yea...but once it's off you can't put it back on again (if we are thinking about the same thing..)

 

[if6was9]

Yeah the business cards thing is something I've meant to do for ages. I'm terrible at promoting myself but I'm lucky that I do ALOT of live sound work so I get to meet and know lots of bands.

I think I'm gonna be a sponsor on a local metal festival that I've been running for the last few years. It'll get the studio name associated with it and get me some promotion with the very crowd I'd prefer to be recording.

 

[tempe]

Having really nice business cards is great guys, its funny how something as simple as that can make a band go from thinking that you're an amateur to a professional.

 

[aytchster]

Business cards definitely, yea! Also a newsletter, blog, youtube presence, and anything to give your customers the chance to build up a perception about your studio and work.

Business cards are great but are only received by those you hand them (Someone else hands them) to, while stuff on the net is available for access by the entire world's population (and aliens too I think).

Hadi