General Promotion Tips

[JasinElric]

I must have fired off over 50 personalized, professional and polite emails to have my band's latest release listened to and hopefully reviewed by bloggers/vloggers for some kind of promotion. It's been a week and I haven't gotten a single reply and all my networks are at a stand still. I've researched high and low about "Best Ways To Promote Your Music", but it seems no matter how hard I try not to come off like another one of those "HEY DOOD CHECK OUT MAH BAIND!!" people, that's how I'm treated. Ignored. Not even given a chance.

Does anyone have any insight as to what I might be doing wrong, or the proper way to get a release heard by anyone other than my close friends and family? Do I need to hire a PR agent? I'm totally lost on this topic, any insight would be really really appreciated. Thanks!

 

[egan.]

TBH I think going after bloggers first is old model stuff. I think you have to engage and make your fans in forums, social media and live at this point and then the press will come to you.

 

[JasinElric]

TBH I think going after bloggers first is old model stuff. I think you have to engage and make your fans in forums, social media and live at this point and then the press will come to you.

That's another avenue I've tried pursuing. A lot of the metal forums out there are either extremely inactive or don't allow advertisements in signatures or posts. Along with the 100 million other bands pushing their stuff, it easily gets lost in the static.

As for gigging, everyone in my band has really demanding day jobs and families, so shows are a real rarity.

I don't mean to come off like a defeated little emo, but this promo thing has been really exhausting and yielded very little results. Is this the norm?

 

[egan.]

Yes.

 

[Pman]

That's another avenue I've tried pursuing. A lot of the metal forums out there are either extremely inactive or don't allow advertisements in signatures or posts. Along with the 100 million other bands pushing their stuff, it easily gets lost in the static.

As for gigging, everyone in my band has really demanding day jobs and families, so shows are a real rarity.

I don't mean to come off like a defeated little emo, but this promo thing has been really exhausting and yielded very little results. Is this the norm?

I don't know how you've chosen to distribute your music but to be honest, a large proportion of the internet would check you out if they could conveniently download the music and put it on their phone or something to that extent.
So it might be in your interest to just put the music available everywhere, youtube, all the download blogs and torrent sites, and just let people make their own mind up about it. Bandcamp is a good compromise for this.
I've never had any luck with any of these blogs that people follow, as I imagine they're just swamped with submissions and have to start deciding on the type of bands they'll check out before they even consider listening to something.

 

[JasinElric]

I don't know how you've chosen to distribute your music but to be honest, a large proportion of the internet would check you out if they could conveniently download the music and put it on their phone or something to that extent.
So it might be in your interest to just put the music available everywhere, youtube, all the download blogs and torrent sites, and just let people make their own mind up about it. Bandcamp is a good compromise for this.
I've never had any luck with any of these blogs that people follow, as I imagine they're just swamped with submissions and have to start deciding on the type of bands they'll check out before they even consider listening to something.

I've done that also, I regularly seed my release on TPB (as much as I despise that site and all it stands for). So I guess it's just a matter of letting things take it's course then. I've heard reaching out to other local bands can help, I'm gonna try that, too.

The blog thing I can totally understand. On the day of my EP's release, some site called "The Duckcore" did a review on it and I maxed out my free dls on bandcamp in one day, so that's why I figured blogs were the way to go. Maybe it was just the "shiny new" syndrome that people get sometimes.

Anyways, thanks for the replies! It's a nice change to not be ignored, lol!

Edit: By the way, if that's your band in your siggy, that's some sick shit!

 

[bryan_kilco]

As for gigging, everyone in my band has really demanding day jobs and families, so shows are a real rarity.

This could be a problem. My bands work schedules are weird, one dude works overnights and I get sucked away for 2-3 weeks at a time for my job, so our shows are pretty much limited to Fridays and Saturdays. And maybe between 1-3 shows a month on average. Not good, but it's also very depressing traveling 2 hours to play to almost nobody, get paid nothing, and lose money in gas just to get there and back. I love playing music in front of people, but it's starting to get to the point where I want to draw a line. We can't come up with any type of gaurantee as we are basically nobodies and don't bring enough people to the doors to get anything worth bragging about.

It's tough man. Good luck!