Jazz Services - A voice for jazz

Promotion

There is loads of stuff out there on marketing and publicity. In this section we are looking at promotion in the context of being jazz musician. There are promotional tools that are important to have in your armoury but also it’s important to remember that your key area of promotion is when you are on stage. Are you and your musicians rehearsed, do you have an agreed set list and all know what you are playing, do you arrive on stage on time or do you keep the audience waiting, do you speak to the audience, do you have records for sale and invite people to join your mailing list, do you announce yourself so that people who arrive during the set know who you are. All of these things are promotion and give out messages as to who you are and where you sit in the jazz universe and on your own trajectory.

This section looks at developing your promotional pack and EPK (electronic press kit), developing your website with download potential and running a digital marketing campaign.

Developing a promotion pack

Look at the tools that you need and how best to develop them.  Like everything in life you can have the Rolls Royce of promotion packs or you can have a more modest model that does the same job and have the same components but maybe isn’t quite as all singing and all dancing as another model.  In this section we will outline the key components of different parts of the promotional tools that you are likely to need – the packaging that you decide to put around them will be determined by your needs, budget and taste.  For more information about marketing you can download the Jazz Marketing and PR pdf or the Musician and the Internet pdf  from the website.

Here are the key components of a demo/promo/press kit – often this is available in paper form and it’s useful to have it available as an EPK - electronic press kit, particularly for overseas work. The leaders in this area are Sonicbids and most promoters, press people are familiar with their website. http://www.sonicbids.com.

Key components of a promo pack

• Attractive creatively designed folder or similar to put it all in

• Covering letter – a letter of introduction to the person who you are sending the kit to

• Biography – which includes – introductory statement, summary of current project, additional information, background of artist/band; elaboration of any other key information, ending paragraph

• Fact sheet – one page long only! Point out key information on the artist/band from the bio

• A photograph -  at the top of my list is photographs – ask yourself  do you have a good photograph that is easily accessible available for promotional use (free of charge) and an interesting image that press and venue publicity officers will find irresistible to use.

• Press clippings – a maximum of 2 or 3 sheets of photocopied reviews

• Quote sheet – six of seven positive quotes from music professionals about your music

• CD/CDR – three or four of your best songs

• CD/CDR cover – a well designed cover with song titles, artiste name, copyright and contact/information, production credits.

• Options – video, business card, lyric sheet, itinerary information, equipment list