Anyone familiar with the Atlanta jazz scene is aware of how difficult it is to get a good turnout at jazz gigs (Creative Loafing recently wrote about the limited Atlanta jazz audience). There are several possible explanations for the small audiences, but certainly one of the primary causes is poor promotion. Websites like mine have helped get the word out about gigs, but there are still many ways for jazz musicians and jazz club owners to better promote their events. Following are a few suggestions that I've come up with. As I think of more ideas, I'll definitely add them to this page. Likewise, if any of my visitors have any ideas, please let me know.
HAVE A GOOD WEB PRESENCE
A good web presence for a musician would include the following (at a minimum):
- Photo - so people can recognize you if they see you at a gig.
- Bio - tell people a little about you and your musical interests.
- Music samples - put up audio clips that demonstrate the type of music they'll hear if they see you at a live jazz concert.
- Itinerary - in addition to telling people when and where you'll be playing, I'd tell them a little about the lineup and the type of music you'll be playing. For example, if you play a variety of jazz styles but somebody wants to see straight-ahead jazz, they'd probably be (extremely!) disappointed if they inadvertently show up to one of your smooth jazz performances. You may also want to include the names of a couple tunes that you expect to play. Of course, the most important thing about the itinerary is that you keep it updated.
- Good keywords - make sure the words "Atlanta" and "Jazz" are in your website's title and pages. Basically, you want to make sure that if somebody searches for "Atlanta jazz (your name)" that your website is at the top of the list.
How can you get a website for little money? The easiest/cheapest option is to create a MySpace page for your music (here's an example jazz myspace page). Another free option is to put up a Blogger page (here's an example jazz blog). For a more professional solution, you might try a Dynamod site. They're about $11 a month and there are a few already in use by Atlanta jazz musicians (Joe Gransden, Melvin Jones). CDBaby also has a hosting service called HostBaby that might be worth looking into. BandZoogle looks really good, too.
GET ON MYSPACE AND FACEBOOK, TWITTER TOO
Generally speaking, I hate MySpace pages. They are easily the most unprofessional way to represent yourself on the web. But, they also happen to get extremely good search engine positioning in the king of all search engines, Google. Oh, and they're free. That doesn't hurt. Even if you have your own website already, get that MySpace page and link to your website from the MySpace page. You don't necessarily have to have your itinerary on both your existing website and the MySpace page, but it's probably a good idea if you do. Now that Facebook.com has become more popular, you should definitely get a Facebook page going as well. I'd view your Facebook page mostly as a promotional vehicle. Accept every friend request, write comments about your gigs, create events for your gigs, and invite all of your friends to each gig. Twitter represents yet another free method for communicating to people about your gigs. As with Facebook, let people know about each of your gigs. You can also tweet during your gig (between sets) if you have a surprise guest or something else that you want people to know.
MAINTAIN AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Once people learn who you are, you'll want to give them a convenient way to learn about your gigs. You can accomplish this task quite easily with an email newsletter. When people come to your website, tell them to send you an email if they want to sign up for your newsletter. Once you have their email address, you'll add their email address to your newsletter distribution list and send them weekly newsletters about your gigs. There are lots of newsletter services, but one that seems pretty good to me is ConstantContact.com. Regardless of which service you choose, make sure people can opt-out easily if they no longer want to receive your newsletter (that's one of the things I like about ConstantContact). Important note: unless you're reporting on a last-minute event update, I'd advise that you NEVER SEND MORE THAN ONE NEWSLETTER PER WEEK. Sending multiple emails each week crosses into spam territory and will likely irritate your fans.
CREATE A WIKIPEDIA PAGE
As you probably know, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia with content written entirely by volunteers. To become one of these volunteer writers, all you need to do is register for a free Wikipedia account. Once you have an account, you can create a free Wikipedia page for yourself (give the page your name) containing a biography, discography, photos, and most importantly an "External Link" back to your real website. Wikipedia pages are encyclopedic/informative by nature and therefore you shouldn't include promotional information like your itinerary nor should your article read like an advertisement. Like a MySpace page, the main benefit of a Wikipedia page is search engine positioning. Wikipedia pages typically appear at the top of Google searches so your Wikipedia page will help people find you and your real website. Here are some examples of Wikipedia pages for jazz musicians: Neil Starkey, Russell Gunn, Ornette Coleman.
CREATE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL
A YouTube Channel is basically a homepage where you can feature video clips of your jazz concerts. Here's my channel page for the Atlanta jazz videos I've recorded. And here's another channel page by a musician. As you can see, the musician's channel page has a lot of additional promotional information. This is a great way tell people about yourself and drive them to your website (assuming you have one).
To create a channel page, simply sign up for a free YouTube account and start uploading videos. All of the videos I've recorded were shot on a camera that costs less than $200 so you don't need to buy a lot of fancy equipment if you don't already own a video camera. When you do upload videos, be sure to keep each of them under 10-minutes in length (that's YouTube's limit). I'd also recommend that you only feature clips of your music on your musician channel. If, for example, you'd like to post clips of your child riding a bike, it would probably be best to create a different account for that stuff.
ATTEND LOCAL ATLANTA JAZZ CONCERTS
If you don't have a conflicting gig, support your fellow Atlanta jazz musicians by attending their concerts. Your attendance lets other jazz musicians know that you care about them and the Atlanta jazz scene. Most likely, they'll come out to your gigs and the overall attendance at Atlanta jazz concerts will improve. Larger audiences, even if they are mostly comprised of jazz musicians, are good for the scene because it shows people that these events are worth attending. An empty room, on the other hand, conveys the exact opposite message. Don't let your fellow Atlanta jazz musicians play to an empty room!
GET SCHOOLS AND STUDENTS INVOLVED
Like many large cities, Atlanta is home to several colleges and universities. Most of these schools also happen to have some form of jazz education. For example, both Emory University and Georgia State University have music majors specializing in jazz. Morehouse College, Spellman College, Clark Atlanta University, Agnes Scott, and Georgia Perimeter College all have jazz combos and/or big bands, and I'd imagine that most of these schools offer a "history of jazz" type of class to non-music majors. As you can see, there are a lot of jazz-aware students here in Atlanta!
If you could get at least some of these students to attend live jazz concerts in Atlanta, the current Atlanta jazz audience would easily grow several times in size. And what's the best way to get students to see live jazz? It's easy. You force them! As it is now, most students in jazz classes already have to see at least one or two of live concerts for class credit, but they probably just see the free concerts held at their school. With a little convincing, I bet you could get the professors and band directors to modify the requirements such that at least one of these jazz concerts needs to be outside of their school.
Following are a few other suggestions to get more students to see your concerts:
- Make sure the students know who you are. Giving a free masterclass or performance during class seems like a good way to get their attention.
- Once the students know who you are, make sure the students know about your gigs. Tell them about your website. While you might not be able to get professors and band directors to regularly announce your gigs in class, you probably could get them to mention the various Atlanta jazz clubs and jazz jam sessions from time to time. Having them aware of the venues is better than nothing!
- Once you know who the student musicians are, invite them to sit in with you at gigs and jam sessions. Developing a rapport with the students makes it much more likely that they'll want to attend your gigs.
- Get club owners to do student-oriented promotions such as lower-cost admissions or relaxed age requirements. Make sure the students know about these promotions.
Remember: The young people of today are your audience of tomorrow. Scary thought, eh?
MEET YOUR AUDIENCE
At your gigs, walk around between sets and chat with members of your audience. Thank them for coming to your show and give them a business card with your website's URL on it. Now that they have your card, they can learn more about you and your upcoming gigs once they go home. And most importantly, be friendly! Thanks in part to Miles Davis, there are many jazz musicians who think it's cool to ignore their patrons. Here in Atlanta, I've been to a few jazz concerts where the musicians didn't even say hello to the audience. That attitude might have worked for Miles, but it doesn't work so well when you're struggling to generate an audience. If you'd rather not mingle with your audience one on one, at least be friendly and appreciative to them from the stage. The better the connection you make with your audience, the more likely it is that they'll want to attend your future gigs.
JOIN THE YAHOO ATLANTA JAZZ GROUP
The biggest online meeting place of Atlanta jazz musicians, radio hosts, and patrons is the AtlantaJazz group on Yahoo. There are several hundred members, but really only a dozen or two of them are actively involved. Don't worry about the lack of participation, just join the group and be sure to announce your gigs on the site. I get a lot of my information from the group, which I post on my upcoming events page, and I know other sites like JazzAtlantaGA.com use the AtlantaJazz Yahoo group as an information source.
GET CLUB OWNERS INVOLVED IN PROMOTION
You'd think the owners of jazz clubs would do everything they can to make sure people know about gigs at their establishments. After all, they've invested a lot of money in their businesses and we've all seen other jazz clubs come and go over the years. Rather than take the most active role in promotion, club owners in Atlanta typically do very little to promote themselves. For example, on many occasions I've visited a club's website hoping to learn more about their schedule of events just to find out that their site hasn't been updated in months. Even worse, I can name at least two clubs who had websites showing that they're closed on nights when they're actually open! When you play a gig at a club, take a look at their website. Is your gig listed on the site? Does the club owner know about the Yahoo AtlantaJazz group? Does the club owner reach out to sites like mine? If not, educate the club owner about the different (free!) avenues of jazz promotion in Atlanta and encourage them to get more involved in the promotion of their venue. As a musician you might think it isn't your job to school club owners like this, but it's important to remember that their success and your success as a gigging musician are closely related. You need a place to play and both of you need a decent audience to help pay the bills.
PROMOTE YOURSELF AT ATLANTA JAZZ WEBSITES
There are a few websites and jazz blogs, like mine, which feature Atlanta jazz musicians, jazz clubs, and jazz musicians. Make sure these sites know about you and your gigs. Atlanta jazz websites that I'm aware of include JazzAtlantaGA.com, Atlantajazz.info. Other sites like Eventful.com (and maybe upcoming.org) are good places to list your jazz gigs for free.
PROMOTE YOURSELF ON THE RADIO
Atlanta's main jazz radio station, WCLK announces local gigs all the time. I'm not sure how to get your gig announced on the radio, but I'd think a phone call or fax would do it. WCLK's about us web page lists a few ways to contact them. Georgia State University's WRAS radio station has a "Blue Note" radio program that's dedicated to jazz. Perhaps you could talk them into promoting local jazz during that radio program.
PROMOTE YOURSELF IN LOCAL MUSIC STORES
If a record/cd store has a decent jazz selection, then it probably has several jazz-buying customers. Those same people would probably like to know about your gigs. Decatur CD's comes to mind as a good place to post flyers advertising your gigs. Obviously, if you have any recordings, I'd definitely get stores like this to carry them.
DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO PROMOTE
As a member of the AtlantaJazz Yahoo group, I'm constantly amazed when I see people wait until the day before their gig, or even worse, the day of their gig, to send out their first and only gig announcement. If you wait until the last minute to tell people about your gig, chances are they will already have plans or they won't actually read about it until it's too late (many AtlantaJazz members subscribe to the digest format and therefore don't get messages until the next day or two). Instead of waiting until the last minute, I recommend that you announce your gig as soon as you know the lineup/location/cost/etc and then send out a reminder announcement (or two) to the YahooJazz list a few days before the gig. This will ensure that sites like mine have a chance to get you listed on our event calendars.
MARKET YOUR RECORDINGS
If you've recorded any CD's, make sure they're easy for people to hear and buy. As mentioned above, local music stores are a good start. After that, you'll want to make your recordings available for online purchase. I know of several independent musicians who have recordings on CDBaby.com. CDBaby sells physical CDs, they host audio clips that people can listen to, and they'll get your recordings on various online music sites such as iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster. Other sites, like TuneCore.com can also get your recordings into the various online music stores. Earlier this year, the Unofficial Apple Weblog had an article about selling music via TuneCore. Take a look at the comments to that article for a good comparison between CDBaby and TuneCore.
GET IN CREATIVE LOAFING AND ACCESS ATLANTA
Make sure your gigs are mentioned in the "Happenings" section of Creative Loafing. As I understand it, all you need to do is fax notice of your gig to the editors. When you do notify them, be sure to include the word "jazz" in your name. I'm looking at Creative Loafing right now and I see a couple of jazz musicians who are mentioned by name only. If somebody's looking for a jazz concert and they don't know who you are, then they'll skip right over your gig. Instead of "Churchill Grounds - Toots McTootie" try to get them to print "Churchill Grounds - Toots McTootie Jazz Quintet" or "Churchill Grounds - Toots McTootie Jazztet". Just make sure the word "jazz" is in there. Similarly, make sure your gig is listed in Access Atlanta and any other free publication you can think of.
TRY AND TRY AGAIN
Occasionally I'll talk with people who tell me that they tried certain promotion methods in the past, but they weren't effective. And since they didn't get the results they were looking for, they've basically given up on those methods. Website updating is a perfect example. Let's say you launch a new website for your music. You tell a few people about it, search engines index you, but you barely ever get any hits. After a few months of low traffic you stop updating your itinerary (what's the point, nobody looks at it anyway…) and you stop sending out newsletters to the nine people that joined your mailing list. You gave it a shot, but it just didn't work out like you expected. Well, it doesn't matter. New people move into Atlanta all the time. You never know when they, or the people who already live here, will decide to see a live jazz concert and stumble upon your website. Promotion is an ongoing effort. What didn't work yesterday might work today, and what works today might not work tomorrow…
ADDITIONAL READING
Rick, this is great information! thanks!! Laura
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