The Art of Music Marketing

March 6, 2013 Leave a comment

music marketingBack when I was still managing musicians you could take a cassette to an A&R rep, drag him or her down to see a band perform and if they struck the right chord (so to speak) the label could take over from there.  Times have changed.

Truth is even if a label does get excited about an act or a singer; now a days they’re as much in the dark about how to launch a new artist as anyone else.  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating it a bit.  The labels still have some clout.  But you basically follow my drift.

The bad news is there is no longer that huge well oiled machine that can take a band, run them through the process, and pop out a potential mega star.  Although, truth be told that machine was not always a benevolent one and quite a few artists lost their sound, persona and soul while being run through the process.

The good news is more artists have a shot at getting their music out there.  Production costs are miniscule compared to what they used to cost.  More and more artists are able to control the process and more albums, CDs, Downloads (whatever) are being produced.

The really tricky part now is how, without the help of a label, artists can get their music heard.  It’s tricky but not impossible.  Musicians that realize that marketing is now a part of their job description can take their fate into their own hands.  Yes, the music is the thing, but musicians who focus on their look, image, PR, guerrilla marketing, social media outreach can still reach a formidable market.

It takes work time and dedication, but not that long ago this type of individualized outreach was not possible.  Without a label there was little chance of finding a real market.  Times have changed.  Chances are no A&R rep is going to make you into the next rock superstar, but you now have the control box in your hands.  Use it!

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

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Why Media Training Is No Longer About The Media

March 4, 2013 Leave a comment

media training blogIt used to be that you received media training to prepare to be interviewed by the mainstream media.  Makes sense, right?  Before you’re interviewed by your local newspaper, or appear on 60 Minutes you want to get some idea of what to say.  But times have changed; now if you have a website, or use social media, you, my friend, are in the media.  You are in your own media world, like it or not.  So, in truth media training is no longer about the media, it’s now about your media.

Our media trainer, Ann Convery, has trained clients to be interviewed by such media as Time, Newsweek, 60 Minutes, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The New York Times, the BBC, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, People, Rolling Stone and countless other media outlets.  But now she’s also working with clients reviewing what they should say and how they should present themselves on their own videos, or how to communicate via social media.

So, to quickly answer the two pertinent questions

Do you need media training?  YES!

When?  NOW!

Media training teaches you how to communicate with your market, customers, prospects, influencers and, yes, the media.  It is no longer strictly for those of us in the PR or media relations realm

It is an invaluable experience and one that you need in order to successfully run your business whether you’re a producer, painter, author, or rocket scientist.

And if you decide to try and save a few bucks by giving up your search for a good media trainer and trying to do the session with your sister or hairdresser, don’t!  This is truly one of those cases where you don’t know what you don’t know.  Plus, what if the Today Show calls today wanting to book you on the show tomorrow morning?  Then you’ll be prepared, right?  And if they don’t call today, you’ll still be prepared to successfully communicate in your own media world.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2013

 

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PR & Marketing Resolutions for the New Year

December 12, 2012 Leave a comment

2013 GoalsNew Year’s is around the corner, and I encourage all my readers to ask themselves their PR  goals for 2013. What are some positive changes you can make in how you run your business?

Chances are the biggest change you could make when it comes to your marketing outreach, would be to add PR or media relations to your New Year’s media mix.  I’m continually surprised at how many business owners or entrepreneurs tend to not even consider public relations when putting together their new year business plan.  Some assume it’s too expensive, others that it’s not right for their particular type of business and still others shy away because they find the process confusing and intimating.  Bottom line is that a targeted public relations campaign can (and should) be an integral part of any company’s marketing outreach.

So, let’s say you’ve decided that you’re going to launch and implement a new PR campaign strategy in 2013…

PR & Marketing Strategies for the New Year

  1. Work on understanding exactly what PR is and how it can work for you.  I’ve written a number of articles on how public relations works that you can find on my blog.
  2. Figure out if there is some PR outreach you can do on your own or if you need a PR consultant to work with you to launch a campaign.
  3. Review your personal business toolbox.  What unique skills do you have and what can you offer your clients or customers?
  4. Take that one step further, what stories do you have that illustrate how your company or business works and how you help your clients.  These are the stories that can turn into your PR gold.
  5. Start building a backlog of stories that illustrate how you solved a problem, helped a client, met a need.  Your stories are your PR currency.  All PR is effective storytelling.
  6. Next, start drilling down and learning a bit about how the PR world works.  As I mentioned, you don’t need to take this PR journey on your own.  Particularly if you’re new to the world of public relations, you’re going to benefit from working with a consultant who can work with you on your media relations campaign.

By melding a traditional media relations campaign with a targeted social media outreach you can generate incredibly valuable coverage for you and your business, without spending an arm and a leg.   That’s not to say this type of marketing is free.  PR is often referred to as free publicity, which is a misnomer.  Yes it’s true that there are times where the media will contact you directly and do a story, but that’s generally not the case.  And even when that does happen, although it’s great that the media has reached out to you, keep in mind that one article or TV segment does not make for an effective PR campaign.  Whether you’re starting from scratch, or you’ve had some media coverage, it takes time, a plan, contacts, and concentrated outreach to launch an effective media relations campaign.

A good PR consultant can help you decide on target publications, develop the various story angles that will work for you and your campaign,  write an effective press release, develop a strong media list. With some expert guidance and some work on your part, you can develop an effective and successful public relations campaign.  Chances are you’ll find that one of the best New Year’s resolutions you’ve ever made.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

 

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Marketing Lies From Guest Blogger, Howie Jacobson

November 12, 2012 Leave a comment

When you think about it, isn’t marketing usually a more or less blunt way of telling your prospect that they need to change?

That something about their life isn’t optimal, and you know what it is and how to fix it?

If you’re clever, and strategic, and smooth, you can hide that basic orientation under lots of fancy language and cool tactics.

You can give away white papers and webinars to build trust and inspire the need for reciprocity, rather than go for the hard sell.

You can empathize with their problem first, tell them that they deserve better second, and make an offer third.

But if your basic orientation is that they need to change – that they aren’t fine just the way they are – that attitude will leak into all your well-meaning marketing techniques.

I know this, because I’ve caught myself doing it for years.

Hiding my basic attitude of “I know better than you what you need” behind lots of generous words and gestures.

And people can feel it. Maybe you’ve felt it. From me. From other marketers. From your co-workers. Friends. Family members.

Hell, we all do it.

True empathic witnessing – seeing and affirming another person without agenda or judgment – is as rare as October hurricanes in New Jersey. Oh wait, I need a new metaphor…

And when you think about it, if you really want someone to change, the best approach is to NOT want them to change. To accept and appreciate and celebrate them for who they are at this moment.

Because people make positive changes most often from a place of self-love, not self-loathing.

So my challenge to you – and to myself – is to use our power of empathic understanding not to manipulate and cajole, but to see and reflect a brave human soul still standing, whatever battle is raging.

To connect, to confirm, and to celebrate.

And then to invite our prospect to take a small step with us, as an equal partner, not damaged goods.

If you agree that it’s no fun being told you need to change, then this approach is simply the marketing version of The Golden Rule.

YES!!! Comments welcome!

Thanks for listening!

For more info, check out these spots:

askhowie.com/

annconvery.com/

anthonymora.com

Copyright © Howie Jacobson 2012

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Miley Cyrus for Obama, Lindsay Lohan for Romney: What does it all mean?

October 22, 2012 Leave a comment

Miley Cyrus endorsed Obama online whereas Lindsay Lohan came out for Romney.  What does that mean in the grand scheme of things?   Apparently more than one would think.  There are articles all over the net deconstructing how Lohan’s endorsement of Romney will impact the presidential race.

I’ll leave this one to the pundits, but it is interesting that these types of endorsements are garnering so much coverage.  Is it that there are just too many outlets now with not enough news, or is the definition of “news” being redefined as we enter a new media era?  It used to be that newspapers, radio, magazines and network and cable TV drove the conversation.  The traditional media set the talking points and defined the perspectives and points of view and shaped the stories.  We’re now in the world of citizen journalists and social media.  Twitter or Facbook not only distribute information, now they become stories in and of themselves.

But in this case it’s only citizen journalism to a point.  It’s celebrity-citizen journalism.  Lindsay posts a Tweet and you suddenly have a news story.  But, as we all learned during the Palin era, the person who posts the story, doesn’t necessarily control it. Online PR approaches are very different from traditional media public relations campaigns.  Online celebrities are talking directly to the public.  At least ostensibly they are.  Their posts or Tweets can take on a life of their own, one that doesn’t always enhance the image of the celebrity poster (for lack of a better term).  The trouble with social media is I’m not convinced anyone truly understands exactly how it works or when it can backfire.  It’s a continually moving target.  Someone can be an online darling on Monday and be shot down in flames by Friday.  It’s a precarious world to navigate.  Simply because someone is a celebrity and has been continually highlighted in the media doesn’t mean he or she can control the inner workings of the online world.  Celebrities are often the most vulnerable ones in this universe.  They often have a somewhat naive take on how social media works, because they are used to a good deal of image control.  On the net, the control lever is usually disconnected.  It simply doesn’t work.

And this holds true for controversial or PR-oriented posts as well for posts as simple as “I endorse… (fill in the blank)”.  Once a post is set free it takes on a life of its own.  It can die a quick death or can build until it reaches critical mass, or it can be reworked, reinterpreted and in the end a type of social media Frankenstein monster can emerge.

I suppose that makes the online media world interesting, but not necessarily intelligible.  Which brings us back to the online revelations that Miley likes Obama and Lindsay likes Romney.  Does it really matter?  Your guess is as good as anyone’s.  Now as to Big Bird, that’s a whole other story.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

“Lindsay Lohan endorses Mitt Romney for President.” Photo. Heavy. 12 Oct. 2012. 22 Oct. 2012. <http://www.heavy.com/news/2012/10/lindsay-lohan-endorses-mitt-romney-for-president/&gt;

 

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PR & Marketing Brainstorming Tips – Part 2

June 25, 2012 Leave a comment

To begin, set up a session to review all of your media hooks and possible PR ideas.  They can be obvious, or they can be crazy.  You don’t have to use all of these, but you do want to push yourself, use outside of the box thinking and let your creativity run wild.  Once you’ve created a list of possible ideas, the next step is to review which ideas are your strongest, which have a chance of gaining you and your company media coverage.  Now start thinking like the media.  Let’s say you’re an editor or a producer; which of the stories you’ve come up with would be the most appealing.  How and why will those ideas work?  Now drill down even further, which ideas will work specifically as TV pitches?  TV is a visual medium; you want to present stories that offer more than just a talking head.  When pitching TV, think in terms of the strongest visual stories you can present.  Now think in terms of radio, what type of story ideas would work best there?  Next, do the same type of exercise with print media and social media.

Finally, start segmenting the media.  Different media outlets have different needs.  You need to keep that in mind when pitching and presenting your story ideas.  This is where most stories meet their doom.  You need to not only pitch great story ideas, you need to pitch stories that a particular journalist who writes for a very specific target market understands.  For example you might come up with a great pitch idea that you could present to women’s magazine, men’s magazine and general interest magazines, but how you pitch your story to each particular outlet  is going to decide whether the media is going to cover it or not.  That’s why you want to spend time brainstorming practicing how to build those media bridges.

Remember your PR hooks and media pitches need to meet the needs of the various magazines, newspapers, radio shows, and internet sites that you’re targeting.  You could have a great story, but if you pitch it to the wrong media outlet, it won’t get you very far.  Effective PR comes down to effective story telling. Take time to brainstorm and develop your stories.  It will be time well spent.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Brown, Ronald. “Innovation- Idea-Light bulb.” Photo. Mashable. 22 Jun 2012. 25 Jun 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/06/22/measure-product-viability-agile-time/>

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PR & Marketing Brainstorming Tips – Part 1

June 21, 2012 Leave a comment

Before you launch a PR, social media or marketing campaign, you want to make sure that you’ve outlined your objectives, reviewed your marketing approaches and thoroughly mined your PR stories.  One of the best ways to do this is to set up a marketing brainstorming session.  To start, sit down and make a list of objectives that you want to achieve before starting the process.  You don’t want to limit your ideas, but you do want to define the objectives you’re setting out to accomplish.  When it comes to brainstorming your PR and marketing strategies, your goal is to come up with a list of the ideas and approaches that will best serve you, including new business concepts, the unique value you offer, important information you offer your clients, and anecdotal stories that illustrate how you  work.  I also suggest spending some time focusing on how and why you can be presented as an expert in your overall field.

This type of brainstorming is generally best done as a group process.  I know that if you’re working on a start up, chances are you’re wearing several hats, but if you have others on your team, bring them in.  For example, set up a marketing- brainstorming session with your PR consultant, or, if you’re doing this in-house, meet with members of your staff.  If you’re a one man, or one woman show, bring together some friends or associates who understand your business.  You want people you can bounce ideas off.  You want feedback, plus you want shared enthusiasm and energy.  Make it fun; make it a game, but one with a purpose.

When you do set up a brainstorming session, allow everyone involved to speak freely.  Set up an agenda but let the information flow.  Think out of the box.  Be creative.  Remember you don’t have to use all of these ideas but the deeper you drill down, the better the chances of mining some real marketing gold, so let the ideas fly.  Let yourself banter about marketing, social media and PR ideas.  Even if these are ideas you might never use.  You never know, those might actually turn out to lead you to some golden PR nuggets.

Make a marketing list and break it down into marketing, public relations and social media.  Now see how many ideas you can place in each list.  For example, when it comes to social media, what are some unique Twitter, Facebook or Google+ approaches that you can take?  How can you present yourself and most successfully engage with others?   In the PR realm what are some different stories that you could pitch to the media?  These ideas can be about your product or service, but they also might be about your journey as an entrepreneur, or they might be stories about how you’ve impacted others.  Each one of those stories can speak to a different target audience.

In the second part of the brainstorming tips I’ll be focusing primarily on social media and traditional media relations, but the brainstorming basics remain the same, step out of the box, let go of any preconceived ideas and let your creativity soar.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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How To Use Statistics to Interest the Media

June 14, 2012 Leave a comment

You’ve developed your story.  You’ve put together your pitch and your press release.  It’s almost there, but there’s something missing.  It needs that sense of being a real news story in order to grab the editors and producers (or the attention of social media users).  So, what can you add to give your pitch a bit more weight?  What can give it a greater sense of urgency?  Try using data, statistics and studies in you pitches.

The media loves statistics and studies.  Numbers often help make a story seem weightier and more concrete.   Think about how you can add stats to your pitch.  Work on coming up with interesting data and statistics and tie it into your pitch (or pitches).  If you can offer the media information and data that is unique, you’ve got a great chance at piquing their interest.  But unique doesn’t have to be your focus.  Use the data to broaden your story and make it more compelling.

Statistics (percentages and numbers) seem real, whether they are or not. Stats are great to offer to producers, writers, editors, bloggers & media outlets. It gives them a hook, something to work with. They can use your stats and then your quotes to come up with interesting, off beat and fun sound-bites, articles, and segments.

So how can you use statistics?  Get creative.  For example if you’re an acupuncturist, find out how the use of acupuncture has grown over the past two decades.  If you sell a pet product, there are all sorts of interesting statistics on how the pet industry has exploded and how much people are now spending on their dogs, cats and iguanas.  If you’ve written a book on dating or relationships, find studies on how dating has changed since the advent of social media.  You can start your release with questions, such as did you know that… then add some interesting facts and stats.  Now tie that information into your story.

It might take some time and effort to find appropriate stats to use in your pitch, but it can be well worth it.  Go online and do some research.  Try to come up with a new or different approach.  You can use statistics to help support your point of view or to create a sense of urgency.  Using statistics in your pitches is a great way to give an editor or producer a good media hook, and garner media coverage for you and your company.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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PR, Marketing & the Downsides of Authenticity, Engagement & Empowerment

June 5, 2012 Leave a comment

In the worlds of public relations and marketing you hear quite a bit about relevance, value, authenticity connection, community, relevance, empowerment, simplicity engagement and purpose.  An impressive list and all are important words to keep in mind.  But these are all words that are being overused to the point of irrelevance.  It’s great to say you need to be authentic and connect with your audience, but simply using that verbiage is not enough.  The trick here is that you truly do need to connect, which means you have to give your marketing messages thought and view your message from the point of view of the consumer.  I recently read that for brands to be effective they need to address a number of issues including entertainment, information, utility, rewards and recognition.  These are all important but without relevance and context, you’re not going to get far.

Whether your launching a PR, social media or marketing campaign, your goal is to connect with your audience and to do so effectively you need to be creative.  But more than that you need know your audience, understand their needs and speak to your target market’s issues.  You need to address the problems that nag at them or keep them up at night.  That’s why when crafting your marketing public relations message, you want to know your market well enough to offer relevant content within the right context.

Generally there is a vast chasm between what drives marketers and consumers; each has different needs and objectives. The marketer wants to land the consumer as a client.  The consumer wants to fill a need or solve a problem.  Consumers don’t care about you as a marketer unless you give them a compelling reason to do so.  And the only way marketers can do that is to think like consumers.  Here is where the disconnect comes in; marketers generally work backwards.  Their starting point is their product or service.  They then try to fill in the dots that will lead consumers to become clients.  They should in fact start from the point of view of the client and work from there to figure out what the client needs, worries about or longs for, as well as what he or she reads, watches, and listens to.  It is only then that a business owner or marketer can develop a succinct, successful message.

Without a message that connects with your audience it won’t mater what media platforms you’re utilizing.  Your message drives your medium.  Don’t feign authenticity.  Don’t try to fool your audience into believing that what you’re selling is what they need.  Yes you want to emphasize relevance, value, authenticity, connection, community, relevance, empowerment, simplicity engagement and purpose, but (and here’s the kicker) you want to do so in an authentic relevant way.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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How Spooky Is Social Media?

June 2, 2012 Leave a comment

In a recent opinion article for CNN, Andrew Keen, a British-American entrepreneur, professional skeptic and author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” and “Digital Vertigo,” warns us about the dangers not only of Facebook, but with our growing obsession with social media.  (Opinion: Facebook threatens to “Zuck up” the human race) He describes it as digital narcissism, a narcotic, that is defining and desensitizing us.

In his article he quotes, Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who says there is a “shift” from an analog world in which our identities are generated from within, to a digital world in which our sense of self is intimately tied to our social media presence.”

Keen explains that our capacity for solitude and an inner sense of self is quickly fading and being replaced by an external sense of who we are and how we are valued.  Scary stuff, mainly because it’s true.  Don’t get me wrong, I think that Facebook, Twitter and the other social media sites are great communication tools – for marketing tools.  They are tailor made to help build and brand, sell a product and build a business, but the trouble is most people use them to build personal relationships.  Or believe they are building personal relationships.  Most people are selling themselves using social media and not their company or products and by doing so are losing any authentic sense of who they are.

So what’s the secret to learning how to effectively utilize social media?  Understand what it can and can’t do.  Social media is great for staying in touch, but not so hot for being in touch.  It’s a great promotional tool, perfect for communicating information about your company product, service or cause, but it’s a poor substitute for real personal connection or communication.  Again, it’s an amazing promotional tool, perfect for PR and marketing, but it is not so great as a communication tool.

If you want to get the word out about your product, social media is a great way to do it.  But you are not a product, you are a person – deal with it!  If you want to connect with someone you care about, how about picking up the phone and talking, or (here’s a strange idea) actually getting together and meeting face to face.  Social media has very little inflection, or nuance, you don’t hear the person’s voice; you don’t see his or her facial expression or body language.  It’s a strange static form of expression.

But people seem to forget that and believe they are actually connecting.  They feel if they’re not on social media, they’re missing out, they’re not good enough, or stranger yet, they feel they don’t actually matter.  It’s spooky stuff.  The trick is to use social media for what it is.  Have fun with it; use it as a marketing tool, use it to set up face to face meeting, then get off of Facebook or Twitter – and go outside and play!

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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SEO Press Releases: Part 2

May 31, 2012 Leave a comment

The upside about learning SEO is you’re not alone if you feel you’re behind the learning curve.  The truth is everyone needs to learn to keep on track in this field.  It’s an ever changing, ever shifting process.  So, wherever you are in the process, that’s okay.  My previous article focused on how to write an SEO press release in order to garner increased online visibility and ultimately more views.  The basic how-tos include knowing your keywords, using anchor text, and including your URL

While all of this helps you in the world of search engines such as Yahoo and Google, that’s not enough.  You don’t simply want to move yourself up in the search engine pecking order; you also want to have a compelling story, a well written targeted release that reaches your target audience.  Increasing your website traffic is great but it can be useless if it’s not the right traffic, you need to be speaking to your audience.

Whereas you definitely want to use keywords and it’s important you learn and know your keywords before starting to write a release, you don’t want to get lost in jargon.  Every business has its own jargon and to those outside of the business it often sounds like a foreign language.  That is not going to make for a compelling read, so keep your jargon to a minimum.

Be sure to bold your secondary keywords and phrases in your release and include a link that will allow the reader to access additional information. Double check that you’ve included the http:// portion of the URL in your press releases or the links will not be clickable when published.

Most releases have a date included, but in this case I think that backfires.  Unless your information is timely and has to do with a specific event, season or breaking news story adding a date to your release will only server to make the release look dated.  This is particularly true with online-oriented releases.

Write a concise descriptive headline that includes your primary keywords. Don’t be shy about them.  This is the real estate that counts.  You want to utilize your important keywords in the headline, in the lead and then pepper them throughout your message.  I’m not sure this makes for the best releases from a journalistic standpoint, but from an SEO perspective it reinforces your message

The writing and the story are the parts of your release that will engage your audience, SEO is the science of being discovered by your audience and in the online world – you need both.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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