EQ Magazine - December 2008 - (Page 4)

Talk Box THINK BACKWARDS Making music is an art—but selling music is a science. And all too many times, when I’ve asked someone how they plan to market their music, the answer is “Well, I’m going to get 1,000 CDs made, store them in my garage, and . . . uh . . . um . . . you know, like, sell them.” Cue the buzzer sound effect, because that’s the wrong answer. It’s not enough to just create music; you also have to figure out how to market it. But how do you create a marketing plan? Simple: Think backwards. By that, I mean think first about the goal you want to attain, then consider how you’re going to attain it. Picture your potential customer walking into a store: What artwork will grab their attention? Are they even walking into a record store? If you’re making “meditation music,” maybe your customer is walking into a health food store, and you want your CD sold at the checkout stand. What if your demographic is in the late teens/early 20s? Plan to make up a flyer promoting your CD (or downloads) like the “room for rent” flyers with the little tear-off tags on the bottom, and post them on bulletin boards at every college within driving distance. Enlist your fan base (because you have a website and have been collecting names, right? Right?) to cover the colleges you can’t drive to. And why the tear-off tag? Because it has the URL where people can download one or more of your songs for free (there’s nothing like the word “free” to get people’s attention). Keep working backward. Will you be selling music at gigs? Then think about how to present your music. In fact, do your customers actually want CDs? Maybe they’d prefer to have their music on a USB stick, so why not duplicate some of those as well? Before you even place a call to a CD duplicator, draw up a marketing plan. Define which people are most likely to enjoy your music, figure out where to find them, and decide what marketing “hook” will speak to them. Explore various avenues of distribution. Find out who covers music for your local paper. Talk to musicians who have been successful at getting their music out into the world. Then—and only then—think about getting your music mastered and duplicated. www.eqmag.com Vol. 19 No. 12, December 2008 Executive Editor Craig Anderton, canderton@musicplayer.com Editor Matt Harper, mharper@musicplayer.com Managing Editor Debbie Greenberg, dgreenberg@musicplayer.com Contributors Jeff Anderson, Bruce Bartlett, Corey Bloom, Garrett Haines, Jay Matheson, Shane Mehling, Ken Micallef, Mr. Bonzai, Michael Ross, Joe Shambro, Angelina Skowronski, Richard Thomas Art Director Patrick Wong, pwong@musicplayer.com Staff Photographers Paul Haggard, phaggard@musicplayer.com, Craig Anderton, canderton@musicplayer.com Group Publisher Joe Perry jperry@musicplayer.com, 770.343.9978 Advertising Director, West Coast & New Business Dev. Greg Sutton gsutton@musicplayer.com, 925.425.9967 Advertising Director, Midwest Jessica Sullivan jsullivan@musicplayer.com, 661.255.2719 Advertising Director, East Coast & Europe Grace Newman gnewman@musicplayer.com, 631.239.1460 Advertising Director, Southwest Albert Margolis amargolis@musicplayer.com, 949.582.2753 Director of Specialty Sales Mike Montgomery mmontgomery@musicplayer.com, 650.238.0307 Specialty Sales Associate, North Allison Smith asmith@musicplayer.com, 650.238.0296 Specialty Sales Associate, South Will Sheng wsheng@musicplayer.com, 650.238.0325 Production Manager Beatrice Kim MUSIC PLAYER NETWORK Vice President John Pledger Editorial Director Michael Molenda Senior Financial Analyst Bob Jenkins Production Department Manager Beatrice Kim Director of Sales Operations Lauren Gerber Web Director Max Sidman Motion Graphics Designer Tim Tsuruda Marketing Director Christen McFarland Marketing Coordinator Rosario Perez Marketing Designer Joelle Katcher Systems Engineer John Meneses Assoc. Consumer Marketing Director Christopher Dyson NEWBAY MEDIA CORPORATE President & CEO Steve Palm Chief Financial Officer Paul Mastronardi Vice President Web Development Joe Ferrick Circulation Director Denise Robbins HR Manager Ray Vollmer IT Director Greg Topf Controller Jack Liedke Please direct all advertising and editorial inquiries to: EQ, 1111 Bayhill Dr., Ste. 125, San Bruno, CA 94066 (650) 238-0300; Fax (650) 238-0262; eq@musicplayer.com Please direct all subscription orders, inquiries, and address changes to: 800-289-9919, outside the U.S. 978-667-0364, eqmag@computerfulfillment.com Back Issues: Back Issues are available for $10 each at 800-289-9919, 978-667-0364, eqmag@computerfulfillment.com EQ (ISSN 1050-7868) is published monthly by NewBay Media, LLC 1111 Bayhill Drive, Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066. EQ is a trademark of NewBay Media. All material published in EQ is copyrighted (©) 2008 by NewBay Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material appearing in EQ is prohibited without written permission. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to EQ., P.O. Box 232, Lowell, MA 01853. Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts, photos, or artwork. All product information is subject to change; publisher assumes no responsibility for such changes. All listed model numbers and product names are manufacturers' registered trademarks. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Periodicals Postage Paid at San Bruno, CA, and at additional mailing offices. 4 EQ DECEMBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - December 2008

EQ Magazine - December 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In My Morning Jacket Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 8 Propellerhead Reason 4 Indie 500: Lunchbox Pres and Compressors 500 Series Preamps 500 Series Compressors Gadgets and Goodies Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - December 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.