from The Buzz | GiGHiVE



Never believe in overnight successes. They’re like the tooth fairy. They’re make-believe. How many times have you heard about the struggling actress who moves to Hollywood and bumps into the guy at the coffee shop who happens to know a producer at Miramax? Then bam! The next week, she’s on the set of the next Quentin Tarantino flick.

Or how about the starry-eyed rapper who’s desperate to be the next MTV sensation? So he starts free-styling on the street one day at just the moment that the head A&R rep at Jive happens to be walking by. Next thing, he’s working on his own major label album.

When was the last time you thought about music promotion and romance at the same time? Been a while? Well, by the time you finish reading this post, you may do it more often. (Thinking about the combination, that is. How often you "do it" is up to you :-)
This whole idea started when I ran across an article by Desiree Gullan called "The Kama Sutra of Marketing." (In case you don't know, the Kuma Sutra is an ancient Indian text widely considered to be the first manual on love and human sexuality.)

It reminded me of an analogy I've often used: Marketing is a lot like dating.

From New Industry Tips

The Stations

No conversation about music marketing would be complete without the word RADIO rearing its ugly head time and time again. Few songs sell well at retail without it. None sell millions without it. You’ve got your CDs manufactured…now what can YOU do about it?

Radio is one of the MASS MEDIA that record companies use to promote CDs to a wide-spread audience. It is the only medium that gets songs to an audience on a REPEATED basis (meaning, a person can hear a song on a particular station 20 or 50 or 100 times…just compare that to TV, film, print…or even touring.) So the question stands: How do you get your songs on the radio? With this and following installments of Airplay 101, we will look at what radio avenues are realistically available to indie bands and indie labels, whether or not you use an independent promoter.