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Seminar 7

Record Promotion

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SEMINAR 7: RECORD PROMOTION

Greetings!

This session we are going to jump right into Record Promotion.

RECORD PROMOTION

Record Promotion -- SMP Hot Link
Publicity and Marketing -- SMP Hot Link
Magazines - Music News - Awards - Festivals -- SMP Hot Link

Record promotion is the act of providing record marketing support, publicity, and advertisement through various means, e.g., mass media, online advertising, trade publications, independent record promoters, professional organizations, personal contact, telephone calls, payola, push money, etc.. The purpose is to ultimately reap profit through the sale of the record being promoted. Record promotion is usually the foremost priority in the artist's total promotion program.

The typical ingredients needed to enable a successful record promotion campaign are:

1) Money,

2) Artist notoriety (which may exist because of his prior success, the success of his associates, or from planned and/or unplanned public exposure),

3) Timeliness of the release,

4) Ability of the promoter to get airplay in the proper market(s),

5) Ability to coordinate all the publicity generating factors involved,

6) Luck, and

7) Quality of the product.

If these are present, it is beneficial for the promotion campaign itself to have:

1) A planned course of action, and

2) A promotion man (or agency…independent record promoter) with a good track record, contacts, experience, clout, persistence, personableness, good health, and the ability to cope with the stress involved in working an irregular schedule with long hours.

PROMOTION STRATEGY AND RADIO AIRPLAY

Radio - Airplay - Charts -- SMP Hot Link

Ordinarily, the course of action starts with initial promotion and later with national promotion. Unless, of course, the artist is a superstar and can implement his promotion at the national level at the outset. Or, if he is so established that large quantities of records can be manufactured and shipped to record stores without initial radio airplay.

Airplay is the broadcasting of a song on radio or television. On radio, a song may receive light, medium, or heavy rotation. With a light rotation the record is usually played about four times a day. Whereas with heavy rotation, it may be aired up to fifteen times. Airplay is crucial to the retail sales of music.

Major radio stations may receive up to 500 new singles and albums every week. As can be imagined, selecting the new material for their playlist can be time consuming. The music director and program director start with established artists (there may be up to 100 of these) and then work their way down to the new artists' releases. Time usually only permits them to listen to perhaps the first minute of a select number of the records received. Since new artists have a lower priority than established artists, the time factor may eliminate many new artists from ever even being heard.

For the new artist a catch-22 situation then persists. Major radio stations will not give airtime to a record if the artist is not already established or until there is evidence his new release will be a hit. And a new artist cannot get established or have a hit without substantial airplay. Because of this, new material may have to be "broken" in secondary markets.

Getting radio airplay is the main objective of the promoter, both initially when breaking a record and on an ongoing basis. The promoter must attempt to get his record added to a station's playlist and rotated on a heavy basis. Stations that play contemporary releases will only have a playlist of 20-40 records. That is to say, they only play past, current and up and coming hits.

Since there are hundreds of records released across the nation each week, airplay time is always at a premium. Competition for this time is, to say the least, fierce.

Here is where you will really need the SMP Membership Full Text Version of Seminar #7, along with the access it gives to the SMP Hot Links…you will find out how "to take care of business" with detailed step-by-step answers covering:

1) Initial Promotion…with the 6 main factors regarding Breakout Markets.
2) Kick-off Publicity…with the 4 main Avenues of Attack.
3) Promotional Copies…where to ship the Promotional Copies of your CD.
4) Promotion Man's Key Targets…who to contact, what to do, and how long to do it.
5) National Promotion Strategy…how it differs from Initial Promotion.
6) National Promotion and Record Distributors…how import is the Distributor?
Record Distribution/Sales -- SMP Hot Link

7) National Promotion Tactics…the Tricks the Big Boys Use.
8) Internet Promotion…the least expensive of all promotion vehicles.
9) The Textbook Promotion Man…the 14 point profile of a Successful Promo Man.

You get all this and much more with the SMP Membership Full Text Version…

Go To SMP Membership Full Text Version -- Index List of All Seminars
Get Your SMP Membership Password Here!

See you next session!

*R*

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