The relevance of sales and marketing cannot be ignored nor understated when it comes to getting yourself and your bands booked. The thought of sales is lame for many of us. The thought of marketing, also a lame thought to many of us; but let’s face it, if you’re in a band, you’re selling it at every opportunity. By simply pitching the merits of booking your band, you’re selling. Simply stated, sales and marketing together in make consistent bookings happen.
My marketing and sales efforts grew somewhat organically over the years. I can offer you a tip that will give you a huge head start–write up a plan. By simply picking four, five or even six marketing activities and scheduling time to do those activities, your chances of getting booked for the coming season are great. Planning it out will move you much faster than winging it. Your five or six marketing activities could include an email campaign, phone calls, posting online ads, schmooze visits to venues, mailing postcards, and more. All of these activities would of course be targeted toward venues and those who book for venues. Your goal during this process of prospecting is to get phone or face time with venue booking contacts. Every touch point doesn’t need to be a sales pitch, especially in the beginning. The old saying that people buy from people is relevant. In your case, it’s true that people investing a bit of their entertainment budget in your band, but they are also and absolutely investing in you!
You’ve marketed like crazy, you pitched the band to several contacts in-person, over the phone and by email. No takers yet? Keep at it. Then all of the sudden, someone expresses interest. What now? You accept the offer for paid dates of course! There are some nuances to this that warrant consideration. I’ll talk about this in my next post.
~ Read part 5