Tate Music Group's Radio Girl

Congratulations to The Great Grandfathers who keep finding themselves on KDHX Charts for CMJ Top 30! 

Spotify came out this week with a new feature that allows you to post music and playlists on your websites and blogs with a simple code. We have put together a few of our favorite songs, and would love for you to give it a listen. Simply scroll down in the player to browse the music.

Let us know who you like and would like to hear more of! You can tweet us at @tmgradiogirl and @tatemusicgroup. 

Making Your Events More Newsworthy

As you know, getting the word out about your upcoming events is critical to having successful events. There are certain things that you, as an artist, can do to help publicize your events, such as announcing them through your social media sites or organizing a street team to hand out fliers before the events. Another way to help publicize your events is through doing interviews or stories with the media, but this form of publicity can be difficult to obtain. So how can we bolster our chances of a media outlet doing an interview or full story on your event or project?

According to MediaCollege.com, there are five factors that help media outlets determine what is newsworthy: timing, significance, proximity, prominence, and human interest. For more information on each of these factors, please visithttp://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/news/newsworthy.html.

Timing and proximity are factors that are easily controllable – simply contact the local media before a given event! In fact, every time our PR department sends out a media alert about an event, we are hitting upon the timing and proximity factors for your event(s)!

Prominence is probably the most difficult factor to work into an event, simply because it means knowing someone famous (or already being famous yourself) and getting them (or hiring them) to be associated with the event.

Significance and human interest are the two factors that can really entice a media outlet to do an interview or story. One way to do this is to work with a charitable organization in your area. For instance, the American Cancer Society holds Relay for Life events in many communities around the nation. One of my artists is performing at their local Relay for Life event and is offering to donate part of the proceeds from their CD sales at the event to Relay for Life. Since ACS and Relay for Life are well known organizations and touch millions of lives nationwide, this artist’s event now hits on the significance and human interest factors in addition to proximity and timing. While this does not guarantee an interview or a story from a media outlet, it certainly increases their odds at media exposure!

tate music group…who is your audience?

The Importance of Promotional Events

As we wrote in January’s marketing tip, live events are important for every artist. Performance-based live events are most important, but have you ever considered the importance of the promotional and retail events that you do?

On the surface, promotional and retail events can be a grind as they are sometimes not as fun or glamorous as performance-based live events; however, CD signings and other promotional events have a benefit that must always be at the forefront of your mind as you do them – networking.

Regardless of the size of the event, here are some best practices to maximize networking at your promotional events:

• Confirm the Event with the Venue – When a publicist sets up promotional events for you, we ask that you contact the venue within 2-3 days to confirm the event and discuss the event details. Confirming the event is a given, but by discussing the event details with the promotional venue, it can sometimes open up the door to play a few songs or even a small set. Even if that is not the case, make sure to ask whether or not your album can play over the PA system while you are doing your event. We also recommend calling the venue a few days before the event date; this is a professional courtesy to the venue, and it ensures that if there have been any changes on the venue’s part, you are aware of them.
• Be Prepared – Before any promotional event, you need to make sure that you are ready – you must have product on hand if you are doing a CD signing. You also need business cards should anyone inquire about scheduling you for another event. Otherwise, how are they going to contact you?
• Promote your album, yourself, and your upcoming events – Unless you have a line of people coming up to your table at a promotional event, you need to approach the people! Discuss your project, yourself as an artist, and any upcoming events you might have. Not every person will be receptive to this, but if you do not approach people, you are leaving the decision to learn about you and your project in their hands.
• Say Thank You – Thank everyone with whom you come into contact at the venue – people who buy your album and people who do not buy your album alike. Also, regardless of how many CDs you sell, make sure to thank the person who is in charge at the venue. It is amazing how many doors can open up by simply being polite.

Using these best practices, one TMG artist turned a CD signing into a regular café performance inNashville; another artist developed two contacts at churches in his area who inquired about scheduling him to do events. Another artist even gained a live event hosted by a radio station with a twenty-thousand person listenership in New York by doing a promotional event that he, at the time, thought was a bust – as it turned out, the person from the radio station who contacted him saw him at the “busted” promotional event!

While these best practices do not guarantee success for every promotional event, they can certainly increase your odds of success. When you are doing these promotional events, remember that you never know who is walking through the door of that promotional venue – it may be a customer who is buying your CD, or it could be the decision maker from a live event venue or radio station!

Finding New Event Opportunities at the Local Level

Almost every artist in the music business today can find some benefit from doing live events: live events allow you to connect with fans; live events allow you opportunities to minister through your music; and live events allow you to sell your CD at the best profit margin.

For most artists, events in their local area (Consider local within 50 miles of where an artist lives or goes to church) are often their bread-and-butter. Local events are great as the fan base for many artists are in their local area, and local events tend to have a better chance of getting some media coverage. Local events are also quite often more readily available, thus allowing an artist to hone their craft without the expense of hitting the road.

With all of those pro’s of playing locally, we know playing the same venue, the same church, or the same local coffee house over and over again can feel like a grind – however, there are some resources in almost every community that might provide new local gig opportunities! Some of these may be applicable to you, some of them may not – the idea is to get out there and find new ways to get your music and message out there!

1. The Chamber of Commerce – Almost every city in theU.S. has a chamber of commerce, and more often than not, there is some type of listing for local businesses and organizations. Restaurants, clubs, churches – you name it – they are all almost certainly involved in the local chamber of commerce in some form. You may learn of some opportunities that you did not know existed, and this can give you a nice lead into networking with local businesses and organizations that may need an artist for an event!
2. Parks and Recreation – If your area has a parks and recreations department, check for any festivals or concerts they may have during the spring and summer months. Many parks departments have summer concert series and other community wide events that are prime for musical performances! Now is the time to start checking into these sorts of opportunities for 2012.
3. College and University Organizations – Find out what clubs and organizations are on the local college and university campuses. There is always a wide variety of student organizations (Christian student unions, clubs, student government, etc.) that plan events to keep students on campus and engaged. Reach out to them to offer your music as entertainment! 

Top 16 Things You Need to Know About Tate Music Group

tate music group…retail and promotional events