Many start up bands miss easy opportunities to get people in the seats of their upcoming gigs. Below we will discuss a few inexpensive ways to self promote your garage band, indie band, or established act. All of these ideas are simple yet cost effective ways to promote on a budget.
The first step in self promoting your band is word of mouth. Basically everyone in the band needs to take a proactive role in getting the word out on future shows and gigs. Word of mouth includes telling your family, friends, coworkers, and anyone else your band knows that may be interested in your bands genre of music. For example, have your parents or relatives tell their coworkers or friends and so on. It can be surprising how many seats you can fill by simply by word of mouth through family and friends.
Secondly, have flyers printed for your next show. This can be done fairly cheap at any local copy store in your area. This is a cost effective self promotion tactic. Design a simple flyers with your band name, logo or artwork, genre of music, original or cover tunes, date and time of show, Band website, Contact information, and phone number and name of the club or venue where you will be performing. After designing your show flyer, send a few to the club or venue where you be playing. It may even be a good idea to hand deliver the flyers and ask if you may hang a few yourself. This way you can make sure your flyer will be seen by patrons of the club. Another idea is to place flyers on bulletin boards at music stores and other places where you may find a crowd for your gig. One word of caution, always get permission to place your flyers. For example, if you decide to place flyers on cars in a parking lot get permission from that lot owner. Some people tend to throw the flyers on the ground and cause a mess for a lot owner. The lot owner also has your contact info from the flyer so he may take legal action. So the moral of the story is get permission before placing flyers.
Next, contact any local or regional newspapers or entertainment type papers in your area. Most of these newspapers have weekly band listings in their entertainment sections. Email or call the papers until you find the proper contact and send them all the info they request. Usually you'll want to send Show Place, Date, Time, Band Name, and Cost of show (if applicable).
Lastly, search for concert calendars on the internet for free listings in the city or regional area your playing the gig. Many concert calendars will list your shows for free. Find some of the more popular ones that may get more internet traffic. Do a search on Concerts listings, events listings, free band listings or something of this nature, and add the city to the search.
Above are a few ideas for inexpensive or free self promotion of your band. Try to use all or most of these tactics for every show you self promote. Remember, the more fans you get to the show the better the chance you'll have of getting booked there again and building a career in that city or region of interest. Good Luck, and get out there and self promote your band.
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