For the last few months I've been making seemingly endless copies of my band's promo cdr and sending them to labels and magazines/zines, with no responses might I add. I'm also trying to spread them to the general public but I seem to be having no luck. What I'm wanting to find out is the best ways to get the music out there to potential fans, not by internet means because I'm doing ok with that, but by physical means. Any help would be appreciated.

Print some cds and go hand them at the exits of shows of genre-related bands when they play around your town.

Play shows.

if you have enough physical copies try bunging them in some d.i.y. distros and see if they can get them out there for you.

CD-Rs are probably the least sexy way to deliver your music to people. Write songs, release them as mp3s, make a corresponding youtube video, and try to have your friends share it with their friends. No one gives a shit about your music, but they'll listen to a friend's recommendation.

It's good to see you posting again man!

Hah, glad to know I was missed. I've been way too busy with work..

The(_)internet is a great tool. Advertise like fuck, social sites like Facebook or Myspace get strong reactions, and don't feel shy to spam the walls with the same links every day or every other day. Some few people may think you're annoying, especially the ones who have already listened. However, there's a payoff when new people listen to it that haven't heard it previously.

Internet ways:

My own methods of promoting Eternium:
- Facebook, upload your music, keep regular updates, mention other local bands
-Myspace, same as Myspace
-Reverbnation, same as above
-Metal-archives, keep a separate thread in the promotional section and don't be afraid to bump everyday.
-Bandcamp, let people download the songs off demos or EPs for free
-Mediafire/filesharing, use this to upload zip files of your music in order to show people.

Non-internet ways:

-Play live shows if you have the members. I cannot since Eternium is a solo project at this point
-GO to shows, people are usually always welcome to talk to you about music, mention local bands and mention your own.
-Hand out CDs to people who seem even at all interested in music, CD-R's usually work for this with cheap sleaves, you really don't want to spend your money on making real cds and then giving them for free.
-Sell demos cheap, $2-3 per copy. People usually love a cheap buy, almost as much as free stuff.
-Spread fliers near venues/around music shops such as Guitar-center.

So yeah, it can get a bit tedious, but I assure the payoff is worth it, even if it doesn't seem like it at times.

Get to work!

@Markov - do you have any evidence that spamming actually works? Regularly posting original content via the internet is extremely helpful, but spammy bullshit just gets your page unsubscribed.

I've found that paid and targeted FB advertising is extremely effective. I paid ~$50 for advertising a year or so back and generated nearly 100 likes, a few of which translated to CD sales, and my last.fm listening spiked.

Yeah I’d agree with mattp. Reposting the same stuff repeatedly turns it into spam, you gotta do more than that. Try to post new content, even if its small stuff. Maybe a rehearsal video, or put together some new artwork. Do something unique to get people’s attention. My band sometimes uses humour- we ran a series of photos over a few weeks where we photoshopped ourselves into famous historical photos, or will post things like ‘contemplating suicide? Listen to our new single, then go kill yourself’. Obviously shit like that doesn’t work for every band, but try and do something different, you can get a lot more posting mileage out of your musical content.

Also a word of caution about going to shows to promote- don’t be a shill! Yeah, get out to local shows, get involved in the scene, be personable, meet people and make connections. Then promote yourself. I’ve seen this before and trust me, if you just show up to a popular local bands show with the express purpose of promoting yourself, it doesn’t go over all that well. Especially by other musicians if you’re just trying to leech their popularity to get attention on yourself. Its a good idea, you've just got to do it right.

Ok, to expand on my thoughts:

People that know and like you will probably be more likely to give your music a chance than a random stranger. So, go network! Go to local shows, and genuinely befriend people. Now they'll probably check out your music when you post it on Faceboook. If it is really good, they'll tell their friends -- and THAT is where you get the most exposure.

Same deal works on internet forums. Join forums that you like and are genuinely interested in, and get to know the 'locals'. Post your music, and you'll get way more interest than if you just popped in one day spamming a link.

The goal with all of your promotion is to get people to consider themselves 'fans' of your music. Once someone is interested and willing to listen to your music because it is your music, you have generated a fan. These guys might follow you on facebook, or Reverbnation, or *shudder* Myspace. Take care of them. Do not piss them off. Do not disrespect them with spam or stupid bullshit.

When 'releasing' my new demo 'Monolithic', I used a URL shortening service to track how many people downloaded it and from what referring site. In the first day, I put it up on Facebook from the official Alas, Tyranny page and from my personal page (in hindsight, I should have used a different or day for my personal page, as knowing the ratio of who downloaded it as a friend vs. as a fan would be very good to now). 30 downloads. Nice! Of course, I broadcasted it to the ~372 fans of Alas Tyranny and the ~370 friends I have, so a little less than 5% of people reached actually downloaded it. The next day, I posted it to metal-archives promotional section, and got 7 downloads. The day after, I didn't really do anything as far as promoting it is concerned, but got an additional 10 downloads. Today, I posted it to another forum I frequent, and have received (to date) 9 clicks from 23 views on that thread.

As of right now, the MA thread has received 72 views and generated 10 clicks. Facebook has a pretty massive audience, but it is hard to tell who has seen it due to people unsubscribing or just ignoring it. Regardless, it has generated 33 clicks. I've had 60 downloads of the album so far, with the most effective means of distributing it being 1) Facebook fans (acquired either through live show exposure, being friends with me, or targeted FB ad campains), 2) In a forum I am a community member in in a non-sectioned off promotional forum, 3) In a forum I am a community member in a sectioned off promotional forum.

There is a fuckton of 'noise' in music, and you have to rise above it and distinguish yourself some how. Look at Bulb and Periphery -- he started posting his videos on some forum, people loved him and showed their friends, and now he's an internet celebrity. He released quality music, consistently, and rapidly. I think these are the key things to do to get success.

Make a lot of friends, release quality music in bite sized chunks, personally share with your friends, and encourage them to do the same. You might get 5% of your friends to listen to your stuff if you broadcast, but if you tell personally, your rate will be much higher. And when your friends promote your music, they will be MUCH more succesful.

To again expand on my thoughts re: paid advertisement, spending a bit of money is a great way to set yourself apart from the crowd.

When I ran the ad campaign for "Domination Liberation Purification," I specifically targeted it to countries with high metalhead concentrations (USA, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Finland, UK, etc.). I then specifically targeted it to people who also listened to Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, In Flames, or other similar artists. My ad text was more or less "Free album download for fans of [insert band name here]!" My driving thought when I was designing this ad was "What appeals to ME, as a listener, who doesn't want to get spammed? Free stuff and an assurance that I might like it." 1000s of people loaded the ad, and a few hundred clicked on it, and most of those liked the page and downloaded the album. A few even purchased the damn thing, but not enough to pay for the ad campaign costs.

Last.fm offers a similar program, where you can pay $20 to have your music played to 100 potential fans (based on their algorithm for matching music, which is fantastic in my experience). Pay Last.fm $20, and 100 people who are predisposed to liking your music will suddenly hear it on their 'Recommended Radio'. I've personally found a fuckton of bands with that tool, so why not use it to my own advantage?

To be honest, my friend's band has got around 650 likes (2 men Blackened/Doom metal) by just inviting their friends to the page and sharing links over and over again.
Another band, who's got one demo as well as a single, they didn't finish their debut yet, they've got around 440 likes so far also by the same way.
It really depends on how many people you and your band mates know, as well as people who liked the page are really interested and will share this ?
I am not sure maybe payed advertising works also, to me, local concerts are really a good way especially when you have got some non-fancy copies to give.
I have around 190 likes by inviting people only, because I don't like to spam with old demos, but yeah spamming works If you do it in less frequent manner.

Ah yeah, well of course I don't mean spam ridiculously, repetitively on the same pages. I often switch with the facebook page and my own personal facebook. I have quite a number of friends that are interested in hearing my music, what I meant was that if you don't promote it enough, some people may hear it once, but others may not even know it exists due to their timezone at points.

Also, everytime I post new material, whether it be scrapped or professional, I usually generate 10-15 likes per time. The hardest part is getting a small number of fans, but then it grows exponentially when you're in the 1000's range.

I used last.fm's $20 for 100 plays thing, and got 88 people that liked my song. I won't know if any of those turned into album sales for another month or two though. I've actually gotten a decent amount of views by just putting my blogspot page for my band in my signature and posting around on the internet. A couple of those resulted in downloads. Sometimes I think it's pathetic that I put forth all this effort to get so few likes and downloads and sales, but then again, someone that I don't know followed links to my music and liked it enough to buy it, so to me that's a lifetime goal achieved.

Leave bundles of demo cd-r's at your local food stores or whatever.

I need to try the last.fm thing! That's awesome.

"Likes" and such don't mean anything. Most people will like something and then forget about it. You need to get out there and socialize, spread the word on the streets and build a rep.

Playing live once in a while will help as well.

Yeah nothing really beats establishing some kind of personal relationship with people in your scene when it comes to promoting stuff. Although, for people that live in the middle of nowhere that might be really difficult to achieve and something like Facebook is probably the next best thing. That is unless you become one of those people that just regularly communicates with a ton of other metal bands/fans over the internet. In that case your online reputation would be worth more than just a facebook page.



Have you done this? Seems like a great idea if it is a place metal fans would frequent, so probably best not try it at a day spa, retirement home, or venture capital firm.

Of course there's a certain difficulty for those who live in an isolated community, but back in the day of tape trading that wasn't really a problem.
Trading can establish that personal connection with other bands much better, at least that's what I think.

Another good idea is to send it to every magazine, zine on and offline that you can think of, for a review.

I've left cd-r's at record stores, but when the new demo is done I will actually do this. Think about it, there's a lot of rotation in food stores and super markets and some metal fans will get their hands on it eventually. You know your territory better than me, you know the spots better.

If you for instance know that a certain coffee shop attracts a lot of metal fans, then ask the owner or whoever works there if you can leave a few on their desk.

Carry some with you at all times and hand them out to other metal fans in the street, subway or the bus.

I think that just keeping your business online will restrict you from reaching your full potential and you will eventually drown among other bands.

And another thing I will do myself is to print about 100-200 glossy stickers of the new demo artwork, logo and a text that describes who we are and what it is. Then I'll just stick them everywhere.

Oh, and don't forget to like these:
https://www.facebook.com/Phidion
https://www.facebook.com/RuinsOfTime

Word of mouth > Online spamming of any sort, unless you play for Kreator or something.

Obviously, online is worldwide and if you have a quality product and are smart with how you promote you can do great. But you have to do something that stands out. I personally think you'll be better immediate success if you hand your promo out to random people that might be interested, and try making actual friends and relationships. If you see two people with metal shirts on, you say hi, chat for a bit, give them your demo and get their emails. That's ten times more effective then having people "like" your Facebook page. Obviously, don't neglect the internet because that's world-wide exposure. But at the end of the day, you will find that making real connections with real people (who will tell their friends about you if you don't suck) to be far more lucrative than just throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks. Give away your demo, get those people to come to your gigs and buy your merch, then meet and make connections with their friends. GO TO SHOWS!!!

Mattp's bit about paying for online advertising is good, I've sold out gigs by my band by doing that, but if you want those likes to turn into sales and legit interest you NEED to have good online promo and make it really easy for people to get access to your stuff, and you have to give people stuff that they will WANT. And be sure to TARGET your audience. If you play black metal, make connections with black metal fans. Find out what sites they are using, what zines they read, where they hang out, if anywhere in your city.

This is actually very effective. Not at local food stores, but at metal stores. It works perfectly here--local bands leave batches of promos and demos at a popular underground death/black metal record store, and the guy running it gives one for free to every customer. I've discovered loads of obscure rising bands this way.



There is nothing un-metal about a day spa.

We only have one metal store left in Stockholm and it sucks! Unlike in Thessaloniki where you have that wonderful gem called Alone!

Ah, so you know Alone? Great store, the guy who runs it is friends with my aunt, haha.
The store I was referring to was Bowel of Noise in Athens. One of the best death/black metal record stores I've ever come across.

Anyone willing to share good zines/sites/web-radios/labels/distros that they've contacted before?

I guess I'll try the Fb advertising too. I live in the middle of nowhere and I won't play live. The record stores it's not a good idea cause here no one buy albums. There are the grand total of 2 metal stores and both are there for the sake of being there. In fact, they sell more t-shirts than anything.

I already have a deal with a shirt pressing co. to make the eventual Forestfather shirts, which will probably be sold together with the cd.

This was made as a sample:

I like the advice on this thread, I've been looking for ways to promote my demo when it's complete.
My question is I have been thinking of making a website, I noticed some bands do it but a lot rely on social networking sites. Is an actual website still helpful in promoting your music or is it a dying dinosaur?

Debatable. It's probably not nessecary any more, but I think if it's done well it can still be a useful thing to have. My band has one, but it's mainly for hosting downloads. The actual main page redirects to a blogspot.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever visited a band's website in years... Nowadays you can get news/tour dates and whatever else from elsewhere. Main page redirecting to a blogspot or myspace or something like that is probably the most effective way, Like CorpseFister said.

I am Greek and we have an apartment in Thessaloniki, so yes I do know of that store. Is it Jim that still owns it?


Anyway, I don't think that myspace is the way to go anymore, since they suck big time now. Slow, full of ads and irrelevant. I suggest bandcamp or an own official website that you update regularly!

A serious band/project should have a webspace of some sort that isn't myspace or Facebook or similar, a lot of young bands are trying to use Facebook pages as a band website, and that's a bad idea. Facebook is so limiting, you need to have "your own" thing. Blogspot or tumblr seems to be doing well for bands on a tight budget, here's a couple to check out:

http://gatekeeper-vinland.blogspot.ca/
http://solstice-englander.blogspot.com
http://samandriel.blogspot.ca/ (On this one I used multiple pages, pretty sweet)
http://cauldronmetal.tumblr.com/

Again, not a real website, but I personally find Blogspot to work really well. I would make a myspace just so you have one, and so you can steal the HTML code for the player and use it on your blog, haha

I like blogspot. It's a free and simple way to consolidate everything, which is nice if you have a facebook, myspace, twitter, reverbnation, bandcamp, youtube account and are for sale on the web in a half dozen places.

I'm really liking all the great responses to my questions. Thanks guys! Loved all the blogspot sites that were shown here.

I always liked an "official" website since it does make you look more professional, plus all your news and info is centralized in one place rather than spread all over where it's a pain to keep updated.
Blogspot, I do agree is a great place for bands on a budget, but I've always bump into blogspot sites with links to downloadable demos/splits/albums so I was put off from that a little.

Thanks for all the advice guys. I had actually forgot I started this thread.

Right now we don't play live due to lack of material, among other things, but I'd like to start in about a year. It was a one man band before but I just got two other guys so now I'm just on vocals/guitar. We are writing new material now that is way better than the two songs I currently have up on the net. Hopefully within the next 4 months or so we will record a new demo or maybe EP, but if it's an EP I'd really like a label to release it, because I feel that I can't promote it properly if I do it all myself. The new stuff deserves to be heard on a larger scale. I don't have any cash to press it myself or I would. Hell, I'd start my own label, something I've thought of in the past, but again, no money and I have no idea how to run a label effectively. I won't lie and say I want to do this band as a hobby for the rest of my life because my long, long term goal is world touring, but I know this won't happen immediately.

About going to shows to promote I will say this: We are THE ONLY real, pure black metal band in the city, at least that I'm aware of, and rarely get any black metal gigs coming around here. There is basically no "scene" anyway. There are a few bands that I know of, and actually I just got acquainted with the bass player of a long standing death metal band who "liked" our facebook page. I will try to get a show with them once we begin gigging. I will also be joining a different black metal band on guitar, who are not from here, so I'm sure we'll do shows with them eventually.

About the facebook/bandcamp/reverbnation pages: I've done Reverbnation's Promote It! Campaign thing, and it did generate 253 "likes" for us in about a month, but there is very little interaction with the "fans" that have come to our Facebook page. I wonder if these people are just liking the page without actually browsing around to see what we're all about. I've had a Canadian guy tell me he'll buy a promo cdr and a shirt, and we have people from all over the world, mostly Mexico of all places, liking the page. It has also generated a lot of new plays for the current two songs, but not enough to really matter I suppose. We did jump up over 100 spots on Reverbnation's local rankings, and thousands on their national and global rankings, but we have since gone down because I can't afford the campaign anymore right now. I plan on doing this again in the future and also Facebook's ad generator as well, so perhaps this will help.

I've sent our promo cdr to at least 15 labels so far and have gotten one response back (not interested). The others either never respond or they respond by saying "we got your music, we'll let you know" and of course they never do. I've also sent the music to some zines, but they too have not responded. We will be reviewed by a Russian online zine called Black Sunrise once he gets the package I sent him, if he does at all I should say. We'll see.

I've used this site and a few other forums to spread the word, but there are some I browse that I'm not even bothering with, such as Full Moon and NWN! simply because those people are either idiots, elitists, or both and we wouldn't be their taste anyway since we don't have Fago in our name and don't sing about goatsodomyofchrist and have Chris Moyen artwork.

If any of YOU want to give us a listen I encourage you to check our Facebook page which is http://www.facebook.com/bloodwraith666. My name is Kevin or Wargoat if you prefer. Feel free to add me as a friend or like my band's page.

Thanks again. Sorry for the long post.

hand out some free demo CDs to people at shows. they'll most likely check it out. make sure to put the link to your website/facebook/whatever on the disc/sleeve too. hope this helps man, and good luck with your band.

Send me flyers of your bands and I will hand them out at different shows in Stockholm. If I get them before the 26th, I can hand them out at the Entombed gig. If I get them before May 16th, I can hand them out at Stockholm Deathfest!

PM me for details!

I actually gave away about 10-15 demos when my band played this last Friday. I'll definitely be making a few more copies if they do raise people's interests though I'm more interested in getting stuff recorded with our new guitarist. Either way, this is definitely a good idea and looks a lot better than telling people to get on your Facebook page. I suppose business cards and bumper stickers are good ideas, too.

Anyone else that want to send me flyers? I will hand them out at two club gigs and at Stockholm Deathfest!

Print Tapes, USB Drives or other novelty formats for some releases. Also, talk to a lot of merch dudes at concert shows, a lot of them have no problem putting your stuff with the rest of their stock, especially if its free. Not band merch guys, they might get mad, but those local labels that set up shop at shows, those guys tend to be really cool.

Actually, please PM me when your demo becomes ready. I liked what I heard. If it is at a reasonable price, I would be willing to buy a copy and shirt.