Have you grown weary of spending wasteless dollars sending promo material to jazz venues that only results in a low return on investment?
No need to feel slighted or embarrassed by your well meant marketing efforts.
There are some alternatives.
Club owners, booking agents, and talent referral services have expenses too. We can’t expect the majority of the groups mentioned to have the musician’s best interest in mind. Think of these opportunities as more or less a joint venture partnership.
Us jazz musicians are looking for a place to develop our music, hopefully have a sizeable crowd attend, and make a decent night’s wage.
Club owners simply need warm bodies to fill the place and buy drinks. Consider it a priveledge when dealing with one who really loves the music. There’s rent, liquor licenses, utilities, and employees to pay as well. The last thing on a club owner’s thing-to-do list is to cater to the jazz artists’ financial needs. Unfair as it seems, it’s just plain reality.
That’s ok! I have some ideas I’d like to share with you. A big mistake for us artists is exhausting energy marketing our services to the same old traffic. Why not get in front of some potential new and fresh traffic? What I’m alluding to is the whole idea of cross reference marketing.
Consider the following buzzwords when seeking alternative performance opportunities:
Organization
Corporation
Association
Non Profit
Society
Coalition
Collective
Union
Encyclopedia
Directory
The initial step in doing some research on the buzzwords I’ve listed is to locate a free and valuable resource sitting on your shelf right now; “The Yellow Pages”. Just that simple. Once you begin to thumb through the yellow pages using the buzzwords, you will discover a treasure of gold.
A source of comprehensive information I feel that’s completely ignored is the local library. Make the reference department of the public library your friend. Most reference librarians are eager to help solve problems and answer any research questions you may have. Contained in the reference library is just about any directory, encyclopedia, or repository of professional organizations on a local, regional, and international level. The majority of information from the public library can be accessed online as well.
Almost every professional field of endeavor has an extended organization, association, or meeting group. These professional groups hold and attend various events. You can also be guaranteed a public relations, human resources, or events coordinator.
Another powerful source of hidden treasure is to refer to most popular search engine, Google. Brainstorm a list of target professional groups and combine your query with some of the corresponding buzzwords in the search bar. From the Google search engine, you will again find even more hidden marketing assets. Yahoo directory is yet another source for more ideas. At the end of this post, I will list a software resource that will speed up your marketing research.
Begin to archive your results either using your favorite online bookmarking service, notepad on your computer, or a database software solution. I personally recommend File Maker Pro
Once you have a number of resources archived, now’s the time to begin establishing relationships with the events coordinator via phone. You’ll find that you may have better results with initial human contact as opposed to blindly sending a promo package via mail or email.
Be sure to spend some time out of your day to research and archive these alternative sources. These types of opportunities tend to be more lucrative monetarily, aiding in acquiring more gigs due to increased networking and referrals.
There will be more on this topic. I feel that it would be helpful to impart the information in bite size chunks. Good luck with your research!
Keep Swinging!
Andre Hayward
Here’s the research tool I promised to mention. It’s called the “Search Automator 3″. It’s purpose is to take a keyword, and within seconds, turn it into a treasure-trove of websites, ebooks, tutorials, resources, checklists, guides, tips, tricks, articles, MP3s, videos, images, and more. Check the video demo out.
Welcome back to the jazz musician marketing blog. Today’s post is on the topic of solidifying your business model. Knowing that seeking work as a jazz musician is like riding a seesaw, it’s ever so important for us musicians to have a clear map of how one’s business structure should be developed.
I’d like to suggest that you consider categorizing your business into three sections:
Business Theme
Niche Marketing
Music Business Identity
Business Theme:
This is the simplest part but important in order to really bring true validation to what we do. It’s simply a matter of knowing what industry we are participating in. There’s no need for me to even elaborate on this any further. We all know what this is.
Unique Niche:
By definition, a niche market is simply targeting to a small segment or subset within a particular industry.
This is by far the most important element of determining your business model. A grave danger in marketing jazz music is to try to market to any and everyone. Just from observing the various venues we perform in from jazz clubs, orchestra halls, to international festivals, it’s very easy to scope out the exact niche segments we should be marketing to. In future posts, I will go into more depth on the subject of niche marketing utilizing offline and online resources.
Music Business Identity :
Another important componet in the whole jazz business model determination is to realize ones true musical identity. In the tangible world of business, it is often labeled as:
USP- Unique Selling Proposition
UBP- Unique Business Proposition
UBI- Unique Business Identity
There’s more acronyms than the three listed.
In the jazz world, we’re more involved with intangible, spiritual elements if you will. Every musician brings something unique to the wellspring of improvisational music.
One’s musical identity is shaped and molded from birth. It’s a combination of upbringing, family values, religious beliefs, music you may have been exposed to from chidhood, education, and other musical peers. Once you begin to realize your musical identity, it not only solidifies your concept and approach to playing, most importantly it brings some focus to how your business plan will be constructed. You will no longer feel as if you’re shooting in the dark waiting for the phone to ring.
I would encourage everyone to take the time to determine your theme, niche, and identity. No need for an elaborate plan right now although there’s some great business plan software out there on the market.
Just grab a pen and piece of paper or open notepad on your computer and begin to write out this information. This will more or less be a skeletal framework for a more sophisticated business plan in the future.
I will eventually recommend some tools and resources that will help to bring this jazz business model to fruition in later posts. Just try this little exercise for now.
