This episode of the IAMN: I Am Northbound podcast is brought to you by The 4D Songwriter: How to Dominate the New Music Industry. Get your copy of this game-changing book at the4dsongwriter.com.
Episode Summary
In episode #24 of IAMN: I am Northbound, Jayson talks about;
How you can get your music reviewed in press publications, an amazing opportunity in a strange genre and how you can use 100 Posts (our free resource) to create an endless stream of content.
How to Get Your Music Reviewed by Press
In this segment of IAMN: I Am Northbound, I tell you the mistakes I see music artists making when contacting press publications. So many of these mistakes are easily fixable — but most people aren’t even aware that they’re required to do a little more than just send a simple email.
Overview
Do your research. Nothing is faster than light, but I’d guess a journalist hitting the delete button on an email after seeing the artist hadn’t done their research would come pretty close. You must know who you’re sending your request out to. Research the publication and know they are a good fit first. Never send out emails that aren’t personalised.
Don’t aim for the big publications. It’s a big mistake to email the big publications while you are unknown. I get it. They’ve got big audiences. But they’re also super hard to get on. Smaller publications have more dedicated readers and are more likely to say yes.
Carefully choose your tone. The tone you email in should reflect the publication and their culture. If you go in too professional (for a lighthearted publication) they might dismiss you. If you go in too relaxed at a professional publication, they might consider you unprofessional and dismiss you.
Send your email at the right time. Don’t send emails when they’re convenient to you, send it when it’s convenient to the recipient. Consider timezones. Don’t send Monday morning. After lunch on a Tuesday or Wednesday works best for me.
Know exactly who you are emailing. Nothing is more unprofessional than a generic ‘to whom it may concern’ that is followed by begging for a review or publicity. Research the journalist and know exactly who you are emailing before you do!
Always follow up. Silence almost never means no. A ‘no’ means no. So keep following up every few days until you get an answer. Sometimes people don’t reply because they were busy at the time you sent the email and they forgot to open it.
Follow these steps and you will stand a much better chance of getting your music reviewed and written about in publications.
An Unexpected Opportunity for Free Exposure
In this segment of IAMN: I Am Northbound, I want to tell you another opportunity for exposure that I’ve stumbled across that I genuinely believe is a big deal for music artists in most genres. The potential exposure (and collaboration) is huge — you could be exposed to hundreds of thousands of committed listeners. How? Beatboxing. Well, not by YOU beatboxing… By… well, look. I’ll tell you how if you press play.
Overview
So, if you’ve followed me for a while, you’d know that I sometimes like to talk about big opportunities that I see within the music industry.
Opportunities that have the potential to bring big exposure.
Opportunities that have the potential to move you closer toward your biggest music dreams.
Opportunities that also might be a little outside of the box.
On my second podcast episode ever (not IAMN, another one) I talked about how Facebook had just launched Watch and how no one was taking advantage of it, but insisted you should —
As I knew Facebook were putting a ton of effort into its launch and knew that any creative that embraced it early would find free and easy exposure to new audiences.
Fast forward a year or so later and the early adopters of Facebook Watch are dominating.
I’m telling you this to convince you that this new idea is worth your time and effort, as I am aware it sounds a little… strange.
More or less, I predict that the beatbox community will be huge soon.
It already has seen exponential growth over the last few years — don’t believe me? Google the beatbox championships and watch their most popular videos and try to tell me that it isn’t the coolest thing!
The most important thing? They’ve built their community as a family. There is no separation between the ‘artist’ and the ‘crowd’ (metaphorically speaking).
This incredible culture has bred a fanbase full of incredibly passionate listeners that are always looking for new content in this exciting new space.
I believe that any artist that creates a ‘cover’ of one of these beatboxers original songs (while turning it into their own sound, of course, with instruments) stands a big chance of being shared to that beatboxers fanbase, a fanbase full of highly committed listeners that will pay you attention.
There’s much more to it than I can explain in this caption, so go to my profile and watch this segments episode on IGTV — I give the full method there.
It’s strange, it’s exciting, it’s outside of the box — and if you take advantage of it, I know it will be worth your time.
Create an Unlimited Supply of Content
In this segment, I want to tell you how you can use 100 Posts (our free resource) to create an endless supply of content for your audience. Your days of not knowing what to post to your audience will be a thing of the past! Inside 100 Posts you’ll find (literally) 100 ideas for the content you could create to move your listeners closer toward becoming true fans of your music. And it’s 100% free. You won’t pay a cent. All I ask you to do is answer a few (anonymous) questions about your music journey, so I am able to continue to provide relevant content for your music career. Get your copy at listenpages.com/100-posts/
Overview
I’ve worked with a lot of music artists over the years.
And I tell every single one of them to post more on social media.
Because I know that they aren’t.
And even if we’ve never worked together, I know that you aren’t either — we can all do more to take advantage of the free exposure social media brings.
I’m posting daily and it is still nowhere near enough.
Realistically, I should be posting three times that.
Most music artists will not believe me when I say that posting three times per day is ideal, as they cannot fathom creating that much content consistently.
That’s why in my book, The 4D Songwriter: How to Dominate the New Music Industry, I created a step-by-step plan of how any music artist can create 21 pieces of high-quality content — content that will move listeners toward becoming true fans — with it only taking up a few hours each week.
So, when I tell music artists to post more high-quality music content, they will usually say the same thing:
“But Jayson, I have no idea what to post!”
I kinda got over hearing that, so I spent some time and listed ONE HUNDRED (yes, 100) ways that you can use for inspiration in creating you content for your followers.
The best thing?
It’s evergreen!
This means that each point of inspiration can be used countless times.
Essentially, this means that this one resource will mean that you will never run out of content.
So, how do you get it?
Well, I’m not going to charge for this.
I’m sure others would, but I won’t.
All I ask is that you answer a few (anonymous) questions about your music journey, so that I can continue to provide YOU with high quality content of my own.
If you are cool with taking 2 minutes to answer a few questions in order to get an unlimited supply of content inspiration:
Go to listenpages.com/100-posts and get your copy today.
You can watch this episode above or on IGTV.
Or you can listen to it on your favourite podcast platform!
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