Street
Teams and Credit Card Machines: Make the most of every gig
by Jesse Gray (with excerpts
provided by Tony van Veen and Evan Koch)
The most lucrative, and
perhaps most neglected avenue for generating income for an independent
artist is the gig. It’s not just a chance to play on a stage,
it’s an opportunity to reach new fans and earn some real money.
First off, there’s a good chance your payment from the club
is directly tied into attendance, so it behooves you to promote like
mad and get bodies through the door. More people in the club usually
means more money in your pocket, and it means more opportunities to
sell your merchandise and CDs.
Most people who go to see live music, especially independent artists,
are very open to finding – and buying – new music. They
want to be included in something new and underground. This represents
a great opportunity for indie artists to make the most of a gig.
Enlisting your fans
So let’s talk about gig promotion. Think of it in terms of pre-publicity,
similar to commercials that run for an upcoming TV show. The network
doesn’t just spring the show on you one night without any forewarning
– they want you talking about it, and setting aside your time
to participate in watching. The same model translates to live shows.
Before you ever hit the stage you want one thing surrounding your
upcoming performance, those coveted words… a buzz.
Generating a buzz can seem like a daunting logistical task, but it
doesn’t have to be. You have valuable assets available that
you may not even realize: fans. This is where street teams
can make your life and your show promotion a whole lot easier. By
shouldering some of the burden of hanging up posters, spreading info
by word-of-mouth, and handing out flyers, you can create a buzz while
concentrating on your performance and on selling yourself and your
wares to a larger audience.
Here’s how it works. An artist puts a link on its website titled
‘join our street team.’ The people who click on that link
are cataloged, and maybe given a free gift for offering to help. Then,
when something’s just about to happen (e.g. a concert, a CD
release, etc.), you send your street team volunteers some more pointed
goodies – flyers, posters, stickers, and maybe a couple of CD’s.
In exchange for distributing the promo materials and requesting your
song on the local radio stations, the street teamer gets some physical
goodies (a T-shirt or an autographed CD). But more importantly, they
get access; they get to be part of the show. Often enough, when you
upgrade a fan from being a customer to being part of the organization,
they will respond favorably – accepting their new and exciting
role as freelance promoter.
Though street teams are the example of this technique that have a
name associated with them, there are plenty of other ways to execute
this simple principle. If your CD is ‘out for play’ at
a local radio station, make sure your fans have access to the request
line. If you customarily give out stickers to your fans, give out
two at a time and ask them to pass one on to a friend.
It’s also important that you don’t restrict your thinking
about this phenomenon to the physical world of posters and CDs. In
this day and age, your fans may be just as likely to get their information
(and their music) online as they are at stores. Though the mechanics
are different, the principle here is similar to what Street Teams
aim for: making people feel like they’re part of the organization.
A great starting point for this effort is baked into the online social
networking experience. Through these portals (e.g. MySpace, PureVolume,
indie911), your fans can post messages, spread the word about your
band, and make your music part of their personal pages.
There are plenty of other ways to get your fans involved. Encourage
people to bring cameras to your shows. In addition to getting extra
band photos (which are too often in short supply), you also get the
chance to acknowledge your fans in a public way: by putting the photos
on your web site with a thank you to the photographer. Human nature
says that there’s a good chance the photographer will respond
by emailing his/her friends to take a look.
The Gig
Now that you’ve successfully employed your fans and street teams
to help promote your show, you have an eager audience available at
your marketing fingertips. They are there to see you, they want to
be involved, and chances are that they want to continue that feeling
of connection, even after the house lights come on and they go home.
All too often the only active selling artists do at a gig is a quick
shout out from the stage that they have CDs for sale in the back of
the club. You can be missing an extremely important opportunity to
market yourself directly to a captive audience.
Here are a few tips to get you started on your way to merch table
domination:
• When you’re on stage, mention that you have cool merch
for sale at the table in the back. And mention how much, or better,
how affordable it is (“Only $15!”). If you keep it a secret
that you have merch for sale, you won't sell any.
• Prominently display your merch in a high-traffic area. Close
to the entrance or exit is good, or on the way to the rest rooms.
You want to pick an area where lots of potential customers will be,
and then display your items attractively.
• Keep prices reasonable and attractive, and be sure to list
those prices clearly on or next to the items you’re selling.
• Buying is contagious, so you’re probably losing more
than one sale when you let that first guy drift past. Get your friends
and relatives to make their purchase at a gig, where ‘on the
fence’ types can see it and get the idea.
• An effective way to move a lot of product in a hurry is to
bundle CD sales with admission to the club. Rather than selling a
$7 cover and a $10 CD, you sell a $15 all-in-one. Such agreements
can benefit both the club and the artists, but club owners often greet
such deals suspiciously. You might need a good relationship and track
record with the club before pitching this.
• Sell a range of garments: custom t-shirts, baby doll tees,
long sleeve tees, custom baseball caps, zipper hoodies. The more options
you offer, the more customers you'll appeal to. And sell CDs too.
• Make sure the person working your merch table is a sales person
who actively encourages customers looking at a CD to also take a look
at a t-shirt.
• Offer bundles: If you sell a CD for $12 and a shirt for $15,
sell both for $25 (a $2 savings).
• Offer something free with purchase: a poster, sticker, or
maybe even a copy of an old CD whose sales have cooled off. Tell your
audience that the first 50 people to buy a shirt get a free copy of
your first CD. Or tell them you’ll be signing CDs at the table
later. Anything to get folks to come to your merch table.
• Accept credit cards. CD Baby has an excellent program which
allows you to get your very own credit card swiper, which you can
take to your gigs and which will help you sell a lot more merchandise.
