A question from Misty the Manager



Dear John Doe,
I manage the band Western Civ who are in the process of releasing their
new album, "Shower The People You Love With Gold" which was produced and
engineered by Mitch Easter who has worked with REM, Pavement and
Dinosaur Jr. to name a few. We are really excited about sharing this
album and are set to release on March 17th. This is
the largest release I have ever run personally, so my question to you is
this:

What should our top priorities be in releasing this album and getting it
heard? We've gotten a lot of advice like: constantly tour, hire a
publicist, hire a radio promoter, set up an advertising campaign, use
social media marketing, be on internet radio, pitch music bloggers,
release the record on bit torrent etc. The list goes on and on. We are
releasing this record on our own so we have the resources to do
"everything". Where should we focus our efforts?

I've gotten a lot of varying input thus far and would love to hear your
advice!

Many Thanks in Advance!



Misty Dawn
Manager, Western Civ
www.westerncivrock.com <http://www.westerncivrock.com/>
www.twitter.com/westernciv <http://www.twitter.com/westernciv>
***come follow us here!***
www.myspace.com/westernciv <http://www.myspace.com/westernciv>



WWJDD?

Hey Misty,
From what I hear & what I've seen now-a-days, you certainly should
concentrate on getting directly to the people. This means plenty of
touring. It's the cheapest form of promotion & gets to the heart of the
music. Yes! pitch music bloggers, do everything you can on the
social/community networks & market through them. This sort of takes the
place of an advertising campaign which can be fuckin' expensive. Having
said that, a well connected publicist who loves & champions yr record,
cannot be undervalued. They have relationships w/ writers that can get
good placement/attention. One can argue that music mags are on the way
out but I still believe they have great power & validate the word of
mouth. Personally I haven't met or seen the result of a radio
programmer that's worth pushing them out of the way of a careening 5 ton
truck, why bother? You definitely need a marketing plan, no matter how
modest. If yr the record company, just ask yrself how much does it cost
& what can I get back from the effort. Obviously what doesn't cost much
more than time invested is yr best bet. Especially if the reward will
be long range.
Hope this helps and as always, thanks for writing.


yrs,
Jd



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