I began doing SEO in late 1999.  It took me about 18 months to really get the hang of it, as back then there was very little information on SEO.

I was solely responsible for the marketing of my small company (eight people).

The economic collapse hit in 2001, just as the great revenue gains I was generating were kicking in.  And as the economy got worse, my SEO achievements accelerated.  I built many different websites so that each of the four salesmen could operate their own brand.  By doing so, the company would have not just a number one rank for our keywords, but often four.

Our revenue grew and grew, seemingly immune from the economic downturn.  As the overall market decreased for our industry, our market share increased faster.

An article in today’s NY Times describes a merchant who is doing the same, but with paid search.

The merchant has increased  his revenue by doubling his conversion rate, his bid, and his marketing budget.

Think of all the companies out there spending significant amounts on brand campaigns, yet are budget constrained in paid search.

The right move for these marketers is to drastically cut, or eliminate, their under performing non-search campaigns and maximizing their investments in search.

One of the mistakes I see marketers make frequently is they have delusions about how much “passion” visitors should have on their site.

The experience of surfing the Internet is distant, cold, and removed.  The digital, satellite enabled transmission of data does not cater to emotional seduction.

People insult one another on message boards and through email because the reality of personal presence does not exist.   It’s far too easy to flame someone remotely than in person.  And it happens all the time.

Let me ask you a question.

How many websites can you name for which you feel a warm, personal, spiritual relationship with?  How many interactions have you had with websites that have left you breathless?

I know that right now, you are thinking hard.

Websites cannot give us what people can. Marketers too often forget this.  They want code base to connect with people the only way people can.

I can’t think of one website that has inspired me by way of aesthetics.  The most value I have experienced has been through the cold and clean interface of Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Google.

Websites deliver information.  I want that information quickly so I can go back into the world where my sense are more than virtually stimulated.

Just give information.

Musicians are no longer looking to the major labels as the silver-bullet they once were in order to launch careers.

Tonight I am on a panel discussing marketing for musicians, and I thought I’d put some of my ideas on this blog to centralize my thoughts.

1. Put Google Analytics (GA) on your website.  It’s free, and it’s a great way of tracking how many people go to your website, how they got there, which pages engaged them, and a lot more.  Ask your webmaster to install it, and you can log into GA to view a fanastic world of information.
2. Make sure your website looks professional - if it looks bad, you appear lame.
3. Send your music to online distributors.  You can use Community Musician for this.
4. Send your CD to Pandora - they require a unique submission process.
5. Use social networking sites.  I’m not going to go into the details here, but I highly recommend reading The New Influencers by Paul Gillin.  You’ll learn a lot about how to work with bloggers and social networking sites.
6. Send out press releases.  You can do so for as little as $80 on PR Web.  PR Web has tutorials on successful press releases, but I also suggest researching the topic online or buying a book.  You will want to not only use PR Web, but also send releases directly to journalists.  Make sure you understand how to write a good press story (hence the research).
7. Make friends.  Whether these are other bands, journalists, club owners, or engineers - everyone you befriend becomes an asset.
8. Have a newsletter and use a real service.  I suggest Vertical Response.  Again, research email marketing so you leverage the power of email.
9. Hire a stylist.  Image is more important than it should be.
10. Consider raising money through your fan base.  Check out what we did for Spencer Day.  (Go to the homepage and look at the left column for two ways to fund Spencer).
11. Consider writing a song about a topic with high profile.  For example, my band wrote a song about Al Franken. I sent the CD to his radio show, and I saw hundreds of visits per day for weeks after he apparently played it on his radio show.
12. Use Wikipedia.  The bass player in my band has a famous grandfather (Arthur Hailey).  We edited that page to note the fact that Ryan is in a band in San Francisco.  We get traffic every day from that page. The more you associate yourself with topics that are searched for online, the more traffic you can siphen.
13. Use paid search to bid on names of bands that might share a common fan base with you.  If this sounds confusing, research it on Google AdWords.
14. Be honest with yourself.  Some musicians are destined to be obscure because of their esoteric music.  Ask people you trust for their honest opinion about your music so you can set your expectations.  Maybe you need voice lessons.  Make sure you have someone you trust giving you the brutal truth.  At the same time, believe in yourself.
15. Having money helps.  If you choose a low-paying job so that you have more time for music, you have less money to move forward.  A musician I know rented out a high-profile club for $6000 so he could play on a Saturday night.  He spent money on marketing and nearly broke even.  After the event, he realized it cost him about $1000 to play a high profile club in front of hundreds of people.  That might pay off in the long run, if it doesn’t he still doesn’t mind spending $1000 to play gigs other musicians dream of.

That’s all for now - I have more ideas but I just wanted to start off with a quick list of things you can do for your career.

I was watching that wonderful show Mad Men this wkend about an ad agency in the 50’s.

Lucky Strike was a client.  A report came out in Readers Digest that introduced people to the idea that maybe smoking was harmful.

The Creative Director (CD) was taking a lot of heat from the client over how he would respond to the news.

The CD didn’t want to respond to the article, and so the meeting got very heated and the owners of Lucky Strike stood up, angrily, and began to leave the room.

In a last act of salvation, the Creative Director said, “tell me, what is the first step in making your cigarettes?”

The owner said, “we take the tobacco and we toast it.”

The CD wrote on the wall, “Lucky Strike, It’s Toasted”.

The owner said, “so what, all the other companies toast their tobacco as well.”

The CD said, “yea, but they don’t tell you that, so they don’t.  When the conversation with your consumers is going somewhere bad, change the topic and say something irrelevant that sounds good.”

It’s Toasted.  Account retained.