On a "pro blogging" site/ forum I participate on, one of the members made mention of promoting his small record label and how he was always getting requests for freebies/ review copies. It was too time-consuming and costly for him to satisfy everyone.

I suggested putting sound bites up on his site, getting artists to blog about their road trips, and maybe even have an occasional podcast. The latter two items, blogs and podcasts, would require a having a web feed.

Having once published a print magazine that received and reviewed several dozen music CDs weekly, it got me to thinking. Why not carry the promotion a bit further? Now, the likelihood of one of you readers having a record label may be small, but not impossible. But the principles here can be applied to authors and other creative types. (See part 2 for tips on promoting an author.)

Step 1: build a feed. Record labels have a high frequency of new "content" options: concert listings, new releases, new signings, parting of ways, awards, chart listings, and more. This is prime content with which to build a web feed. Since the best way to announce all of this "dated" information is arguably a blog, you'll have an automatic RSS/ Atom feed as a result.

Step 2: include the artists. The label's about the artists, right? Educate the artists about how important promotion is, and have them blog. Fans want to know about the experiences artists have on the road. I know that when I interviewed musicians, they often complained about how some other writer misunderstood them. So why not pick a few select musicians and managers from your roster and have them make their own weekly reports. Your blogmaster would then pace the publishing of each report so that they don't all show up on the same day. Some blog platforms even let you phone in blog entries from the road - ideal for touring artists. (See AudioBlogger, who have a partnership with Google's Blogger.com.)

Step 3: add a podcast. In addition to voice log entries from artists, include bonus podcasts from live shows and/or interviews. Depending on your goals, podcasts can be full-length or excerpts. Promote the existence of the podcast on CD covers, concert flyers, the website, and the blog.

Step 4: add premium content. Add bonus pre-release audio content (podcast), as well as digital reproductions (PDF or JPEG) of concert posters. Depending on your level of marketing, consider doing what Icon Buffet does with their free icons: electronically deliver different icon sets to each subscriber, then recommending that they swap with each other. What a great way to create some buzz. Do this with concert posters via an online account, promoted through your web feed. Do the same with EP (Extended-Play) recordings, if appropriate.

Step 5: provide review copies electronically. Now for the idea that sparked this post: a way to provide legitimate reviewers with review copies of your artists' music. The simple answer is to build an alternate web feed that provides an entire CD via podcast. Of course, you don't want just anyone to be able to access it (or maybe you do). The simplest method of controlling access is to have confirmed music reviewers register. You can even go so far as to limit access via a controlled list of IP addresses. If you have a lot of resources and cash, you could snail-mail USB hardware keys to reviewers. Or partner with record chains to distribute these keys when a reviewer displays their photo id and credentials.

Finally, since reviewers are often disliked by fans, play a trump card and allow select fans (via an RSS-promoted contest?) to review a pre-release set of tracks. Several blog platforms allow you to set up a community whereby visitors can register and have their own blog. Promote some of these fan reviews to the main blog, keeping in mind that web feeds can be a promotional tool for your main website, and do not have to stand on their own.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://www.chameleonintegration.com/

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