How To Build A Buzz | Wendy Day Speaks On Building Your Career

Wake the kids and phone the neighbors, I'm back! Okay, today we're going to talk about how to put out your own music. Um, those of you who know me know that I don't believe in getting signed to a major label, or if your goal is to get signed to a major label, you need to build a buzz in your local area so that you can attract the type of deal that is going to lead to success, right? Because the, the goal in the music business is building a successful career, not necessarily in getting a record deal, right? So let's talk about how you build that buzz. Or for those of you out there who don't need a record label because you know you can do this yourself, you've got some sort of entrepreneurial spirit, um, this video is for you. So wherever you live is your, is your target market, right? But you need to go a little bit bigger than just the block you live on. You want to go a little bit bigger than your neighborhood. You want to go a little bit bigger than your city. You want to go even a little bit bigger than your state. The idea here is that you need to build awareness about you as an artist in as large an area as possible so that you can find as many fans as possible. You're going to need to reach hundreds of thousands of people in order to gather a small group of fans, okay? So you're gonna go, you're gonna go wide, you're gonna go large. The way that I do it with my clients is we draw a circle on a map around where we're based, and that circle is usually— and it depends on the budget— but that circle is somewhere between a 3-hour driving range and a 5-hour driving range. So I'm gonna draw a circle on the map around the area where I am, 3 hours out in every direction, okay? That is now your target market, and you're going to work that market effectively. You're going to go from town to town, city to city, depending on where you're located, and you're going to spread your music. In the South, we still give out CDs because they're still relevant. In the Northeast, we give out download cards because CDs are no longer relevant. However people in your area receive music and listen to music, that's how you want to get the music to them. In addition, you also want to work the internet very heavily. You want to make sure that your social media is consistent and on point, that you're engaging people, not just spamming them with your music, but actually engaging them and bringing them into your franchise, into your, you know, to join your fan base. Your goal is to have fans. You also wanna make sure that your music is on every platform that a fan would go to to listen to music, whether that's YouTube, whether that's Spotify, whether that's SoundCloud, whether that's Audiomack. Wherever people go to consume music, you want to be on that platform so that they have the chance of discovering you. If you need distribution, you can go through a company like TuneCore where you pay a flat fee to upload a single or an album, and then they get you into iTunes and on Apple Music and Spotify and all the different places— Pandora— all the different places where people consume music. You want to make sure that you're going around in these different areas and meeting people, shaking hands, kissing babies, taking pictures. You want to make sure that you're meeting potential fans and engaging them just like you're engaging them online. You want to be able to do this in person because just doing this online is not enough. You need to go out into the real world and do this as well. So by now you've probably figured out that you need some kind of a budget to to be able to do this. You need some money to be able to print posters, postcards, download cards, CDs, gas money. Um, and the reason that we choose an area that's a 3-hour driving range or a 5-hour driving range is so that if you're really broke, all you have to worry about is gas. If you're 3 hours from home, you can leave in the morning and you can come back late at night. You can stay at home instead of having to get a hotel room for $50 or $100 or whatever hotel costs in your area. The smaller towns are easier to work than the larger towns. When I work with somebody, for example, here in Atlanta where I'm based, we make sure to hit Greenville, South Carolina, we hit Macon, we hit Columbia, South Carolina, we hit Augusta, we hit Columbus, Georgia, we hit Macon, we hit, um, Birmingham, Alabama, Montgomery, Mobile, Alabama. Huntsville. We make sure that we're targeting all of the cities outside of Atlanta before we come back in and spend money on Atlanta. Again, you're doing that 3-hour to 5-hour driving radius all around you, and you want to make sure that you're in as many of those markets as often as you can be. You're spreading your music, you're meeting people, you're hitting barbershops, you're going to flea markets, you're going to malls, you're going to high schools, you're going to colleges. You've got to really get out there, and, and it's like running for election. You got to really get out there and show people who you are. Let them interact with you, take pictures with them, post them on your Instagram page, get them to post it on their Instagram page, and spread accordingly. And hopefully you'll start to see a change in your fan base. I know your numbers will go up just naturally. So thanks for tuning in, and we'll get into more detail in this as we go along. Peace.