Press Kits (What Are They?) | Wendy Day

Hi guys, thanks for tuning in. Wendy Day here. We're going to talk about press kits today, um, or media kits, whatever you want to call them. I call them press kits. And, um, you know, getting press as a new artist is probably one of the most challenging things that you're going to undertake. When you first reach out to press, unless you've got like a really strong movement or a strong buzz on the street, it may be difficult to get the blogs and, um, the media to cover you because there's just so many artists out here. Not only are there a lot of artists out here, but for the past couple of decades, there are artists who came before you that really looked good on paper. They had their shit together. They approached press, and then they just kind of disappeared after the press covered them. And it makes them look stupid, you know, especially on the internet when you can go back and you can look and see, you know, what has AllHipHop written about, you know, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, Hip Hop DX, um, you know, you can go back and you can see the artists that they kind of co-signed, and you can see who made it and who didn't. And when they co-sign somebody and that artist doesn't succeed, it really kind of makes them look stupid. So press is very careful now. They want to see that you're actually moving forward and you've got something going on before they cover you, which technically is smart. They're doing the right thing. I know you don't want to hear that, but it's reality. Um, and if you were doing their jobs, you would probably do the same thing. Um, I put together for you guys, um, because one of the things that you asked me when I first started doing these videos, um, one of the frustrations you had was you didn't have connections to like label A&Rs or the bloggers or music supervisors or radio folks. And I put together lists for you. They're over at rap-resources.com. And thank you because you guys have really been supporting Rap Dash Resources. I feel stupid saying Rap Dash Resources, but anyway, you guys have really been supporting it and I'm hugely thankful. Thank you very much. But what's happening is I can't speak for the areas outside of the blogs, but I'm getting bloggers that are reaching out to me telling me that you guys are mass emailing them. So what you're doing is you're taking the few hundred email addresses that are on that list, you're putting it into your MailChimp or your Constant Contact or whatever you use for your email provider, you're attaching your music and you're just blasting them. And they're not opening them. And what's happening is you're burning out the list for everybody else and for yourselves. It's just, it's not working, so you've wasted your money. Um, I thought I was pretty clear in the instructions when you bought it to reach out and build relationships with these folks, network with them. You'll get a lot further if they know who you are, and you'll get a whole lot further if they like and respect you. So if you handle yourself professionally— and if you don't want to do it, have somebody on your team do it. Like, if you're not comfortable making friends with a blogger, then have somebody to— have one of your girls do it. Like, have somebody do it. Have your boyfriend do it. Have somebody do it that has the gift of gab. Not somebody who's obnoxious, but somebody who is good at talking to people and charismatic. Um, in an ideal world, that should be you because you want to build the relationship. You want to make sure that going forward you can keep in touch with that person and let them know when you're coming to their town or you're doing a show that you want to invite them to, or you want to send them a t-shirt because you just started, um, your, your merchandise company. You really want to build that relationship, not somebody on your team. But if you suck at that, then at least have somebody around you do that. Um, but you want to reach out to these guys and build relationships. And you hear me say this in almost every video because it's that important. This is an industry where relationships matter. It's built on relationships, and I can't stress that enough. So when you're reaching out to the bloggers— and you don't have to buy a list to do this, you can do this by just paying attention to who's writing about whom on the blogs. You know, figure out who are the people that are writing about the style of music that you're making and reach out to them. You know, comment on their article, let them know that you're out there, let them know that you're reading it, let them know you're an artist too. Well, one of the things that you can do in order to make this easier for you and for them once you've built that relationship is you can put together a press kit. And I suggest you do this right on your website. Every, every artist's website should have a section for their press kit where they send journalists and bloggers and media and, you know, anybody that wants to write about them. Um, and I don't think early in your career you need an EPK. Um, EPKs are electronic press kits. And they're usually like full-blown and beautiful, you know. That's usually a video. It talks about, you know, who you are and what you've done. The reason I don't suggest that for a new artist is because sometimes when you get overly cinematic with what you're bringing to people, they expect you to be further along in your career than you are. And my concern is that a really fancy EPK can hurt you more than help you, meaning you've got all these beautiful graphics and words moving and it's a video and it's sexy and your music is playing in the background, but you've done 3 shows, you have a buzz, you know, barely in your own city, and you sound like other rappers because you haven't quite found your sound yet and you don't have a fan base. And my concern is that you're bringing attention to that more than you're bringing attention to everything. So I would keep it very professional and very simple at first. Once you get to a level where you're starting to get a strong buzz, then do an EPK and then draw like cinematic attention to yourself. But don't, don't shortchange yourself by running before you learn how to crawl, right? You want to crawl, walk, run. You don't want to just go right to run because it's just going to make you look stupid. So, um, I would put a section on your website. I would call it press or press kit, you know, however you want to name it. And it's just a place where it makes it easy for the bloggers and journalists and writers to find information on you. Not just for, for, for writers and bloggers, but anything where somebody wants to reach out to you. It's a great place to send media supervisors when you're submitting music for film and TV and video games, you know, because it's got all of your information there. It's a— it's one-stop shopping about who you are. Um, if somebody wants to invite you on a podcast, it's a great place to send them so that they can see exactly who you are. Okay, so, um, after you've networked and you've reached out to these, um, magazines and blogs and, and media in general, um, you send them the link to your website. And on— at that link, you're going to have photographs of yourself. You're going to have, um, your logo, and you want to have both high resolution and low resolution because you just don't know which they're going to need. And you're going to want to mark clearly what each file is for them to grab, whether it's high res or low res. You definitely want to have your music on there, or links to your music is fine. You want to have your SoundCloud links, your AudioMac links, links to your YouTube video. What else do you want to have on there? You want to have your bio on there that explains like who you are and what you've done and where you come from, you know, what your inspirations are, what drives you, what makes you different from every other rapper out here. You want to have a list of the shows and maybe the attendance that has occurred at those shows. So if you're performing in front of— if you're performing at venues in front of 1,200 people or 1,500 people, that's more impressive than if you're doing shows for 300 to 500 people. So you may want to mention that. You know, I'm at a point where I'm doing shows at— in venues of 800 to 1,000. They're selling out, um, and you know, I'm going within a 3-state radius or a 5-state radius from my home base. You know, that's the kind of stuff that journalists are looking for. Don't lie, you know, be accurate, because if they, um, if they research it and they find you out, then it's going to be hard to get press in the future. Um, you definitely want to tell them what's special about you. You know, you don't want to— you don't ever want to compare yourself to another artist. Um, I know that I tend to do that when I'm talking to my friends about artists. I'll say, yeah, he's like a mixture of Drake and J. Cole, or she's a mixture of Nicki Minaj with a little Bahamadia thrown in. But you don't want to do that with press. You don't want to, you don't want to get so specific that you're comparing yourself to other artists. You want to stand out. If you're a little bit more commercial like a Drake or J. Cole, say that I'm a little more commercial. If you're a little more underground like Bahamadia, you know, talk about how you're a little bit more underground. Talk about, you know, the, the area where you came up and the types of shows you're doing. You know, if you say you're more lyrical, it's gonna be obvious that you're a little bit more underground. If you're mainstream, it means you're a little bit more pop. So, you know, if your fan base is mostly colleges, you're probably a little bit more lyrical. If your fan base is largely high schools and you've got kids posting dances on Musical.ly, then, you know, you're definitely more pop. So you can sometimes say who you are without comparing yourself to other artists, and that's important. I don't think you should ever compare yourself to anybody. Um, list your social media statistics. Talk about how many YouTube views you're getting in general, you know, how many likes and followers you have on Instagram. You know, if you've, if you've got an Instagram page of 240,000 people, you should mention that. If you've got an Instagram page of 3,000, you probably shouldn't mention that. So, you know, lean to your strengths. Talk about things that, that you've got going on that are an asset to what you're doing. If you've had articles already written about you, put the links there of those articles and the press that you've gotten. If you haven't gotten a lot of press, you can put quotes from people in the music industry in that spot, especially if it's other artists or key DJs, you know, people that are known in the music industry. Like, if you've got a quote from TJ, from TJ's DJs, put it on there. You know, if you've got a quote from Funkmaster Flex, put it on there. If you've got a quote from the biggest DJ in your area, put it on there. Anything that will stand out, um, and, and help people to see how others see you would be very helpful. You know, even if it's not a quote about your music, you know, if, if, if you've got a DJ saying, yeah, he's, he's the hardest working artist here in, you know, Tiny Town USA, then put that. That's a benefit, you know. People want to know more about you, and that doesn't mean just your music. They want to know your background. Where are you from? You know, what's your backstory? So, um, you're gonna put in your story and how you got started, who you are, like what you stand for, what makes you different from everybody else out there. Of course, if you've sold, um, units, you want to mention that. Um, like right now, Trouble streams 5 million streams combined on all of his platforms a month. That's impressive. So we're, you know, in, in his, um, media kit, it's going to talk about how he streams 5 million times a month, you know. Um, where are you located? Again, I can't stress this enough, you want to talk about where you're from. And I wouldn't just say like, I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, or I'm from Oakland, California. Like, talk about the benefit of being where you're from. Talk about what you like about your city, you know. Is your city really supportive of up-and-coming artists, or are you struggling in your city? You know, I wouldn't go negative. I wouldn't complain about, yeah, there's so many haters and crabs in a barrel in my market. But you might say something like, yeah, I'm succeeding even though my market is a struggle. You know, don't be shy in telling them, you know, what you're going through and where you're coming from. Again, don't complain, but let them know, you know, hey, this is where I'm from and I'm succeeding in spite of all odds. People like that. People like the underdog story. People really like the underdog story. If you've got somebody on your team that stands out, talk about your team. You know, one of the, um, early selling points in Trouble's bio was that I'm working with him, and there are some press people out there who don't care, and there's some press people out there that really love me. So when he has me mentioned in his press kit, those who love me think it's wonderful. Those who don't, you know, won't care. Um, make sure there's a contact to reach you on there. You may want to set up an email address just for press so that they feel a little bit special, um, like a press@wendyday.com or, um, pressforwendy@gmail.com. But an address that's specifically for them and an address that you give some importance to, like it comes right to your phone and phone and you get notified when somebody reaches out to you. The last thing you want is to have somebody reach out to you and you get back to them a week later or 10 days later because you forgot to check your email. So give them a specific email address. I wouldn't put my phone number on there if I were you, unless you've got like a Google Voice or an office number, because there are rabid fans who are going to find this page, and if your phone number's on there, they're going to call you. So it should be your manager or, you know, somebody that's doing booking for you, somebody other than yourself, unless you have an email address and then it can come right to your phone. And then you can respond immediately. If you've gotten any awards or recognition, you know, if you're the hottest mixtape king in Tampa, Florida and you won that distinction 2 years in a row, that should be on this page. You want to put footage from live shows, not a lot. I would suggest maybe a compilation of different shows that you've done, and when you, when you have the, the, the show footage shot, don't just have somebody in the audience shooting you. Make sure that, um, somebody's like on stage and they can see the audience, unless you've got 10 people in the audience, then don't do that. But for the most part, you not only want to show somebody that you can control a crowd and that your show is awesome, but you want to show them the fan reaction and you want to show them that people actually come to see you perform. If nobody's coming to your shows, if you're not doing shows yet, leave this off. Don't do that. Um, and if you, if you're doing any volunteer stuff, you know, the artist that, that I work with, um, we do a lot of, um, stuff to give back to the community. We do, uh, we feed the homeless, we speak at Boys and Girls Clubs, and I would put that stuff in there, you know, unless it's something that you're doing and you're doing it quietly, then don't put it in there. But I wouldn't be shy to tell somebody that you know, my community matters to me and I play a part in my community and I give a shit. So if you're feeding the homeless, you know, put a couple of photos on there. You know, I wouldn't brag about it, but I would let them know that, you know, this is something that I do and it's important to me. So basically that's what a press kit is, and it's a great— it's a great idea to have it all in one place so that as you're building the relationship with the bloggers, they can go to one place and see all the information about you. They may not write about you the first time you send them there. They may not write about you the second time. The point is that you're keeping in touch with them every couple weeks or every few weeks to let them know what you've got going on. You're updating them without being obnoxious. And, um, my best suggestion about press is to hire a publicist not early in your career, but when you've got something going on, when you've got some movement, because publicists have relationships with the bloggers and they know who to hit. They know which ones are easy to get, um, to get to cover you and which ones aren't so easy. And you build up, you kind of reach out to the low-hanging fruit, and then with your next press release that you send out, you're gonna, you're gonna go to that next level and then the next level and then the next level, and and you keep building and building and building until you get all the way to the most popular blogs and websites and magazines. So that's my spiel on press kits. And, um, again, thank you guys for supporting the WrapDash resources list. I think that's awesome. And please make sure that you utilize it in the way that it's going to help you the best. If you're going to spend money for it, just make sure you get your money's worth out of it. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in. See you soon.