Promo Cards That Stand Out | Wendy Day After DIY Conference

Hi guys, how are you? Wendy Day here. So I'm just back from the CD Baby conference, and you know how I'm always talking to you guys about how to stand out. Um, what I did while I was there was I picked up some of the materials that artists were giving out. Um, the reason that I found CD Baby effective for gathering this kind of intelligence for you guys is because it's all genres of music. It's not just rap. In fact, there were very little influence of rap there. CD Baby just doesn't seem to really do much outreach to the urban community. So there was a lot of rock, a lot of country. It was based in Nashville. It was in August of this year, 2017, but I brought a whole a sack of stuff. Um, first of all, I love these. I give these out for my artists as well. Um, they're relatively inexpensive. Um, we did a great run for Trouble with these. We did, um, camouflage with his logo in red. Uh, we gave them out initially in strip clubs for the strippers to pick up their dollars and put them in here. They were just easy for them to tote around. You can put them on your back, you can wear them. There's so many different things you could do. Um, then for our second Blitz with Trouble, we gave them out for back to school for, um, for kids, and we loaded them with supplies— pencils, pens, um, Post-it notes, books, uh, you know, notebooks, um, composition books, erasers, you know, all types of stuff, rulers. And that was a really successful thing. And again, we put his logo on the front. Um, I probably have one laying around here somewhere. But anyway, um, I utilized this so that I could show you guys some of the stuff that was being handed out at, um, at CD Baby. So I just want to show you guys like what I picked up. I didn't pick up everything, I just picked up like a cross-section. There was just too much shit to pick up. But what I did was I grabbed, um, lots of different examples so that we could all look at them together. Maybe you'll get some ideas for, um, how to promote yourself out here on the streets. Now, just because I picked these up at a conference doesn't mean that these are only for use at a conference. We give out a lot of flyers and cards when we're on the road with artists. So many of you have even asked me, hey Wendy, what's a download card? I'm about to show you. So, um, the number one thing that always stands out in any package of stuff that I receive are, you know, flash drives. You know, these are the ones that plug into your computer or your laptop. They're great for DJs. This one does not have a logo on it. If you're going to do these, I suggest that you put your logo or your name or the name of your release on here so that when you give it to DJs, even if they wipe the drive of your music, um, they'll still have a, um, a knowledgeable reference to your name and who gave it to them. The brand for Trouble, we gave these out, but they were little gun shapes, and you've seen that if you've watched my videos because I did a whole thing on, uh, MP3 sticks. So there's all different sizes of cards that stand out. Um, I recognize these from moo cards.com. I use these when I was promoting my book to give out to people because they stand out. They can just tuck them in a pocket very easily, um, and they don't look like the typical other card. So when you see a bunch of business cards sitting on a table or um, a checkout counter, you know, the little cards kind of stand out, as do any cards that are unique shapes. Um, I love this card. I think it's really, really, really cool. Um, I thought that one stood out. This one stood out. Um, there's some square cards. I know my business cards, um, for what I do in real estate are squares, and they're super thick so that when I hand them to somebody They inevitably always complain that it doesn't fit in their Rolodex if they still collect cards the old school way, but they certainly stand out. Um, here's a really cool shape of a card that I picked up. It's very thick, as you can see. There's even a little bit of a color there on the in-between of the card. This one happens to be red. It looks like a CD player— like, I'm sorry, it's a cassette CD player. Where'd I get that? Uh, it looks like a cassette. It's got the lines um, like on the old cassette inlays. It's just a really cool card. It just stands out. Um, some guy walked up to me and handed me this origami cardinal. I thought this was really cool and it really stuck out, you know. Um, and then it says, "You are cardinal folk." I would like to have seen him put like a little bit more information on this. Because I have no idea who he was or what he does. I can't exactly Google Cardinal Folk. I mean, I guess I probably could, but I would have loved it if there was some information on here. I will never be able to put it back the way he had it, but I would love it if there was some information about his music or his product. Um, CD Baby itself has these download cards. I'm guessing they supply these to the artists for CD Baby. Um, and I'm only guessing that because there's so many of them. You're going to see quite a few of them for different artists, and they have the artist's artwork on the front. Um, and then it has a download code for CD Baby on the back. I'm not as big a fan of CD Baby as other folks are, but you know, the great thing about CD Baby is their splits are wonderful. Um, if I remember correctly, it's, uh, 91/9. So they're keeping 9% for the, you know, for the work that they do and their site, and they're paying through 91%. And the staff is outstanding at CD Baby, like in terms of them reaching out to you, they're pretty amazing. So here is a card that shows all of the different ways that you can reach the person. On the back, it's got their contact info. On the front, um, here's a producer. He chose to leave his back blank. Um, some cards are just, you know, they stand out because of the artwork on them. Um, some don't. Some artists put their face so that after you meet them, you'll remember who they are. Some just use bright colors. This looks like a Vistaprint card. Here's somebody's, um, it's blank on the back, and I'm not going to make you sit through all of these. I just want to show you like some of the ones that I grabbed. Um, here's that same person with a regular business card to match their promotional flyer. It's got some weight to it, it's a little bit thick. I really like a thicker card. They're a little more expensive than a typical business card but you can print 10,000 business cards for a couple hundred dollars and, you know, just give them out everywhere. Um, here's a flyer that I picked up from Digital Radio Tracker. Um, I love Digital Radio Tracker. It's the same front and back. I love Digital Radio Tracker. This one's a little bit busy, but they've got a lot that they're trying to say, so, um, I wanted to grab that because it stood out on the table. Um, here is a company called Louder. You guys know who Louder is. If you have a lot of information, you can press out something that looks a little bit like a CD book and give that out. Um, you guys are all familiar with triple-fold, um, brochures, right? Um, I don't see these a lot for artists. I don't recommend them. It's just too cumbersome for, for an artist to carry. Um, I'm showing you this for a reason. Give me one second to make my point here. Out of everything that I grabbed off of a table at CD Baby and that people handed me— and again, this is, um, outside of RAP— 2 CDs, and both of them are environmentally packaged. They're the, um, the cardboard packaging, which is kind of interesting, but it just shows you how much stuff has changed. A year ago, I would have come back with probably 20 CDs. 3 years ago, 5 years ago, I would have come back with only CDs. You know, it just— it's changed what people are giving out. Um, you saw me hold up this card before. What they did was they stapled it to their brochure to leave on a table and then gave out their business card as they met folks. Here are some inserts, CD inserts, that somebody pressed up to give you the feel for their, um, art and their style. I'm assuming that that's also going to be the artwork for the project. Here is a violinist. He has his picture on the back. Um, that's how I remembered that he was a violinist. These are just some more business cards to give you a feel. This one's a little bit classier. I'm a little more sophisticated. I really like that card, it really caught my eye as well. Then there are digital download cards that are like plastic. So this is sort of not quite as thick as a Visa or a MasterCard, but it's thick like a, like maybe a membership card. And it's got a digital access code on the back. And it looks like this is powered by Drop. Cards. I'm not sure who they are, but if you guys want something a little bit thicker, you could Google. Then there are the typical flyers that I picked up. These are the guys that, um, the logo matches the same logo that's on the bag. In fact, that was probably in the bag. You saw me just pull the stuff out of the bag. Here is a country artist. Um, I'm assuming that her sound is electric guitar. And then here are all of the ways to catch her. She's international. She's a singer-songwriter, actress, model, choreographer. She's got an international code on her phone, but she's got all of her links here so that if you want to reach out to her, you can. Here's a little magazine. I thought this was pretty cool. We don't see magazines very much anymore, So that really stood out. I thought this card was super clean. Um, it, it, it shows you exactly who she is. It gives you kind of a vibe of who she is, and then it's got her information on the back. You know, the goal of these is to make you go and discover their music, so to do a little more research. Here's a cross-section of a guitar, which shows you that, um, he's a little bit more artsy. Here's another round card. You know, these stand out in a sea of, you know, 6x9 flyers or other, um, you know, normal shape business cards like these. You know, here's somebody that just has a ton of information crammed onto the card. Um, I, I tend not to keep cards so cluttered as this. Um, oh, I took two of the same. Um, only because if there's no interest in that person when you pick it up or when they hand it to you, um, you don't really see anything. Like, nothing jumps off the, the, the page and sticks in your head. For me, the thing that I saw on that was sheet music. It doesn't really tell me very much about him. Let me see what he does. He's an author, singer-songwriter. Okay, so he writes music. So maybe that does tell me a little bit about him. But a cluttered card, um, enough doesn't really jump off the page as a card that's not cluttered. When something's not cluttered, you're going to focus on whatever they want you to focus on instead of everything that they do. And then the goal is to drive them to your music or to your website or to your social media. Here's another artist. It's blank on the background. I tend to use two-sided cards. Only because, um, it's— to me it's wasted space if you don't. Here's a company called Gig Salad. I'm not exactly sure who they are, but what's cool is the weight of it. It's a very thick piece of cardboard. It almost has a rubberized feel. I feel like if I were to put this— because of the coating on it, I feel like if I were to give this out in a club or a bar and somebody put a drink on it, it wouldn't ruin it. Um, and then there's also enough white space on it where I could take a pen and if I meet somebody, I could write their name and phone number on here and tuck it into my pocket. So it kind of has a use beyond just sitting on a bar. I thought this was kind of cool. It's a little booklet that she left on the table. It explains who she is. The key is getting somebody to pick it up and, um, take a look at what she has to offer. I did because it stood out. I found this on a table. There was a big table at the conference center where people were just putting all their cards. Um, here are some more CD Baby download cards. Um, I'm not as crazy about the uniform look of these because they don't stand out. Like, I picked one up, um, and then I— when I saw another one, I'm like, oh, I already, I already grabbed that, I already have that. But as you can see, they're different. The artwork is different in both. I would like my stuff to stand out a little better. Um, here's a business card that is also a sticker, so that one stood out to me. I thought that was kind of cool. Um, it's a sticker that you can stick on whatever, um, but it's business card size. Then there's, um, somebody went to Kinko's and just took some, um, index card stock and printed on it and put it out. This is This is what I used to do when I first started in the music industry and had trouble finding money to eat. Um, I used to go to Kinko's and print out a page of these. I think they were like 8 cents a page or 10 cents a page back then, and then I would just, um, cut them myself with scissors. Oh, here's a square card. This is what I do for my company as well. This isn't my company, but this is what I do for my real estate company. I invest in, um, in real estate in order to make money. In fact, I make more money in real estate than I do in music. But this gives you a, um, an idea of, um, you know, stuff that stands out, what else is out there. Here's a— here's an artist who put artwork on the front and then all of their links on the back. Um, here's somebody who also went to Kinko's. You can see the, the shaggy edge from the blade on the cutter, which is a Kinko's problem. They chose to, to black and white it. I don't have a problem with people that, um, do things very inexpensively. Like, this is not inexpensive, right? This is a die cut, so this would not have been a cheap print. This would have, although this one stands out more. I have no problem with this one. I think what's key is the design and the artwork. If you can make an inexpensive card This one was inexpensive, but it really stands out. Like, the design of it is just really fly, so I picked it up. In fact, I picked it up because of this. It reminded me of Breaking Bad, you know, the artwork. So when I picked it up, I'm like, oh, this is a really cool, um, this is a really cool design. And it's on kraft paper, like index stock, but it's kraft paper, which I thought was really cool. Here's some more CD Baby cards. So you guys are seeing what I'm saying about the CD Baby cards. It's just like, you know, whoa. Okay, here's an artist, um, who raps. Yay, finally! Um, and there were not many rappers at CD Baby, but, um, this is somebody who makes beats. They write. It's their card. I'm sure I had a conversation with him and he handed me his card. I don't think I picked it up off the table. Um, and this is another inexpensive card to print. You know, it's just regular, it's just regular stock. It's black and white. It's got a little bit of shine to it. Can you see that? You can see the gloss. It's got a little bit of shine to it, and it's, um, it's relatively inexpensive to print, but it's fly looking. You know, it's just a good design. So don't design these yourself. You know, get somebody to design them who is skilled at it. You know, this one was kind of cool. I just thought it was neat to have a card that had, you know, a studio reference on the back. Here's just a regular, um, piece of gloss paper. Oh, I'm sorry, it's a sticker. So here's a very thin sticker that somebody, um, gave out like a card, you know. I love this kind of stuff. There's a lot of folks that sticker up books, book covers— high school students, college students, uh, I know a lot of guys that sticker up their computers, you know, the top of their laptops. More business cards that stick out, stand out. I think this one stands out because of the blue swish in the background. I think I showed you this one already. I must have grabbed two, but I thought it was just very basic, um, you know, in black and white. I have one here that I'm going to show you, like, what not to do. Here's a studio recording engineer. Oh, am I holding it upside down? Sorry. Just a very basic business card. You know, for as many, for as many folks as attended this conference, it It's kind of amazing that there aren't more cards that are the same. This is obviously a country artist. He has the country feel and he printed that on his card. I probably wouldn't have cut my artwork off here. You know, everything else has like a little white border around it. I probably would have kept the white border here, but who am I to judge? So these are the ones that, that kind of stood out a little bit, you know. So figure out how you're going— I just showed you the same one twice. So figure out how you guys are going to stand out. One of the things that I suggest that you don't do is handwrite on your business card. It just looks cheesy to me. Like, here's a card, and then on the back he had to write in his, you know, uh, YouTube, Facebook. Like, it should have been printed there. It looks a little bit to me like Ira doesn't give enough of a fuck about his career to get it right. So here's somebody that has a phone number that's crossed out. Guys, these are cheap enough that if there's a mistake on your business card, you should reprint them. You shouldn't cross shit out, or have stickers printed and put them on the back of your card, but don't cross shit out with pen and change it. If your phone number changes, if your email changes, get new business cards. These are not hugely expensive. Also, um, this is one of those do not do things. It's so tiny that when you're in a situation where you're being handed so many different cards at once that to expect somebody to read type that, that's, that's that small, like, you got to really stand there and focus, you know. So maybe you could make your card a little bit bigger, or maybe you could drive them to your website, or maybe you could just pick one or two things that you want to say and focus on it instead of cramming everything onto such a tiny little card. Because the only way somebody's going to take the time to read that is if they're really interested in what you do. And if they're looking at stuff quickly, if you're handed 5 cards that look like that, you may not take the time to read it, and it might never make it home, you know, from the, from the conference or from the club, you know. And again, these are, these are, um, I like this. This is really thick. I really like the thick cards because they stick out. Um, this one is also a plastic card. Like a membership type plastic card. I can't fold it, it just bends. And this has a code on it for 10% off to rent a van. I think I'll keep that. Um, artists are always renting vans. So that's it. That's my, that's my lovely take-home bag from CD Baby. Um, again, there were a ton of ideas in there that came from, um, artists outside of rap. So that just shows you what other folks are doing, and it's up to you to stand out. How are you going to stand out? What are you going to do to be different than everybody else out here? Okay guys, thanks for tuning in. See you soon.