THIS MONTH: “How To Get Your Own Press“
Start creating your own Press Database today. The time you invest in this exercise will pay you back in spades.
Whenever you have a good news worthy item (i.e. A new EP or album launch, a tour or an award that you’ve won), you should send out a Press Release to your database of press contacts. Of course, you could pay a Public Relations firm to assist you, but few bands have the budget for a good spinner. Don’t wait until you have that critical piece of exciting news to start building your press contacts – it will slow down your release and timing is everything!
You’ll need your mobile phone, access to Google and a spreadsheet or word document table to enter the relevant contact information into.
1. Start by making a list of all the newspapers, street press, radio stations, news portals, etc that you would like to receive publicity from.
2. Do an online search to gather as much information as you can. The information you should gather is:
- Name of the publication or station
- Name of the main contact person
- Contact method (i.e. email, mobile number, address for hard copy, etc)
- Preferred information form (i.e. PDF, JPEG images, etc)
- Publishing or release dates / deadlines
3. If you are unable to find all of the above information on the relevant website, use the contact form or ring the organisation to ask for the missing information to complete your database entry.
Next time you have news to release you can prepare it in the preferred format and send it off to your Press Database in an efficient manner. Remember that journalists and DJs need good content for their paper or station, so give them what they want in a format they can use and you’ll find you can build a relationship with this very important group.
Onward and upward!
ANTHEA PALMER
Anthea Palmer is the owner and manager of Sound Rehearsal Studios & The Chandelier Room, located at 91 Cochranes Rd, Moorabbin, and also owns/manages The Melbourne Rock School (www.melbournerockschool.com.au) and Sound Music Business (www.soundmusicbusiness.com/category/tips). Keep up to date with Anthea’s video tutorials at www.youtube.com/user/SoundMusicBus