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DIY band promotion |
You’re in an unsigned band. You’ve been told that image is everything. But how do you go about putting across a really professional image to promote your band without having to visit the bank manager for a loan? Well, it all starts with the home computer. Everything that a fancy, expensive photocopy/printing shop will charge you a small fortune for can be done on a home computer. If you’re willing to spend a little time on your computer, and a little money on ink and paper, then you can make everything from business cards, to stickers, flyers and posters. Business Cards You might not think that a business card is an essential item for a member of an unsigned band to carry with them at all times, but think how professional your band will look when you hand over a business card to someone who’s interested in you after a gig, rather than scribbling a number on a beer mat! Most stores that sell inkjet paper also stock Inkjet Business Cards. A pack with 150 cards will cost you around £5 and even adding on ink costs doesn’t bring you anywhere near the £30 - £50 you could get charged to get 200 cards done by a professional printing company. You also have the benefit of being able to use colour on your home printer, whereas most printing companies charge a small fortune for colour cards. The cards usually come in A4 sheets with 10 cards per sheet. Simply design your card and logo, remembering that the 3 important pieces of information to have on it are phone number, email address and website address, copy and paste them into (for example) a word document, ensure they are aligned with the card by printing a test sheet and then print away (making sure your printer is set on high quality print mode). You then simply tear away the perforations on the card and there you have it! Stickers Stickers? Eh? What would we want stickers for? Well, ask anyone in advertising and they’ll tell you that the way a lot of adverts work is because there are so many of them around. Just think how many times in a day you see names like Coca Cola or McDonald’s! So, by bombarding the public in your local area with stickers stating your band name and website address, or the release date of a CD, or anything for that matter, you will make the name of your band stick in their head! You’d be surprised how many website hits you’ll get just by posting stickers with your band’s web address all up and down one busy city centre street! Packs of inkjet labels can be bought for about £5 for a pack of about 800, just like the business cards above. They are just small labels that you would stick on envelopes, etc with addresses. You yet again print a test sheet of whatever you want on the sticker to check that they are aligned with the actual sheets of labels and then print away! Carry them around with you and put them EVERYWHERE! Be careful not to vandalise anything, but lampposts, bus stops, and especially the buttons on pedestrian crossings are the prime places to advertise! Flyers As an unsigned band, you don’t really have the time or money to be handing out 3000 flyers to people in the street every day of the week of your next important gig! But one thing you can do is put flyers on the tables at every gig you play, with your next gig, CD release or website address. Ever wondered why people never remember when your next gig is? It could have something to do with the details of the gig being mumbled through a muffled microphone in the middle of a busy, noisy pub or club! So, instead of wasting your voice between songs telling your drunken, forgetful audience of your next gig, why not put flyers all over the tables and then they’ll actually see it in print, and maybe even pick one up! You’d be amazed the difference it makes! Design a small postcard sized flyer using an art package and then paste 4 copies of it onto an A4 page in Word or something similar. Now this is where you have a little choice between time and a bit of money. If you’re willing to spend a bit of time with scissors, then you can print out lots of copies and cut them to size by hand. However, to save time, you could spend a couple of quid in your local photocopy shop to get one sheet of flyers photocopied several times and then guillotined. Since you have 4 flyers on each sheet, you should only need about 20 sheets to fill a decent sized pub with flyers. Shop around a little to find a copy shop that does not charge extra for cutting the paper up. Don’t bother with thick or glossy paper. Just stick to standard paper (as it’s going to get covered in spilled drinks anyway) and it will only cost you about £2 at the most! Oh, and stick to black and white, or the photocopying will cost you a fortune!
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