JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Promotion in other countries

One of the most surprising things to me has been the relative success of Justice's songs in other countries. First I must note that this is due to the multi-channel digital distribution by CDBaby. Anyway, Justice's first on-air plays were FM stations in Australia. She has had over 100,000 streams of her songs on Spotify (four European countries) and most recently cd sales and downloads in France (Deezer).

The question is --- how do we follow up and promote here there ? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Tom

Tom,

You got me there. The people that I know that have done this overseas from America, made one or several trips over to exploit what they have done. The first one usually loses money, the second one loses or breaks even,the third-fifth are the ones that start paying off. Then they do pretty well.

My problem is overextending your "supply lines.". In a lot of countries there is not an existing booking system.it is basically a LOT of leg work and finding things out (and going down dead ends) and that can get to be an expensive lesson. When you are dealing with other currancies, laws, cultures, and economic unstability,terrorism, kidnappings in some areas, to me that is something I would be very careful in.

Having someone on the "inside" of those countries would be essential.

I have known people that go on these excursions,then find themselves broke, no gigs, in countries that don't speak the language and have gotten into some rough areas. And I know people who have done wonderfully. But all of them pretty much had to research it all themselves.

One person I know had the number three song in the country of Greece and was not paid for it for years. The song was everywhere on this female trio over there. So he should have collected a lot of money. Through a LOT of phone calls he found out that the Performance Rights Organization in Greece is owned by the government. Greece is a socialist country. And I don't know if you have seen what is happening in the streets of Greece, but hard to collect money on a song when they are rioting and turning police cars in the streets. So he was never paid.

I am not saying it is all like that.Far from it. The news only shows us the worst to sell advertising time. But I do suggest you work hard to find people over there who know the angles.

I recently got back from 11 days in Manitoba Canada. We had to be very careful about what I told them I was doing. they don't want people from the States coming up taking Canadian jobs. They don't want workshops or me taking their Canadian talent to America. We had to ship my CD's in ahead of me or you have to pay a great deal of tax on them. They want to know how long you are there, what you are there for, who you are seeing, why you are there, and mostly WHEN THE HELL YOU ARE GOING HOME! Friendly country, very suspicious government. And there has to be 70% Canadian content, so you have to be careful about how you approach their laws.

Since all these countries can be very different in their laws, and customs, you have to know that too. A lot of our writers from Nashville have done tours of Afganistan, Iraq and other countries. They have to have literal classes on the customs and in's and out's of each country.

Gotta be careful in some of these places. Wind up in a hiking expedition in Iran or on some kidnappers boat in Somalia. Or in the middle of a street riot in Lybia, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, or the the Middle Eastern country to be named at a later time for Government overthrow.

It can be great to see the world. And for American artists it can be successful. You are different and they generally gravitate to them. But you have to have someone to help you that knows how to do those things. You are on a forum that has many people from other countries. I would contact people like Big Jim and find out some information from them personally. They might not want to put too much on public forums.

Good luck,

MAB

For some information on Airplay in other countries you can go to http://www.dickshuey.com/ Click on TwangTown Message board. On the left click on Worldwide D.J. Playlist. There you will see a large list of places that play music. Some may be playing your CD. Good luck.

It doesn't seem to me that you need to promote, if radio stations are playing it and people are downloading it without any previous promotion, let the quality of the music and the public decide what they want ... if they like it why waste money on promoting something that doesn't need promoting, but cash in by touring, funded by the profits from the downloading and I'm sure Justice would love to go to Australia and Europe if that's where they are popular. Good luck to them and you.

I know three local artists who tour in Europe and other countries. In each case, they have local contacts who supply bands and equipment. One of them tried to get gigs in a country without contacts and had no luck.

At Justice's stage, I would think promoting downloads would be the best route. When you figure out how to do that, let me know.

Colin

Marc, I appreciate the perspective. I guess that the internet is ahead of the curve and there are no easy marketing methods for othe countries. Perhaps someone a lot smarter than me could see a business opportunity here - to set up something. Reality again.... Well at least CDBaby has a good handle on the digital distribution. I commend them for not just sticking the songs on itunes but also using the dozen or so additional distribution channels.

Tom

Ray - thanks for the link. Very helpful.

Tom

PG --- well they may not be a way to do much more.

Colin - yea that would be the key to find a local promoter who is interested. But I guess she would have to build up a much bigger following before that would happen.

Tom,

Like so much in life, the Internet makes things deceptively easy. Especially music. It is nothing to visit a web site, or download some music.That is actually part of what has happened to devalue music and artists. Takes no real effort to record to tracks, get decent sounding product and get it "out there."

We hear continually of artists and songs that get millions of hits and you would think they are hugely successful. And they are. In the world of 'free" where it doesn't cost anything to be a part of the game.

Getting real fan base that would show up, engineering something that actually pays money, and especially, putting your success in the hands of those people thousands of miles away. That is a very different thing.

A few years ago I had a friend get into something called "Second Life." It is a virtual reality world, where there are all kinds of houses, gathering places and everyone has an "avatar" character that they use. It is like the "SIMS" world except very much for adults. There are sexual situations, private houses, etc. And music venues.

My friend would sit at home in her living room,wearing pajamas and play "concerts" all over the world in these venues. And lots of people around the world would gather around to watch and supposedly she was actually paid for those shows. Great. A lot of cartoon characters watching other cartoon characters play a cartoon guitar.As if the music business wasn't already goofy enough.

She has been doing this for three years. She spends about $1500 a month on various things she does on that. She feels it got her better as far as performing. As I have not seen her actually perform in three years I wouldn't know. I tend to doubt it. There is no corrolation to being good in your living room and being a competent live performer in a club or special venue where there are real people looking back at you, and in many cases, ignoring what you are saying.

I do wish you and Justice luck. I am doing a workshop today in Atlanta where I will have a 15 year old very attractive girl and her mother. We will be talking about this to a degree and I will tell her the same thing I tell you. There are NO shortcuts. The Internet is a helpful tool a lot of us didn't have growing up. It can be a wonderful way to have people discover who you are.

But it is no substitute for being out there, pressing the flesh and finding out for yourself what works and what doesn't.

MAB

Marc, it certainly can be deceptive and one can get out of touch with reality. One of the great things about your posts is that you always pull people back to reality. Self-deception is easy and one must guard against it.

We see our efforts at promoting Justice as two-pronged.

1) Nationally/globally - through the internet. We actually see this as less important than use used to.

2) Locally / regionally. She has performed locally on several occasions including a performance for 6,000. She is a great performer and connects with the audience. We are lining up additional performances for the summer. This is where our primary focus is.

Tom

Tom,

That is exactly where it should be.

Start locally.
Expand regionally.
Attempt Nationally.

Never exceeed your supply lines. Keep it focused and on track. Do small things and expand fan base.
Work your mailing list and collect every business card you ever can.
Contact every person you can and develop a one on one relationship with them.

MAB

Well done. They are some great stats. I would say just keep working the local scene but work the international scene by hitting as many well known forums, websites etc. You must be doing something right so just keep going it! Have you tried an advert banner on spotify?

JD