It is not the end of the world if you have not yet been picked up by a record label. You can get into the game yourself, but there are a few things you should take note of.
1. Goals – Pick something you want to promote about yourself. It could be a Single, a live show or even your website. Once you pick one, move your focus to only that pick.
2. Target audience – Identify the target audience and focus your promotional efforts on them. If you are going to perform in a town, get through to their local paper and radio station try to get yourself some publicity that way. If you are pushing your single then you can use a mailing list, your website, social media, etc. Whatever it is, choose your audience carefully for maximum results.
3. Promo package – This should always be handy wherever you go, ready to be distributed to influential people. It should contain the latest news about you/your band, short bio, demo or single, previous press coverage’s, contact info and pictures of you/your band.
4. Stick out like a sore thumb – That is in terms of your music and persona. The idea is to avoid being classified as an also-ran. You do not have to do too much, but try to be a little different from the bands in your genre so that there is something unique about you.
5. Freebies – Make sure that the press and industry scouts who come to check out your gigs are well looked after. You should also try to send out freebies to some of the people on your mailing list. Offering a free download to all is a simple way of solving that problem.
6. Branding – Get your name out there. It has to be everywhere in the city. It can be anything from stickers, caps, key tags etc and whatever that keeps your name in people’s minds.
7. Contacts – All these ideas will get you lots of contacts, you should never lose them. Load them up into a database and use it every time you need to send out some promos.