3 Low Dough Marketing TacticsFor Bands On A Budget!

By: Joerilla

We find ourselves in a world that is inundated with ads, and marketing tactics. With new channels and avenues of conveyance, marketing is almost inescapable, and unavoidable. Advertising is especially necessary, today, if you are in a rock band. As a
broke rocker myself, I was stuck with the quandary, “How do we stand out from the herd, and how do we do it cheap?” A lot of the ideas that came to my mind were
honestly embarrassing to even think about trying. After one of my band’s songs had a low streamed release, I decided that it was time to pull the trigger on some of these ideas that were jumping through my mind like fleas in a circus. While I can’t necessarily tackle the full behemoth topic of marketing for you in this article, I can still give you three low-cost ideas that are bound to generate interaction, and growth for your rock band!

1. “I SAW THE SIGN!”
Expense rating: $5
My first major dabble in the marketing pool, outside of the run of the mill social media promos, was a little tactic that we like to call “sign waving.” I know, you felt embarrassed just thinking of yourself out there. What if I were to tell you, it was the most effective tactic outside of social media that I ever used for my band, Primal Moon? You may not necessarily know the name, but I guarantee you… thousands of people in the Chicagoland area, probably had nightmares about my ugly mug, with headphones on, and a foam board in hand. While I’m only going into a brief overview of these tactics for this, I will flood you with more stories of my sign waving exploits down the line. For now, I’ll be brief! Sign waving created the most social media interaction, personal interaction, and radio interaction. Within the first week of sign waving, our monthly Spotify listeners were up from 35 to 550 monthly. Our streams were reaching thousands, once again. We made many fans, both online, and in person. Photographers were now offering us sessions, for free. Podcasts were flooding our DM’s, and even radio stations started to take notice. All I really know, I went to a very busy street corner, with high visibility, and wrote “LISTEN TO PRIMAL MOON” on a white foam poster board. My first intersection was on the corner of New York Street and Eola Road in good old Aurora, Illinois. Home of historical figures, like Wayne and Garth. Within the first day, we went up at least 50 new listeners, and 30 new followers between our IG and our Facebook. It was mind blowing to see after just holding a sign for an hour. So, I kept going with it and never ceased to stumble upon new avenues of opportunity through the method.

2. “Chalk It Up To Promotion”
Expense Rating: $10
My day job is pest control. I go to a lot of residential areas and treat
homes with products. It’s riveting, I know. Sometimes, the mundane redundancy of the daily to do’s, can bring about major inspiration for another strong marketing tactic. That’s what happened to me, when I walked up to a customer’s driveway, that was covered in a marvelous array of multicolored sidewalk chalk! I thought to myself, ‘If I’m looking at this, then other people will look.’ Like a Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come,” kind of moment… to a lesser degree. I remember driving directly to the nearest Walmart after work. I don’t
understand why chalk is the hardest to locate in most stores. It seems like I must go spelunking to find the chalk. Is it in arts and crafts? Outdoors? Toys? Just designate a fricken spot!! Sorry, I had to chase that rabbit trail a little bit. I’ll compose myself for the rest of this article… maybe. Anyway, I paid for a big tub of “THICC” ole sticks of chalk and headed to downtown Plainfield. I decided to pick the town where more people hated the derelict I was in high school. I don’t know why I do these things; I just do. It turned out to be a hit. While it can be annoying to some, it sure was effective when people took pictures of the chalk and tagged our band online. We were getting tagged on social media, from that one hour of chalking the streets, for weeks to follow. $10 and joint pain from all the bending to chalk. That’s all it costs to make your band the talk of the town.

3. “Knock knock!”
Expense Rating: $10-$20
Now, this final method is not for the skittish, or faint of heart. I would even heavily suggest the use of the buddy system in a tactic like this. If the title doesn’t reveal the idea to you, maybe the term “door-2-door” will get those gears of fear and dread churning in that mind of yours. Going door to door is a very daunting task. You must mentally prepare yourself to be pretty much hated by a lot of people in a short span of time. You’ll have doors slammed in your face, get cussed out, and in some areas, guns pulled. Even with all of the potential for danger, there is massive potential for reward. Some of your strongest fans can come from that initial face time with someone at their door. It’s very disarming to some people to see musicians so sold out to their art that they are willing to risk hate and embarrassment in suburbia, for a chance to be seen and heard. I had many great conversations with people in my area, and they even came to the shows for years to follow. There’s a lot of power in meeting someone, where they are!
In closing, these methods aren’t fool proof. They definitely don’t have a list of cons next to the pros. I’ll gladly talk about both sides of the coin with you in future writings. I will say, these were some of the most heavily effective for my band. We were able to make it on mainstream radio, play festivals and venues that we could’ve only dreamed of before, and gained a multitude of true friends through the endeavors. We gained a story worth telling. Now, go create your story!

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