Following are some tips from industry pros who answered our survey on what they desire from musicians and bands who contact them. Read them carefully and do your research before you start sending out those emails. If you are planning to hire a service to do that for you, be sure you check their work and methods and if they don’t follow the advice given here, don’t hire them. For more detailed information about what our friends said about the best way to get your music heard, be sure to read the first part of this series.

Radio – Music Directors may look at a one sheet if unfamiliar with the group but generally everything but product hits the 13th file pretty so keep it simple stupid

I prefer a website because I don’t need to save an email. Plus, you can get a better feel for the act from a website, especially if hey have a blog. My thought is that the job of an EPK is not to bombard me with information, but to interest me enough to visit the website.

Sending a short email describing your music with links to where I can stream it right now are most effective. A long winded email will make me skip it.

[We] Need an easy to locate method for contact.

…a flashy site does not necessarily mean that the artist spent a lot of money on design. I have seen many artists use site builders, such as WIX, to create very nice, flashy sites.

While it is not important for me, personally, a bands fans like it flashy. And since the bands are there for their fans, I do believe it’s important.

Keep it short & simple, with only the most relevant information available.

Sorry for the long post- but you read our mind on this! –
We’re all songwriters and musicians here as well as industry pros (So we see both sides of the fence at once) … we also do press releases, bios, websites etc – for clients from sites like musicSUBMIT, etc.
This is one of the BEST questionnaires – on ON TOPIC – I’ve seen this year … and I read them ALL –
Artists need to start realizing that a minimalistic web prescence means a website that also acts as an EPK … but a PROPER EPK (See wikipedia for a great consensus)
The biggest thing to remember, IMHO … you MUST look as good as you sound … light travels FASTER than sound …
PEOPLE see you BEFORE they decide to click “PLAY” –
…consider using WordPress, but CUSTOMIZING the WordPress, as a minimalistic website/epk hybrid.
Hook into Reverb more – and use Twitter and Facebook to POST your blog entries on your site – thus increasing SEO.

They need to offer video and hi res pics on request.

Playing music to crowds , having fun -Write a song that makes them tremble , and tapping toes will soon follow

Submissions [to our company] go to a specific email address so Interns can start the review process. We use a 3 step process that include Intern reviews, program director reviews and a formula we use to see how much can help a band/artist. The formula is pretty simple. The better known the artist or band the higher the rating since they are National. Local and regional artists can still work. We consider how much time the band is on the road doing gigs, etc. What we consider who is listening to the shows and station. Our syndication has about 50% of the listeners in the San Francisco market while Internet station has about 70% of the listeners in Philly. We also look at where stations are airing our syndicated show. We add stations every week so it changes. Our artist ratings never go down. Only up. In our opinion, once a fan always a fan. Hope that helps you. It’s actually pretty simple. The whole process could change if we add a large FM station in Canada soon. It would still be the same process but ratings could go up for artists in Canada.

Another note… Bands should always submit to the correct format. That’s one of the reasons we have a 3 step process. In step one we weed out submissions that we can’t air.

Anything to personalize this. Photos, personal messages of thanks from the artist. Of course a well-scripted bio & downloadable music… Add any reviews that are applicable and any press release info. Tour dates, performance dates, or whatever might draw viewers to you..

One final note:

When trying to get the word out on a massive scale, you have two options. One is to send out all the necessary emails and submissions in-house. That may mean that you type each and every one yourself or with your very small team of band-mates and friends. Your other option is to hire the expertise of services such as Cyber PR (you may want to read Josh’s article there,  and many others before you start).

Services such as Cyber Pr run by Ariel Hyatt, WebPR and others have spent years making the contacts to be able to properly target your press releases to the right people. Those people are much more likely to read and act upon your release than someone you blindly contact.

If you choose the go-it-alone route for whatever reason, Don’t just load up a CC list of email addresses and send them out to people who don’t know you! Unless you just enjoy shooting yourself in the foot.

Every successful pr writer will tell you to make an introduction and ask permission before you start sending out your promotional materials. That’s easy to do, and only takes a few minutes.

You want to send a professional looking message, so follow the “business letter” format you would have learned in high-school if you had paid attention in your writing courses. It should look something like this:

Dear Sir or Madame (or use the name if you know it),

I am writing to inquire if you accept submissions from musical artists, and to ask the proper ways to submit in the case that you do.

My project is…

If you wish to examine it before responding you can easily find our work at…

You were recommended by… (if someone recommended them) Having looked at your website carefully, I truly enjoyed your article on…. (you see, give them a little bit of props)

Thank you for your time reading my request, I look forward to your reply.

Signature

phone: 555-555-1212

www.mymusicsite .com

You will find that an introductory letter will make friends and good contacts much faster than just bombarding the in-box of someone who has never heard of you.

Don’t forget to read the Full article, “The Best Advice“