Two Hour Micro-Music-Marketing

Two Hour Micro-Music-Marketing

Last Friday, my friend Neal Swanger invited me to join him for a little coffee shop performance in Hastings, MN. I accepted the invitation at 2pm the same day of the show.

At 3:30pm I hopped on my bike and headed out from my office in Edina, MN to my apartment in Minneapolis, MN. When I got home I washed up, ate, and got dressed for the gig. I was ready at 5pm.

The performance was scheduled to begin at 7pm so Neal and I had two hours to figure out how to get as many people to the show as possible.

Challenges:
1. Driving time cut down our marketing time: Hastings is a city of 22,000 and is about 40 minutes from Minneapolis. Due to the recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the primary bridge to the city of Hastings uses fewer lanes than capacity while the gov. performs integrity tests on the structure of the bridge. Many people avoid going to Hastings because they refuse to wait in the bridge traffic or take the long way in to town. We had to take the long way!

2. We did not have fans in Hastings: Since this was a last minute gig for Neal and I, we knew we had little chance of “packing the house” with friends from Minneapolis or St. Paul where most of our listeners are. Plus, since we perform often enough in the cities – many of our listeners would simply prefer to wait for the next show around the Twin Cites. (we both have performances on July 11th by the way.)

3. The coffee shop is fairly new in Hastings and so there isn’t much of an established house crowd yet.

I have played to an audience of one before. While it was interestingly intimate, I’d rather fill a few more seats.

We set the modest goal of 30 attendees by 7:00pm

Tactics:
At 5:00pm I hopped onto the computer, sent out an e-mail to my music list, updated MySpace and facebook.

At 5:15pm Neal picked me up and we drove to Hastings and planned a little more.

At 6:00pm Neal set up our equipment while I hit the streets with flyers. I said, “I’m promoting a show for Neal Swanger. I’ll also be playing a short set. If you bring this flyer in, I’ll give you one of my CD’s for free for showing your support for Minnesota musicians like my buddy, Neal.”

We put a big sign out in front of the coffee house “Free Live Music”.

We left the door open so that when we started playing at 7pm people could hear the music and hopefully wander in.

Results:
A. 4 out of 25 people that I personally invited showed up and stayed for the entire show. That is a 16% return!

B. Overall we had about 30 people in the room at one point and about 40-45 throughout the entire night.

C. I sold three CD’s and we made tips. Our total take for the night was $55 if you include the free food the coffee shop owner, Deke, gave us.

D. Materials cost about $13 for flyers, the CD’s I gave away, and gas. Total ROI was roughly 423% (not factoring in our time – we do this for fun anyway)

E. Several people signed up for our mailing list, so they may come to another show or tell their friends.

F. The coffee shop sold more coffee and food than they would have with no live music.

The night was a lot of fun. I sang 5 songs, Neal did the rest of the show from 7-9pm. It was nice to meet new people and play in a new setting.

It was fun filling the seats too.

Have a great weekend,
JD Valerio