Internet Marketing For Small Business

As you know by now I love WordPress. It’s not just the best blogging tool but it also makes great websites for:

• filmmakers (PWK Productions, Down to the Dirt)
• authors Nino Ricci, James McCreath, Paul Quarrington, Moving stories Film Festival)
• and artists (Rachel Peters)
• NEW! videoblogging sites or web series (Funny hockey series, Ripper Hockey)

What I am wondering is why there aren’t more bands using WordPress to drive their web sites. Especially indie bands who are low on cash and can’t afford the fees to get their Flash-based web sites updated.

There are great WordPress Themes for bands here. Here’s a WordPress site I built for the Toronto Blues Band Porkbelly Futures.

When I go poking about different band sites, I keep seeing nicely designed sites that haven’t been updated in months. Their tour schedule is behind, there is no way to get updates either from RSS or email, and it looks deserted. What a waste.

In this day and age you can’t afford to do that. In the ever-changing landscape of the music industry, your relationship with your fans is what counts.

Now, I know how difficult it is to keep your site updated. I am guilty of this myself. But that’s why WordPress makes so much sense. Anyone in the band can update it even if you are a techno phobe. Best yet – you can do it from anywhere on the road as long as you are connected to the web. No fancy software programs necessary – just a browser and your Login password.

With the right plugins, you can even use your mobile phone to make updates. How? You can use for phone to send a message to Twitter and the Twitter for WordPress plugin will make it appear on your sidebar.

Here are more reasons why WordPress for Bands makes a lot of sense.

WordPress is cheap.
It’s way cheaper to set up a WordPress blog for bands than to set up a regular web site. I know start up bands don’t have much money – so don’t go throwing it all into a web site that looks good but never gets updated, or doesn’t serve your fans. Build a WordPress site – save the extra for some other promo work – like proper press kits, EPKs or even a publicist.

WordPress has lots of tools to help you build a loyal fanbase.
Here I go again talking about the great community of developers that build plugins for WordPress that really allow your site to work hard for you. You need to communicate with your fans, and you need them to engage with you. This builds loyalty.

WordPress is built on a MySql database, which means you will be able to do things you can’t do with a regular HTML site. Powerful useful things. Not to mention you can update the look of your site in the future very quickly, easily and economically, so it makes long-term sense too.

Your fans can interact with you – or at least your site.
Do a “From The Road” series and let your fans comment on your web site. Add a guestbook or WordPress forum plugin and let them go at it. Write special blog posts where you ask there opinion on which album cover they prefer.

Google loves Wordress
Google loves web sites that are updated frequently and that’s exactly what blogs are built for – frequent updates. They also publish RSS Feeds (read my cheat sheet on RSS) and ping google too whenever they are updated (you don’t really need to know what that means other than it is a good thing and WordPress does it automatically.) If you comment on another WordPress blog you may get some traffic back to your site, and possibly even a backlink. And Google loves backlinks.

Here are a few WordPress Plugins that make your blog a ridiculously wonderful band web site.

• Discography 0.1. Every band site has a discography page. This plugin makes it easy for bands to store and display information about their songs.
• Gig calendar. Makes it easy to manage and display a calendar of your gigs within WordPress. It’s meant to be as easy as possible for both the musician and the fan. It even manages venue data complete with mapping and ticket links. UPDATE Jan 09 – just got a comment from Dan – he’s updated his plugin and it’s now WordPress 2.7 compatible. Go crazy.
• GigPress. Easy to use, intuitive. And very pretty. Automatically posts to your sidebar, though I wish the sidebar link went to the main post rather than the venue web site. Your post may have more info on it, like time and address and ticket prices, than the venue’s page.
• Event Calendar is another plugin that you could use to display your Tour Schedule. They are set to release a big upgrade.
• The Upcoming plugin from Yoast.com works with Yahoo’s Upcoming web site.
• Get a Twitter account and add Twitter Tools to your blog. The plugin will post and archive your tweets – so you get 2-in-one PR and an easy way to update your blog. What to tweet? Thoughts from the road, from the studio, last minute gigs, chats with other musicians. You can also get widgets that will allow your tweets to appear on your MySpace and Facebook pages – so with one tweet you’ve updated several sites. Remember – you can do this from your mobile phone.
• The MySpace crossposter is another time saver. Any posts to your blog will be immediately crossposted to your MySpace page.
• Play your music on your blog – or your podcast – with Audio Plugin.
• Sell your SWAG with this shopping cart plugin.

Here are some cool WordPress premium themes that are easy to customize and image heavy, so will work well for a band site:

• StudioPress Church – That’s right, the Church theme is one of the coolest for a band web site. Think of it as the church of rock and roll. But most of these themes will make great wordpress sites. Formerly called Revolution themes, these designs are upgraded constantly and come with support if you buy. We can customize them for you too. You’ll want the Viva Thumbs plugin to make adding the home page thumbnails a snap (especially if you’re on the road, this will save hours of time, otherwise you have to fiddle with custom themes and photoshop resizing…)
• WordPress Remix – This was one of our favourite WordPress themes for corporate web sites, but with the recent upgrades there are some great looks for bands. Try home page style 4 or 5. Has integrated galleries and events pages.
• Tribal Music by Gorilla Themes will need some graphic work to swap your own logo and background into the design, but you will get a cool site with built in music player from Mixpod so that you can stream your music.

More Best WordPress Themes for bands here.

To build a custom site like this would normally cost many thousands of dollars. With WordPress, not so much.

Why don’t more bands use WordPress? Why? Why?

Tags: Internet Marketing For Bands, wordpress for bands, cheap web sites for bands, web sites for musicians

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If you’re a small business owner, a freelancer, self-employed, or an artist – you really should have your own domain name.

Having your own domain name says a lot about you. The first thing it says it that you’re willing to invest the $6.99 US* a year in your business.

Yup – that’s how little some domain name registrars charge for registering a domain name.

Along with proclaiming your commitment to your venture, and thus upping your credibility, having your own domain is the cheapest way to promote your business. Every email you send will market YOUR business name – instead of your Internet Service Provider’s. Why spend time building someone else’s brand when you can be building your own?

The third best reason why you should invest in your own domain name is that it will stay with you no matter where you go. That means it doesn’t matter if you move and have to change Internet Service Providers (your ISP, like Rogers or Bell in Canada, or Comcast or Verizon in the US) – it won’t affect your email, so you don’t have to notify anyone or worry about losing important contacts.

The fourth reason is that it’s better for search engine optimization. If your name is in your domain, it’s a much stronger match.

Want to look professional and show people you are in business and not so cheap that you won’t fork out the $6.95 on your own domain name? Then get yourself a real email address and start building your brand.

Here are 3 popular and cheap domain name registrars:

• Go Daddy – $6.95/yr.

• Netfirms – $5.99/yr.

• 1and1.com $6.99/yr. Free if you buy a hosting package with them ($3.99 a month but they don’t have one-click installs of WordPress.)

Want to buy a .ca address cheap? This is tougher – some prices are still way out there. But you can try here.

• 10dollar.ca

• Payless Domains

If you want to make sure the company is Canadian, the complete list of registrars is at CIRA

Tip: If you own your domain name but pay a lot more than $6.95 a year, as was common a few years ago, you can try to negotiate a better deal with your domain registration company. They know competition is tough now, so are usually willing to do that versus losing you.

If they won’t budge, you can transfer your domain to a new domain registration company. There’s no reason to pay lots of money anymore.

Also – as was mentioned briefly above, if you know you are going to set up a web site, some web host companies throw in a free domain name if you buy a hosting package with them. Check out some of these web hosting companies.

Next: Why you should host your site on your own domain name.

And coming soon – how to set up your email. For all the people who have bought a domain name – please use it! Nothing makes me go crazy more than people having a URL, but not using the email address that come with it because they can’t figure out how. Such a waste! Sniff.

Tags: domain name, registration, registrar, branding, email, business setting up, small business marketing

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Email marketing and newsletters are a practical and economical way to keep in contact with your clients and fans. That is – if your emails are being read.

The business of sending newsletters or email blasts is tricky. Spamcatchers are everywhere and your emails may be getting caught and trashed before they even reach their destination. Viewers all use different email software, so you have to make sure they will end up seeing your email the way they intended, instead of a broken tangled mess.

Then finally there is the writing itself. Is your newsletter compelling people to read it? All the way through? Geez – are they even being opened?

One way to make sure your email marketing campaigns are working is by thorough testing. That’s why companies that specialize in email marketing tend to get it right. They have plenty of time to test, refine, then test again. Not to mention keep up with all the tech changes in the industry.

So, when these smart companies put out their own newsletters full of tips and advice, I say we should listen.

Here is a list I have compiled of industry best practices, strategies and resources for email marketing campaigns by some of the most reputable or popular email marketing service providers or experts out there.

Following the advice of these guys should mean a very successful newsletter campaign:

• Email Strategies from Thindata this Toronto company has been handling the campaigns for some pretty highfalutin’ companies. Sign up for their free newsletter.
• Constant Contact Learning Centre and Live Webinars – Constant Contact became one of the most popular email marketing companies because of its free service for mailing lists with less than 50 members. They continue to stay in the lead by offering these handy resources.
• Best Practices from Email Labs offers a most comprehensive list.
• Email Marketing Tips from Email Address manager is a nice collection of articles written across the web.
• Top 21 email marketing information sources is a grandaddy of lists of some hardcore Email Marketing gurus and experts. Prepare to go deep.

Remember, “out of sight, out of mind,” so make regular contact with your clients through an email marketing campaign a part of your marketing strategy.

Tags: email marketing tips, online marketing, newsletters, best practices

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