Free Music Can Be The Greatest Marketing Tool You Have!

Image by Huro Kitty (flickr)

In my last blog post i wrote about Peapod Recordings and how they had a pretty good handle on how to easily represent their artists across a wide range of social media platforms.  I also plugged their free sampler CD, andc that got mt thinking “Why don’t I add a short link list to some of the free samplers i’m currently spinning on the ole’ Kilted Chaos itunes.

1. Peapod Recordings FREE, Gratis: HERE I don’t have much to say about this one, because I just gave Peapod a whole blog post! (Twitter: PEAPOD)
2. Alive Natural Records HERE –  great “new blues” music, unfortunately the site needs a little work to make it more fan friendly, and also – if you like the music organized and tagged (I’m an itunes neat freak I admit) this one takes a little DIY on your behalf unfortunately. (Tip to all labels – instead of slapping up a FREE MP3′s page  -try making a “Sampler CD” page – fans will love it more if you spend just a little time, maybe even putting together a booklet to download along with the music, cover art, and some information about each artist, with links to read more and maybe even buy their products) BUT! – for all the flaws i mentioned, if you like electric blues, stuff like the Black keys, White Stripes etc, do yourself a favor and check out this compilation. (And it only took me 2 minutes to tag it all in itunes and add a quick cover image that makes it look much nicer (Twitter: ALIVE NATURAL SOUNDS)
3. My favorite source for new music samplers, and these guys do an outstanding job: BLOCSONIC. I’ve got a blog post in mind for these guys, so for now i’ll just link to my current favorite of their many releases: Classic Material Vol. 3: UI Radio (Twitter: BLOCSONIC)
4. The Find magazine: Downloads – A fine magazine, soon to be in print I hear(?) dedicated to promoting new musicians and DJ’s – I especially recommend the BRIDGEWORK mix with @freddiejoachim and Mellow Orange – really nice jazzy beats for writing and working to. (Oh and Freddie Joachim has a pretty nice little WordPress site himself, with lots more free and commercially available music) (Twitter: FindMAG
5. 22 Tracks – a relatively new site for music discovery, 22 tracks in different genres, all craefully picked by DJ’s, commercial free, and it streams well. I like the way there’s options to buy individual tracks – even nicer would be if somehow the whole mixes could be “bundled” and sold, maybe with some artwork – but that i realize is a whole different ballgame and the licensing and logistics of that would be a huge deal, but hey who knows maybe that’s in their future  - i sure would love being able to stick some of their mixes onto my ipod for working out etc. (Twitter: 22TRACKS)

I could go on and on with resources for free legal music, that promotes artists, and also helps to promote sales through alternative distribution and fan based marketing – but at some point, someone reading this is going to accuse me of gratuitous linkbait – and hey, if you think that’s what i’m up to  - then maybe you should go hang out with the RIAA etc Way I see it, these good people have supplied me with many hours of fine listening and man, many ideas for how to best help put my passion and enthusiasm for music, and the music industry best into practice, so the least i can do is provide a little extra publicity to help their traffic along right?

Oh yeah, there was a reason behind this. I wanted to demonstrate how relatively easy it is to compile a great list of your best musicians music to showcase both your label, and your artists, thus leading to more listeners, more fans, and hey, more buyers! The CD sampler is nothing new, hell, I remember our local record store (Stereo one in Paisley, Scotland) giving away free copies of up and coming metal band’s singles quite often to help get listeners, and therefore buyers. And even magazines have been doing the old cover mount CD thing for decades now. The bottom line is, with current technology etc, its never been easier to promote and distribute your music, either through a netlabel, conventional label sampler or by submitting mixes to hip online magazines. Now you could read this blog, or you could get started brainstorming how you could get some free music into the hands of your fans and soon to be fans – not 30 second clips – full tracks! Go on – try it! Stop reading this right now and get out there and try it! (And you can always CONTACT US for some help or advice if you need it too!)

Tagged as: Albums, blues revival, Electronic music, electronica, Entertainment, Freddie Joachim, free music, indie label, ipod, ITunes, jazz mixes, mp3, netlabels, online magazines, Samplers, Sampling, Scotland, social media platforms, Sound, technology etc, The Find magazine, Twitter, Twitter Inc, vinyl, World Wide Web