advertising delimas

What is the most effective advertising for you in your market?

I am sitting here wondering if print is even "in" anymore. I know what magazines like Mix say they reach people with cash, but I question peopled honesty when it comes to surveys. Nobody will admit to poverty willingly.

What's your take on getting your name out there?

Thanks!
Brent Handy
HA!

[bjornson]

I know it sounds cliche' but happy clients provide better advertising than money can buy. After moving to pittsburgh not knowing a soul, we are entering our 4th year of business with revenues exceeding projections every year with NO paid advertising! Hell I can't even find the time to finish our website! I'm interested in hearing other more experienced viewpoints.

The problem here is that there are few remote gigs. What PT HD rentals there are, I get. I get great support and referals from studios and the Digi rep here. But, I have to go outside of my geographic market because locally, the economy sucks, and even when it was slammin, there just wasn't much work.

Now we have two of the city's largest employers getting ready to bail, so it is time to make a move, or do advertising.

I have the house that I grew up in, and I could not buy a house anywhere for what it costs me to live here. When I lived in Orange County, CA, it cost me 3x what my house payment is now, and that was for an apartment.

[Remoteness]

You hit it right on the nose bjornson!

You're as good as your last gig...

For better or for worst, word of mouth is everything in our industry.

For the most part, (in my experience) magazine ads and the printed directories got us more people slinging their resumes then the total amount of gigs it was intended to yield.

IMO, advertising is good when you have your niche market established and locked, but want your name present to everyone else just outside of your market place. It's kind of like a "business card", waiting to be called upon when applicable.
If someone wants your number, all they have to do is pick up the mag with your ad.

Since the advent of the Internet, I've met more people and got more work then all the ads I ran back in the 80s and 90s ever gave me, combined. And I'm totally serious about this.

Just my 2 cents.

Up until Jan., I was touring full time, and did this on the side. When my artist lost his deal, I decided to go for it. I did not start off with more than three existing bookings. Like I said, I have exhausted the paying clientele, as they only record so much. So it is truly like starting from scratch.

Luckily I have diversified operations to include forensic audio, which has helped some. I have done some rentals, and had Hanson over to master their new CD at my place.

I am having a new web site built now, and I will be beefing up the internet presence. Currently I get some free exposure from websites that I moderate and/or write for.

The biggest hurdle for me was finding a designer that knew marketing. Some people can make some great looking sites, but they are not marketing wise.

What I was looking at was doing a combination of print and web, and then renting the mail list for a church oriented publication, which is the core of my focus. This way, I can track the results from each denomination, location, etc.

Thanks for all of your input.

[Remoteness]

Lowdbrent,

Sounds like you have it figured out nicely.

Keep us posted if you need anything!

All the best to you and yours.

[ozraves]

Lowdbrent--

I'm in OKC and would be happy to talk to you about helping to market your biz.

--Steve

[hollywood_steve]

I know it sounds cliche' but happy clients provide better advertising than money can buy
*******************************************

There is no real arguement with this.....BUT............
it doesn't really apply to somebody starting out. How are you going to have word of mouth from happy clients, before you HAVE any clients?

Total newcomers need to investigate less traditional routes; like offering some "spec" type deals. Even if none of them turn into gold record projects, you will then have a good demo reel, a long list of satisfied clients and all those individual musicians talking to their friends about the cool place they just recorded at.

And some limited advertising in carefully selected publications (local!!!) can bring in good leads.

On the other hand, I'm sure that somebody has pointed this out before, but why would anybody advertise a recording studio in Mix, or any other trade rag? Aspiring rock stars don't read Mix, other engineers read Mix; you are paying to advertise to your competition. Those mags are a great place to advertise gear, but recording studios????

steve

[bjornson]

This might not qualify as advertising but another thing that helped my business was to STUDY the local market via independent area newspapers and memorize the names of bands and players. Then I hit the clubs, cards in pocket and did the serious networking. After 2 or 3 times they get to know you and know your serious about your craft. Only now (3 years later) is it all starting to pay off. I also hit up all the large non profits arts orgs, Let them know what my services were and weasled my way into what I call "the club". These folks control all kinds of projects and money. And if you provide great service you get ALL their work. This may sound stupid but i think of it like this...
Say a musician is expecting a package from UPS and it's a day late.
He calls CS and gets treated like GOLD.. they drop the shipping charges and it arrives the next day. Then he calls your studio, gets the answering machine and has to wait 2 days for a call back. My point is our competition is ANY business that has customers, Including the largest businesses on the planet. NOT just other local audio service companies.
Our goal should be to NEVER have an unsatisfied customer...NEVER....
Do WHATEVER it takes for people to leave happy. Remember for alot of people this is their discrectionary income. They record instead of going on vacation. Thrill them...Make it fun!
These folks WILL go out and sing your praises. After a while it'll start to steamroll
Good luck!