Welcome to episode 76 of the Bandhive podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross and I'm here with Matt Hoos of Alive in Barcelona and I missed my chance. You're taking a sip of coffee and I was hoping I could get you to do a spit take, but it didn't work.

So my day's ruined. But how about you, matt? How's your day going? Uh Well, better than yours apparently. So, I mean, I've been stumbling and fumbling over every word that I've spoke this morning, so hoping that my uh My fat tongue decides to wake up as well. So he hasn't got the memo that it's morning time we're supposed to be recording now. Uh yeah, well I do have the advantage also of being two hours ahead of you. So my tongue thinks it's actually like almost lunchtime because it's almost 10 here.

So yeah, but I feel your pain because there have been days where I've had to get up on a, on an early morning call. I used to have a m meetings every week when I lived in California because time zones. So I feel your pain just for the record, you did not ruin my day. I'm just poking fun at you. I don't want the listeners to think that I'm mad at you. That's all right. I would have gotten over it. That's good. That's good. I don't know if I would have, I probably would have been, like, torn up with guilt inside.

Like, I'm a terrible human being on today's episode of emotional podcasts. We dive into the story of James and his emotions on this podcast. For real though. I'm like, the person who like will be worried that I upset someone because like all of a sudden they act weird, I'm like, wait, did I like say something offensive without even trying, Like I was just trying to be nice, pick up really strong on those body cues James, you're like, oh yeah, bad energies backpedal. Yeah, or like the other day, uh one of my friends got an S. M. Seven B gear nerd alert, just gonna learn out here for a second.

He got an S. M. Seven being posted on instagram and I just did the like the 100 reaction, it's like, oh yeah, these are so good. I was like, I know man, I've been thinking about getting one for a while, like I really want it. And um, he basically was like, oh, I totally thought you had one like, and he's Canadian. So he's probably like already just apologizing because he's Canadian. But it's like, no, no, no, like I'm not upset at all. I'm just saying like they're great mix and I want to get one.

I'm glad you got one. Gotta love the seven B things. Great. Oh yeah, Eventually we'll be recording the podcast with an S. m. seven b. I'm using a cheap like $40 electro voice dynamic live mic. And hopefully, I mean to me it sounds fine. So matt you have the 80 40 40 I believe, Which that thing sounds killer. Of course. I love this mike user shameless plugs go by an 18 40 40 or an S. M. Seven B. And then be happy affiliate links will be in the show notes at band. I've got rocks slash 76 Disclaimer.

We make money when you buy those products. Uh huh. I think this is the most blatant we've ever been. I mean, obviously on the site we have like the affiliate disclosure that's like, hey, like if you click this, we might get some funds for it. But we've never actually been on the podcast like, hey, go by this. And just for the record, I'm not saying go by these pieces of gear. I'm saying if you want them already and you want to go buy them, please use our affiliate link.

But we're not saying, Hey, you need to go by this because gear is oftentimes overrated. We also would like to take this time to say we're going to do it the professional way we're going to say. Just so you know, we don't make any money from this podcast. All of the revenue that we make is by you guys purchasing items off of our affiliate links. So it actually supports us and keeps us doing what we love doing and keeps us able to deliver content to you guys.

If you go and shamelessly purchase all of the things that we tell you to, that's what we would do. If we were like top to your podcasters, if we were on episode like 300 by now, it would be just just prepping. You know, there's some little foreshadowing for shameless plugs later. So what you're saying is we're too casual about mentioning gear. It's like when we mentioning gear, we don't say, oh, hey, go, go get it. It's like, Oh yeah, this piece of year, Blah, Blah, Blah. And then 10 minutes later, like, Oh, by the way, you can find it in the show notes.

Yeah, you might actually, this might be useful for you. I don't know, we're just talking about it. So for me, like obviously I'm recording this on a $40 microphone and I have much more expensive microphones, but this is the one that seemed to suit my voice best for the podcast, so I just want to throw out there. It's not always the most expensive piece of gear, it's the gear that suits you. That's what it comes down to. Like, I could use a $200 or $400 mike that I have sitting in the cabinet next to me in the mic locker, but I don't because this mic sounds better.

So I don't know, I could get an S. M. Seven B and B. Like I like that electro voice, which I should also say this is an electro voice peel 44. They don't make them anymore. Sometimes you can find them on Ebay. They used to be everywhere Now they are like pretty rare. You'll see one pop up every few months. So if you want it, good luck. We don't have an affiliate link for that because they literally do not exist anymore. You can get the 1840-40 though. That one will be in the show notes for real.

Yeah, that will definitely still be for sale. Yeah. Mhm. Well, anyway, now that we've uh jumbled this intro up and just nerd out about gear and how we're slimy sales people for saying he's our affiliate links please, please, please. I think we should actually pivot over into the topic of the episode matt. Do you want to tell the audience what we're talking about today? I just want to hear you say slimy again. That was good. Slimy I'm a used car salesman. Didn't you know? That's right. This bad boy can fit so many people in here.

All right. It's a clown car. Today we're piggybacking a little bit off of an episode we did a couple weeks ago where we were talking about writing bios. This is another writing episode, but it's a little bit different. This is not going to be used for your fans really. We're gonna be talking about press releases. A press release is a very, very important part of your band, your brand, how you are presented to other businesses, inside of the industry or really in the partner industries that you're going to need to work with if you are a band, If you're a business you need to market.

When you get on facebook, you have a news feed, you have news articles, you know, these articles, these stories, these uh, one sheets, they're all written by, by press people. So how do you get in contact with those press people? How do you, do you know, how do you get these press people to write about? You, will you do it with a press release pitch, essentially? And so today we're gonna be talking about press releases, what they kind of look like, their value in the industry and how you can kind of make yours better so that you can maximize on the distance that you're trying to take whatever you are releasing to the world.

Press release is really anything that you want, the world to know about. So if you're releasing a new song, a new music video, if you are touring in a new location, but you're trying to do something totally different with it and you think that it deserves media coverage. So, a Super Bowl event, you know, that's a huge event the weekend, paid over a million dollars in production costs to play the Super Bowl and guaranteed there were press releases all over the country about the different things that he was attempting to do, He probably had press releases about how many people were in his halftime show and they were probably, you know, a few different ones that were spread all throughout the country, maybe even other countries as well.

I'm not sure how televised the american super Bowl is in other countries, but I can guarantee you that it probably gets a little bit of mention as it is the most televised event in the United States. So, you know, press releases would go out about different things. This is literally about anything, you know, when you're in the public eye, you know, you have press releases about, you know, somebody getting lip fillers or Botox, it's like, oh you have press releases about kylie Jenner's new perfume, you know, you have press releases about people traveling and the goal is to basically to get attention.

You know, that's what the press releases. So what do you put in a press release? So with the press release, you basically want to have a very short, very sweet to the point, I wouldn't say bullet points, but kind of like highlights of important stories. I know a few weeks ago we talked about bios about having a story in your bio and how important that was to have a transparent emotion that people could really attached to. People want to know specifics of stories, they want to know names, they like knowing places, they like feeling like they're a part of whatever is happening.

And so with a press release, you want to capture all of the ideas, feelings and emotions of that story without actually telling the story. The reason you are contacting a press release company in general or press company in general is because they write stories. So the goal is not for them to have the same story that you told in your bio God in a press release to me, that would just be hyper lazy writing. And if a pr company ever did that, you don't work with them again, because you obviously wrote that you want them to work with you because you want their writing expertise and their contacts, their distribution.

So basically, you're gonna want the short, sweet SparkNotes version, the abridged version of your story. Your bullet points your footnotes essentially, all of your everything packed up into a nice little package. They want it short and sweet because they want to be able to read it quickly and find if there's a story there, if there's a story there and a good one, if they find that this is something that can be marketed to the world, then they will, they absolutely will. If you're like, we're touring southern California, nope, no, Pr company cares about that.

But if you are trying to redefine the way lighting at venues works and you have a very unique performance that is optically driven. You know, you might be able to find ways to have a short, sweet elevator pitch that you send off to a PR company that essentially is going to get somebody to be like, oh, this is actually interesting and this might spark the ears and eyes of listeners and readers to actually, you know, to go and attend your show. So that's always the goal pr releases.

You know, these press releases, they're all marketing. So what you need to do is just like with all marketing, find out what your branding is, find out how you want to be portrayed and then to find out what exactly it is, what item, what piece of press needs to go out to the masses. And then once you have all of that information, then you can work on that launch. And then it's really important to make sure that whatever your press release is, that you actually deliver on, that if you're a baker and you're developing the world's first gluten free flour, you know, that's important news.

And then when it comes to it, when somebody with celiac disease comes up to test your flower, it better be gluten free. You know, you better be able to stand and deliver because once you've been put up on this pedestal, like you have the spotlight, once you have the spotlight now it's time to perform. So a press release is in a very, very, very important piece of the puzzle when it comes to literally everything you do from music videos, song releases, to touring, two album releases, to any single piece of content that you believe the world should hear about, and if you truly believe in your product, that should be everything.

Yeah, absolutely. And just for those who didn't catch the episode a few weeks ago about bios, if you haven't listened to that one yet, it's episode number 70 for the most important thing, you can write. That isn't a song. So you can go check that one out in your favorite podcast app, whatever app you're listening in right now, or you can go to band, I've got rocks slash 74 to find the show notes and listen to the episode on our site. So matt, you're talking about all these things that should be in a press release.

You mentioned, you know, it might not make sense to say, hey, we're turning southern California, like, let's do this. But some of the things that I think a lot of smaller artists might think are worthy of a press release and you know, this is where if you have a publicist, the publicist will be honest with you and say, yeah, this isn't something you should send out. But things like if you put out new merch items, that's not really a press release thing, unless it's a specific collection and you're a slightly larger artist and you're like, this is a themed collection of these items, local shows like you touched on southern California.

Like that's not really a thing, like, if it's a big tour sure, But if it's just three shows a week end or probably not worth the press release or what you ate for lunch. This isn't twitter, it's for the pivotal moments in your career. So, like, everything you mentioned that, you know, an album, release, a song release or announcement of an album or song or a single or whatever, that kind of stuff. The big things, it's really interesting because like, every different item in your band or I guess just in your business in general, they have an avenue that they need to go down.

So, like you were mentioning with merch, putting out a press release for a new merch item doesn't really make sense. No. Press companies are going to be like, oh, you know, have you ever seen a press release? It says Metallica has a new shirt, you know, taylor Swift has a new vinyl, like no you don't, you don't see these. But if you're a die hard fan and at some point you have signed up with an email list or you are in some type of exclusive, you know like some artists run different programs where you can, you know, send an email addresses, phone numbers or whatever and you can be a part of exclusive groups which is a big part of like what we try to encourage is you know, like find an avenue to deliver exclusive content and that that creates more demand for it.

You don't do that with you know, a press release, a press releases for those big huge moments, those moments were you have prepared, you have practiced, you have all of your ducks in a row and now it's time to send out your press release. So you have the opportunity to capitalize on all the hard work that you've done before. A press release is one of those things. It's like Getting into the seat at, on a roller coaster. You know like you've been standing in line for the last 45 minutes and you're finally getting up to it.

This is buckling your seatbelt, you are ready for launch and really you might have to test the waters but it's important to know which of your items are going to be geared towards the press release and which of your items are going to be geared towards an email blast. Or like you were saying James might just be a twitter post. You know, people don't need to hear what you had for lunch in a press release. They might totally want to hear that on twitter. Yeah, So it's all about what platform you're delivering or if you're on instagram they might want to see what you had for lunch.

All right. Here's a beautiful picture before it goes down obviously. Yeah. And I want to add something else. This that wasn't on the outline, but it made me think of it. Your bio and your press release have similar but different purposes. The bio is for anyone who looks up your band, the press release is typically not going to be seen by your fans that's only going out to people in the journalism world. So bloggers, newspaper writers, magazine writers, maybe Spotify, playlist. Ear's. It all depends. But one of the key things here is that the press release will rely on the bio to have certain information.

So one of the things that we talk about here is that the press release shouldn't be your history, but I want to point something out here. You don't need to have a publicist to have a press release. You can write a really formal press release or you can write something that's a little more dialed back and we'll have an example for you in the show notes that you can go download for free. It's just like a google doc that you can make a copy of and you can adapt it to your band.

But one thing it made me realize is that a lot of artists on submit hub don't take advantage of press releases because on submit hub, you have artists profiles and then you have song information and a lot of artists will just copy their artist profile into the song information and that's not what you want to do. Other artists will have song information, but no artist information again, not what you want to do. Your artist profile should have your bio and all your main social media links and then the song information should have information about that song.

That is the perfect spot for a press release because un submit habits saying, hey we're putting out this song, here's the press release for it and you don't even have to use the formal press release format. But if you have a press release for the song, you just copy the press release, take out all the special formatting and put it in there and that's your song info on submit hub on that note. If you want to learn more about how you can get a really great approval rate on submit hub check out episode 63.

It's called submit hub success strategies. That's a tongue twister And we had Steve Martin of Ascending Everest, talking about his strategies and how he got a 68 approval rate for one of his recent songs. And strategically he goes for the best rate he can and then widens up the audience and submits to more and more curator until he sees the approval start to drop off and then he says, okay, I've reached the largest part of my potential audience. If I go further from here, the results aren't going to be as good and carefully targeting.

Like that is one of the best things you can do because personally, I get so many emails from publicists about artists that I would never write about because they're not even in the right genre. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against publicists, they have their place. But if you're on submitted, you can specifically target people, which a lot of publicists do, but a lot more don't. If you are going to find a publicist to work with, make sure they are the kind of publicist who will find and target the specific people who would be interested in your song.

Like I get emails about E. D. M. Artists from some publicist, um, like dude, I run a rock blog, do not segment your list better yet. Their publicist who will only work with one genre. So that little rant aside, if you are going to hire a publicist or a pr firm, make sure that they're actually a good fit for you, your music and your genre And that they're not going to reach beyond that. Just so they can say, Hey, we submitted you to 1000 blogs and it's like, well, right, but only 50 of those actually care about the genre we play.

So we paid you to submit 2000 blogs but we could have paid somebody else to submit us to 50 blogs and it would have been much more effective. That's my rant for the day was good rent. It's very good. Random. It actually kind of segues into what a press release kind of needs to look like. Places like submit hub are absolutely wonderful and more and more tools like this continue to come out, you know weekly. And so that's what's really awesome is that like as the network gets more and more integrated with each other, it's nice because just like we tell you to build a network, once you start working with other people who also build a network, then you get this nice little spider web where all these networks start to overlap and that's really when your reach starts to go like through the roof, a share on facebook or a retweet on twitter, okay, these will extend your reach quite a bit.

But when you have a second tier, when somebody retweets or shares that second level share, you get exponentially more viewers than you did off of that first share. Now you have this one over here and now you also have this one over here and now I know you guys can't really see my fingers but they start to intersect and cross over. People don't necessarily, you know, bite the hook instantly, but once they have this repetition in their life where it's like, oh yeah, like I've heard about that band three or four times now and maybe they didn't watch your video, but you know what?

They scrolled through their feed and they saw the one still image of it and then maybe they saw again three days later. And just that simple repetition in like the eyes and ears of your fans. That alone it gives you clout, so to speak, the more people hear about you, more people see you, the more in their face you are the better chance that you have of reaching the eyes and ears of people that you never could have dreamed of without these tools. So it's like super, super important to make sure that like everything that you write, everything that you do goes to the direct avenue that it's supposed to.

So with these press releases, what's a good place to start? Like what's the first thing on a press release? If you were sending off a press release, you just want them to read it. What separates your press release from somebody else's? I'll leave a second of radio silence so that you can think about that for a second now, some people think that it's like big, huge bright colors and all sorts of ridiculous things are putting images. First up. I would actually argue against that. I would say that everything under the sun has been tried to get people's attention in the business world, time is money.

And so that's why we always say short and sweet is definitely the best path. Like let these guys be the writers, that's what their job is. The very first thing on your press release should be the date. Okay. It's for one reason and that is that nobody wants to write about old news. So, old news is a very, very bad thing to write about because people like die hard fans already know now James, I think that you have a story about an artist. They had a press release correct.

And that press release was kind of botched date wise, right? Yeah. It was actually very appropriate timing because I got it last night and we were already planning on doing this topic. I will read the headline, but I'll redact the identifying information. Band name drops new album album name. Now, here's the issue. This album came out in december, which is five months ago at the time of recording. Once I opened the email, I saw that the email was actually about a live stream. The band is doing that is coming up in a little over a month.

So it seems to me that what happened here is the publicist reused an email that they sent out a few months ago when the album came out and they updated most of the information in the body of the email, but they forgot to update the subject line. And that is like the subject line. And while we're on this, let me vent a little bit about subject lines that publicists send. You really have to get people to connect with the subject line if you want them to open your email.

Because anybody who works for a magazine, a newspaper or blog anything like that, their inbox is absolutely overflowing with emails. I know this myself because I delete most of the emails I get for the blog I write for. Unless it's about an artist that I care about already. For artists that I don't know. I find out about them on submit hub. There's a lot of great artists on there and it's like, here's the song listen to it. Whereas the press release, it's like here's five paragraphs and somewhere in here is a link to a song maybe.

But on the topic of subject lines, I'm going to share some subject lines here. The good ones. I will name names, the bad ones. I will leave out. So here's a good one. Attack attack moving the scene ahead by leaps and bounds. I was like wait attack attack is back together. Apparently they are cool. We were sharks released, new single etcetera etcetera. Good headline. Here's what I don't like so much media alert. Band name, new song. It's like okay on a small screen. Like if I look at that on my phone, all I see is media alert and then half a band name.

Why put in media alert. I know you're a publicist. I know that's a media alert. That's like context that doesn't need to be put in there or you can put it at the end. But if I can't see the subject line because all of your emails start with that same thing. It's like, oh well this is just whatever, like okay, I can delete that because if I'm on my phone, I can't see what it's about. I just see media alert. It's like, I get that. What's it actually about?

Oh well, I don't care. Here's another good one. This is a good one, A. F. I. And that's his new album, Bodies plus shares to and that's where it cuts off. So you want to catch people's attention in that first bit because you only have so many characters and it'll depend on what email app people are using for the exact amount of characters. You never know exactly how many they're gonna see. But my point is, you need to have people pay attention. You need to catch people's attention with a good subject line.

Right away. If you don't do that, it's going in the trash. Absolutely. People don't want a history lesson. These guys want to spark notes, telling people that you started your band in Lansing michigan in december 2019. Nobody cares. Maybe the people inside of Lansing care, but the same level of excitement will be like the equivalent of when you see somebody that has a license plate from, like, a state that you've lived in before, you're like, oh, they're from there, okay, and that feeling is gone. You know, pr companies which work all around the world, they don't they don't care at all about where you're from.

You don't need to tell the story of your town and your time when you started and how long it took you guys to write a long, good song. Like that's what the press companies are for. So what do these things look like? Well, they start with a date, then they have a headline, basically the concept of what you're trying to push. Then after that you're gonna have your first paragraph, your intro paragraph. This is like 25 words or less. Get to your point immediately. I'll use our music video zombies as an example.

If we were writing a press release for zombies. New video about people constantly using their phones. Okay. I obviously I would want it to sound quite a bit better than that, but that's the gist. Okay. I would make it sound a little bit better. It's like, oh yeah, about addiction to technology, about, you know, living life not paying attention to our surroundings. You know, just like a really short and sweet. It's like, okay, this is a new music video and this is what the concept of the video.

You know, if you have as many like news points that you want it to be included in there, get to it, your intro needs to explain the who, what, why, when, how and where of your story. So, and you want to try to do it literally as abridged as possible. Like you were saying, James, these people are getting emails constantly and they are trying to put out the best story that gets them the most clicks, the most impressions, you know, the most traffic, those are the numbers that they as a company are looking for.

So it's on you to make sure that they have enough fodder in order to write that after your little, uh, your short and sweet. You're actually going to have another couple of paragraphs. This can be more about your story. You know, your background, this can be the, uh, the nitty gritty and I know I've used this term before, but people want to know the areas that they can relate to you. So, if you write a song about somebody dying, you know, using specifics like their name or you know, the emotions that you experience when that was happening or you know, where you were or whatever it might be.

The point is is like this is what that engaging story is. It's short, sweet. I mean, you want less than literally less than two paragraphs to go through every detail quickly to give the journalist enough inspiration, essentially for for turning your story into something romanticised. That's really what a pr companies job is. It's their job to romanticize your story. And it's, you know, too create these heartstrings with the readers or with listeners. And so, you know, when, like if you are releasing a new music video and you have these visual concepts that you want to get across.

It's really important to explain that in these 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. So you really don't want much more than three paragraphs, you know? And even then I would try to keep it like those paragraphs really, really short. Nobody wants to read an entire page of information to know that like they don't want to write a story on it. So if you can compile everything into short sweet bullet points, you know, nice little paragraphs, if your entire press release comes to like three quarters of a page that's like fantastic.

And then after this, after you've told your story, then you want to have your your spokesperson enter or your front man essentially press releases. I'm sure every one of you have read one at some point in time and they almost always have some quote from one of the members of the band about the story. Now, it could be about, you know, where you were when you wrote this song, not physically, but where you were emotionally when you wrote this song, it could be how you wrote the song.

It could be the goals of the song. You know, it could be the goals of the music video where you're like, oh yeah, this song has this music, but really the video is what we really want people to fall in love with. And maybe you sit there and talk about. It's like, oh yeah, you know, we wrote this song is it means for people to start focusing more on the people that are around them. You know, to put down their phones and to start engaging in conversations with each other, finding ways to bridge the gap.

You know, instantly I start saying this and everybody, people get excited about it. And on top of that, if they read the press release first, then they're very interested in actually watching the movie because they understand what it's about. It's kind of like getting a book and reading the back of the book. You read the back of the book and you know what the books about, right? You're like, oh cool, Like maybe I like this book. Maybe you won't You should always read the back of the book before you read the book.

That's the you know, people say, don't judge a book by its cover. That's a lie, definitely 100 of the time judge a book by its cover. Just like you would judge a song by its press release. If you don't have the song, then all you have to go off as these other people's words. So you have these beautiful words. If you can write the beautiful words, fantastic. If you can't make them short and sweet, send them off to a pr company, let them write the beautiful words. So that's where your quotes are going to be after that.

This is where you put your shameless plugs, you know, you're gonna be like, oh, here's where our Spotify, here's our websites, here's our this and that. Here's the link to our video or whatever the press release is for. Here's the information. If it's about a new tour, here's where you can go for our tour dates, if it's about a new song here is the song. If it's about a new video, here's the video. Then after you get to all this, you know, you have essentially what you can be like, you're closing quote, which is another quote from whoever you're frontman is or your business oriented person, that kind of comes back in and and solidifies everything that you've said prior to this, and then your last thing that you should have is just like, your salutations.

Like, it's your conclusion. Sometimes this is like, some type of closing endorsement. Maybe, like, there's a lot of different things you can do here. Sometimes you can even leave this off entirely, since brevity is also very, very important. This is gonna be on you to figure out. It's like, oh, do we want this closing paragraph? Maybe you've had some some news stories run on you in the past, and you have some good quality quotes from other people who have endorsed you in the past. Maybe at that point it's a good time to, like, oh, here's a, You know, 15 word, whatever, a little blip that somebody else said about our band, in reference to this song, or in reference to this concept.

And just as a little means of like, Hey, here's a little bit of affirmation from your peers, press company. Like, oh, here's another press person that that wrote this. One. Little nice thing about us. Those are nice things to include two, but like, never more than one of them, You know, you don't want to be like, oh look at all these other Pr companies that have said good things, because then these people are gonna go, okay, well then why are you trying to reach out to a new pr company?

Seems like you already have a good outreach with them. So, you know, with your endorsements, keep it, keep it short and sweet and then everything is over. And then at the end you have contact information as well. And this is more personal contact information. This is definitely a business thing that you need emails, personal emails, band emails, you know and and something that is checked regularly. Something that you do get push notifications on. It is very important to respond to press people immediately. Press people are like fish.

They have like a billion things happening to them at once. They are overstimulated. They are overworked and there's way too many fish in the sea that are constantly trying to get them to play their music or to write a press release about them. So you have to make sure that your contact information is on that press release. Just like it's very important to start with the date so that people know not to write about old news. It's very important to have your contact information so that they can write back to you.

It seems like it should be very very common sense. But if you miss one of these important items you're talking about, the difference between somebody deleting your email or not so they might read your whole email and then go wow I don't want to take the time to google alive in Barcelona and go like search through their website and like try to find contact information for one of them. Like that sounds like a lot of work. Oh but never mind. Here it is at the bottom of the email.

Super simple. I can even click this link and instantly get back to them if your press release this is also like a small tip but I I probably should have mentioned this earlier when it comes to the date. There is a special word, press releases for the most part or for like immediate release you want to do it. You know it's it's for getting this content to the pr company, They get something written, you get it released by the release date that you want. If you're trying to set up a press release for say 36 months down the road, you need to include the word embargoed right at the very, very beginning of your date. Okay.

That is the very first thing that should be on, it should say date colon in all capitalized letters embargoed and then it should have the date. This is a signal to anybody in the PR world that this is not for right now. So for starters it might have the opportunity to go through more writers internally and things like that. It has other other benefits. But most importantly, they're gonna be able to look at that and know that it's like, Okay, this isn't this, I need to get this done in the next 48 hours type of press release.

This is something that I can take a little bit of time on and then on top of that, like you don't get a really quickly, you know, really quick press release thrown back at you or whatever the date is such an important thing, I really cannot hit this home enough because the news world in general is all about current events and so they want to make sure that they are writing about these events currently. So if you have something that is embargoed that needs to be released later, they will put off writing that press release until later so that they have as many of the current events surrounding the event as possible.

So, with date, keep that in mind with name and who it is. Keep that in mind James. Like you were saying, if my email says media alert or press release, you know, it's like, okay, like that doesn't do anything for somebody. But if it says even saying new video, that's a what? So that's answered in the subject line or alive in Barcelona. It's like, okay, this is a band. So you're, you're already starting off with a what or a who and that's infinitely better, you know, for sparking curiosity and actually just interaction.

I mean, if you send something that's, this is like media release, a band has a new song. It's like, yeah, a billion new bands have a billion new songs every day, nobody cares. Yeah. 40,000 songs get added to Spotify every single day, jeez Louise. It's insane, wow. That's that's an insane metric And really hits the point home. That's 14,600,000 per year. That's fantastic fish. 14. 5 million per year. Let's assume that only 10 of those head press releases written about them. That's 1. 4 million songs per year, Divide 1. 4 million by 365 days. And you're literally looking at like, what is that?

400 songs per day. Probably more than probably 4000 songs per day. Let's see. Doing the math right now. That is 4000 songs per day with press releases, 4000 day. Now you divide that up. Like how many mainstream, you know, how many major pr companies there are in the country? How many, you know, individual writers are going to be getting those emails directly? I mean, you're talking about people getting like 10 to 15 emails a day minimum with new songs that people want. You know, a press release written for, I wish I only got 10 to 15 a day.

Oh, I bet. I bet I'm just I mean that's literally a spitball number. And and how many do you get? How many do you get James? You don't even run a pr company? How many emails a day do you get? At least 30? And it depends like weekends aren't as bad, but like Mondays and Fridays are probably 30 to 40 right? And then imagine being an established pr company. Yeah. Oh, the headache. And then there's also the people who like, I will just spam any email. Like I have a specific email for the blog I write for.

And then all of a sudden, like on a different email of mine, particularly one of my business emails, I keep getting press releases from somebody in France who thinks I run a radio stations like, dude, this is my music studios email. Like did you even look at my website and I'm floating around on some list so I can tell one person to take me off the list and then like a week later I get another email from somebody else in France who bought the list, which is especially in europe against privacy rules.

Like there's actually laws against that. It's called G D P R. But apparently people in France don't care because it's only France. It's not like it goes to Germany, like it's just french D. I. Y. Artists and publicists and it's not the reputable ones. So just out of curiosity, do you ever open those emails only to tell them, Hey, never email me again and report spam because it's the wrong email? Yeah, right there. That's perfect. Just like if they had not included the correct date, if they had not included their contact information, it's like if you're contacting the wrong place, you know, this is instantly going to get you written off.

So like I know that I've said a billion times over in a billion times again, you need to put your best foot forward. This is when it really counts. Like when I was talking about spelling and grammar being the cardinal error that you can make, like this is where that application is. Like, you better not spell names wrong because people won't listen to your music, you better not have the wrong date, you better include your contact information. Otherwise these people are going to look at you and go, these people are not professional, they're not ready to compete at this level of the game.

You gotta get your ducks in a row, you gotta put your best foot forward and then you can hit the ground running. If the first press release that ever gets sent out is just like you send something to a pR company and they look at it and they're like, wow! Everything about this is fire. That's the perfect way to make a first impression. You know, you never get a second chance at making first impressions and so like if that means that everybody in your band needs to read through your press release or maybe you were like one of you guys or girls want to take it to your mom or if any of you have good relationships with your old english teacher in high school, like use these resources, You know, it is far better for you to ask 100 people and for them to kind of get annoyed with you being like, well you read my press release than it is for you to send that press release that application for a press release pr company and have them just be like, spam, like, sent it to the wrong email boom, all that hard work written off.

And like that's the thing. Like if I get emails to my vlogs email, I'm like, okay cool, whatever. Like people are doing their job, they're emailing me about stuff and it's a rock blog, but then when my music studio gets emails about getting radio airplay for an ADM act, I'm like, dude, where did you find my email? Like, I even had one artist arguing with me being like, no, no you're you're a radio station. Like, no, I'm I'm literally not like this email is for my music studio, I'm not a radio station.

Like, I don't know where you got this email, like, no, no, we're gonna keep sending you stuff. It's like, dude, no, just quit bugging me. Like they were really aggressive about saying, no, you're lying, you're not a music studio, you're a radio station. Like, I think I know what my business is. Like, can you read my email signature? Like it literally says pinnacle pro sound. So above all, like if somebody asks you not to email them anymore, respect that like, Mhm. And I mean, it doesn't really matter since I don't deal with E. D. M. But like if they were a rock artist that would have prevented any further coverage from me, even if they did email the correct address in the future out of them.

Like, no, those guys are jerks. I'm never dealing with them again because it's E. D. M. They didn't lose anything anyway, but people do make mistakes that happens. So if so many emails the wrong email, I'm like, okay, whatever. But if they then get aggressive and try to tell me I run a different business and it's like no I know my business then no, like I'm never going to work with that band because they were disrespectful. That's what it comes down to. Let's put it this way, if you're going to email someone, do your due diligence and make sure that the person you're emailing is actually active in whatever field you think they're in.

So when somebody emails me saying we want you to play our song on the radio, I can tell that they never even looked at my website, it's like no, you have no idea who I am and you're emailing me Sorry, see you, there's a book that I would invite all of our listeners to read, I may have mentioned it before, it's called Never Eat Alone by keith for Rosie to Ours, Twosies. Now, the reason I remember that is because he specifically mentions it in his book. Now Keith Ferocity was the youngest ceo ever of a Fortune 500 company.

He has a book called Never Eat Alone, it's a book about the power of networking and about how to how to maximize on networking. So if you haven't read that book I would highly recommend it. But in that book he specifically talks about somebody sending him an email and in his email it was somebody that he was kind of excited to work with if I recall the story correctly. But when they emailed him back they spelled his last name wrong and for him that's a really big pet chief and you never know what people's pet peeps are.

And so this was somebody he was excited to work with, he was eager to work with and then what happened, he never responded to the email Because his name is literally printed everywhere at the time. He was one of the largest bloggers in the world. He had written books. He was a ceo of a Fortune 500 company. Somebody writing an email could have googled his name and found it 100 times over. So for them to have sent this email and he'll remember it. He remembers that this guy sent an email that had like one are in one Z instead of two hours and twosies.

And instantaneously this person that he wanted to work with that feeling diminished just because this person wasn't even willing to take enough time. They had such this high time preference like they wanted to get it out immediately instead of taking a little bit more time, making sure all of the T. S. Were crossed and all of the I's were dotted and sending it off and doing it properly. He shot himself in the foot. Like the guy already had this preconceived notion, you know keith far as he was like, oh I have this like really good idea in my head, I have good vibes about this person.

And then he sent him an email spelled his name wrong and instantaneously all of his preconceived notions were shattered and it was such a shattering experience that he was no longer willing to even respond to the email with this person and that that's what you face as an individual, as a band. Like if you're responsible for sending off whatever to professionals, when a professional comes to you and asks for something, you need to know what it is and you need to know how to deliver it, and this goes for every aspect of your business.

You know when you you need to know what a stage plot is. You need to know what an L. D. M. Is. You need to know what a stage manager is and what their responsibilities are. You need to know what back lining is like. You you have to know these things when when people come and look at you and they ask you a question and you can't answer it because you haven't spent enough time in your own business, you're not going to succeed. This industry is savage and that's all there is to it.

The music industry is the Wild West. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart that is like the music industry is the Wild West and the only people that survive are cowboys. You've gotta work hard, you have to know what you're talking about. You have to know the facets of your business when somebody asks you for. Do you have any Imagery that you'd like to have displayed on the screens? Yes I do. Here is my band's logo or here's a clip that you can run on 32nd loops while we're playing.

Like whatever it is, like different venues, different people, different stage managers, they're all going to have something slightly different than, you know, a different way that they do things. You know, the life of the musician is hurry up and wait, be flexible, be malleable. You have to wait for your time to shine, but you're always given that time to shine. So with each and every individual interaction that you have with these people, you know, with your pr companies, your time to shine is by making sure that your spelling is correct, by making sure that your punctuation is on.

And if that means that you have to take an extra day to email it to 50 people to ask them to read it, then do it. Your due diligence is required. So be diligent. Absolutely. And first I just want to say the book will be available. I'm sure it's on amazon. If you go to Bandhive dot rocks slash 76 you can find a link to it there in the show notes. And again, we will also have a free press release layout linked there, no gate or anything like that.

It's just going to be a link to a google doc that you can make a copy of. And there's actually two different formats in there. There's the one that most publicists and labels use the more formal one and then there's an informal one which is more like a one on one thing that you as an artist could send out to somebody. They're both similar, but they definitely have their differences. Now, matt, you had mentioned earlier that it's common sense to at the bottom of your email, have your contact information.

Absolutely agree with that. But when you're speaking a minute ago I remembered something else that to me and I'm sure to you is common sense. If anybody is sending out a press release, never, never, never use CC in your email, never carbon copy people because that is the fastest way to annoy somebody who gets far too many emails as it is to see, Hey, I'm on this list with 200 other emails. Who is going to start emailing me Now, ideally you use a mailing list provider like Miller lite or Active Campaign for any press releases and this is for legal compliance issues.

Those platforms will make sure that you're compliant if you don't do that though, at the very least, put everybody on BCC and when you do that in the U. S. You must have an easy way for people to unsubscribe very clearly marked in your email. Usually that's what an unsubscribe link. All the big legit mailing list providers like I mentioned, Miller lite and Active campaign, they will automatically have that link in there at the bottom of every single email you sent if you are going to use BCC, which is risky because it's too easy to see see people by accident.

You really should use a mailing list provider. But if you do use BCC at the bottom, you have to make sure to put in if you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply and tell me otherwise, you're literally breaking the law and I doubt people are going to come after an artist and sue you. But I just want to put that out there because I don't want to see anybody get sued about something this stupid. That should be common sense. And I also want to say we're not attorneys were not lawyers.

This is not legal advice. This is just me saying, hey, make sure you pay attention to this stuff and do things the right way. So to wrap things up matt, you are saying, you know, triple check everything, Make sure you spell people's names properly. Make sure there's no typos, make sure you don't use a subject line from an email you sent five months ago. You want to make sure everything is current and correct. One other thing you should do is send a test email to yourself. Open it in an incognito tab in chrome where the only thing you're logged into is your email and then open every single one of the links and make sure that they open because you never know when all of a sudden, hey, you know this Youtube video might have been set to private and you saw it in the preview because you're logged into Youtube.

But then when you go to incognito all of a sudden, oh hey, I can't see this video, I need to change it to unlisted or I need to set it to public. If you're promoting a blog post, make sure it's accessible to the public, Check it in an incognito tab. Every single link needs to be checked in incognito same thing. If it's like all of a sudden you're in a facebook group and you're linking to a facebook group is the group public because if not it's gonna be like, oh, hey, thanks for clicking this link but you can't actually see whatever we just links to you too.

You have to make sure that everything you do is triple checked whether it's how to spell people's names, grammar and spelling in general. The flow of what you're writing and most importantly, if you're putting in a call to action, like go listen to our music on youtube, make sure the links not broken. Another example here, a few weeks ago, a band sent me an email being like, hey, our albums available for preorder, go get it, guess what? The link was broken. And this was a major press company.

There's a super simple thing they had put in the http instead of https, which is just like a security thing in a link and they messed it up. And because of that it gave me an error when I opened the page. So you need to double and triple check every single link you put out there. That's absolutely correct. The dead link is one of the worst. That's also a cardinal mistake. There's one thing that I would like to add, and that is, in my opinion, what I would also call common sense.

I would even say that this is more important than the date it's saying, thank you, thank people for their time. Thank people for the craft that they do. The best thing that you can do for people is to include them and to show that you appreciate. Mhm. Mhm Yeah. Mhm mm. That does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and listening. We really appreciate it. As I mentioned in the episode. If you want to find any of the links we mentioned, or you want to get the free press release template, just head on over to Bandhive dot rocks slash 76 to get those links and the template.

Matt and I both know how extremely frustrating it can be too as a D I Y artist, put your music out there and not get the reaction that you are expecting. And so we are offering coaching to our podcast listeners. If you're interested in sitting down with us for an hour, head on over to Vantive dot rocks slash coaching to book your session. Now, matt and I both have slightly different expertise is matt is more focused on marketing while I'm more focused on systems and big picture kind of mindset stuff as well as of course the touring side of things, but you know, pandemic and that's not really going on right now.

So if you are interested in talking about marketing mindset, any of that stuff, please do you feel free to head on over to Bandhive dot rocks slash coaching and book year session. Now we'll be back with another episode next Tuesday at six a.m. Eastern time in your favorite podcast app. Until then, have a great week. Stay safe. And of course, as always, keep rocking.