Share Your Experience of PR Companies

ciarj

Hi,

EP is mastered and we're ready to release a single. We want to be on radio, in press and playing gigs.

Is this something we should try to do alone?

If not, has anyone experience working with Irish Music PR companies?

Do you see this as a necessary investment?

Any tips on making a return on the investment?

Thank you!!

Ciaran

Neurojazz

Single releases can be anywhere from about 500e upwards....
That would be radio, press and tracking to show what was played where and feedback from DJ - (if it's DJ material)

That's the cheap option... then it's a sliding scale upto about a squillion euros

I know one company in london that does a more personal tailored campaign, but they are not cheap - their basic serive costs about 700e just for dance music feedback from a top quality DJ pool and have very good connections in the industry... you get what you pay for basically....

To get a return? - keep gigging, get signed and the label will do the rest if competant - if the single is good, then things might turn around quicker - if a radio DJ likes it and canes it, your'e set for life

That's just one way.... there are probably many more ways to crack the scene - depends on style, location and budget

ciarj

Thanks for the feedback mate. Anyone have any experience with Irish promoters?

seannash

ciarj wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback mate. Anyone have any experience with Irish promoters?

what sort of music are you talking about

ciarj

It's indie-rock mate.

Neurojazz

Then why only ireland? - worldwide radio/press is as above... 500+ - not much at all

PaulBrewer

ciarj wrote: »

Hi,

EP is mastered and we're ready to release a single. We want to be on radio, in press and playing gigs.

Is this something we should try to do alone?

If not, has anyone experience working with Irish Music PR companies?

Do you see this as a necessary investment?

Any tips on making a return on the investment?

Thank you!!

Ciaran

What are your expectations for the release Ciaran? Do you have a Budget?

studiorat

I dunno, I thought you'd pay around €3,500 for a decent PR campaign these days...
They will usually only take it if they like the product and feel thay can actually do something with it. I suppose they don't want to be selling something they don't believe in.

madtheory

IMO if they're charging you up front for the job, then it's a waste of money. If they really believe your product has staying power, they'll charge a percentage of future earnings, and therefore do their best to make it happen. The most important means of promotion, by far, is to get out there gigging. Spend that PR cash on a video instead- that way, if the gigging takes off, when TV phone you, you can just say "yes, here is the video". So there's not time gap between someone seeing your gig/ poster, and seeing your video.

It's straightforward to get radio play. Get to know your local indie loving radio DJ and make friends. Again, if your music is good, you won't have a problem. All the radio DJs know each other, so if COlm in Red FM likes your stuff, he would recommend it to Jenny on Today FM, etc.

Biggest problem with Irish bands starting out is they're not any good. Second biggest problem is that they're not prepared for the hard slog of gigging in every venue in the country- pub, club or GAA hall.

It worked for Boyzone!!

PaulBrewer

If they really believe your product has staying power, they'll charge a percentage of future earnings, and therefore do their best to make it happen.

That's not a realistic proposition. If that was their business model there'd be no work done! One has to remember statistically there are no future earnings. Most bands spend money, not make it.

My experience is that the Promo company gets paid weekly for X weeks, a couple of weeks pre release and a few afterwards for a single.

It's straightforward to get radio play. Get to know your local indie loving radio DJ and make friends. Again, if your music is good, you won't have a problem. All the radio DJs know each other, so if COlm in Red FM likes your stuff, he would recommend it to Jenny on Today FM, etc.

Not as simple as suggested either, for national stations anyway as most bands will tell you. Certainly not for the amount of radio play to make any impact. I do agree that if it's 'good' it will have a a better chance ok (surprisingly not obvious to a great many).

One of the guys from Phantom (surely the most likely to play alternative) said on the Alt+Indie forum most recordings they get are sub standard for Radio play at all, a subject close to my heart. So, game over entirely before the lid is even taken off the Monopoly box....

Biggest problem with Irish bands starting out is they're not any good.

Yep.

madtheory

PaulBrewer wrote: »

That's not a realistic proposition. If that was their business model there'd be no work done! One has to remember statistically there are no future earnings. Most bands spend money, not make it.

Ya, so most bands are effectively being ripped off by PR companies. No profit is ever realised. THen again, most bands are a vanity project! I think we're in agreement there, most bands aren't good enough.

It's such a shame that there isn't that support system from the olden days, when a band could be crap for ages, be bankrolled by a major label, they work on their craft and then BANG! The Flaming Lips being an extreme example- The Soft Bulletin is stupendously amazing, previous work is patchy at best.

Then again, there were quite a few bad Irish bands that lasted far longer than they should have, with this system.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Not as simple as suggested either, for national stations anyway as most bands will tell you.

Baby steps, baby steps! I'm saying start small, start local radio. If you can build a local following, then you can build a national one. But most bands expect to go straight to the big time by just throwing money at PR.

There's a very small number of indie DJs in Ireland, they all know each other, so the best way to progess is to come with a personal recommendation from a local DJ.

Neurojazz

There are select agents that can feed top name DJ with material, those companies are hard to find, and always charge a premium for that service... Pretty much all the crap music would be filtered out by the time it reaches the target DJ.

I know some agents that don't cost the earth, but they would rely on merits of the music - so if the songs are weak they'll just take the cash and promote to deaf ears, the music has to be right in many ways to get people fired.

This is just one entry point - there are automated options for sending press releases out for about 30e - you could put links to material on there, but getting it heard would take one amazing write up to grab the reader (usually the subject message of the email)

frobisher

madtheory wrote: »

IMO if they're charging you up front for the job, then it's a waste of money. If they really believe your product has staying power, they'll charge a percentage of future earnings, and therefore do their best to make it happen. The most important means of promotion, by far, is to get out there gigging. Spend that PR cash on a video instead- that way, if the gigging takes off, when TV phone you, you can just say "yes, here is the video". So there's not time gap between someone seeing your gig/ poster, and seeing your video.

It's straightforward to get radio play. Get to know your local indie loving radio DJ and make friends. Again, if your music is good, you won't have a problem. All the radio DJs know each other, so if COlm in Red FM likes your stuff, he would recommend it to Jenny on Today FM, etc.

Biggest problem with Irish bands starting out is they're not any good. Second biggest problem is that they're not prepared for the hard slog of gigging in every venue in the country- pub, club or GAA hall.

It worked for Boyzone!!

That's bad advice in my opinion. Good PR on a good product with everything in place to back it is up is the best way to go. Banking on Colm knowing Alison is for amateurs. So is expecting a business that is involved in such a peripheral fashion to accept a stake in future profits instead of a fee. But I will agree that most bands are vanity projects, even if most of them never come to realise that fact. So is yours? If so then think of what you want and go do it. If not then think of the ROI you would expect for various sums of money, talk to the agencies and see how much common ground you have. Start with an email to these two:
http://www.entertainmentarchitects.ie/Home
http://www.frictionpr.com/

Seziertisch

The quality of your songs/recordings is very important.

If you are doing gigs and not getting any bit of a buzz of the audience then you are probably doing something wrong. Don't put it down to apathy on the part of the crowd completely. A friend of mine saw Nirvana supporting Sonic Youth at Sir Henry's in Cork back in the day, back before they broke. He said Nirvana were fairly shambolical, i.e. all quite drunk. Most of the time the crowd were doing their own thing except when they played Smells like Teen Spirit conversations stopped and people turned from the bar towards the stage.

On the other hand you have got to remember that most music fans are sheep. I remember seeing Damien Rice supporting the Frames in Cork just after (or before) his first album was released (twould have been start of the summer in 2001). College end of year job, everyone locked, people pretty much talked through his set. It took a while for the album to break but it did eventually and two years later the same people were back to see him playing his own gigs, and sat there in hushed awe at how super creamy he was.

That can work the other way too. Be wary of people that come up to you an tell you that you're great, a lot of them don't have a clue. A lot of people are impressed by the very fact that a band starts and stops all at the same time, and will say broadly positive things. Also be wary of what friends and relatives say, they can be the worst for giving optimistic forecasts.

In terms of recordings, I would well believe that most demos that get handed into radio stations are not fit for human consumption. Sound matters, more than people ever realise. Creative engineering/producing/mixing causes people to react to the sound of the recording on an emotional level. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of dance genres, people don't want weak kick or bass sounds or whatever. I think it applies to all recordings no matter what the genre.

The single greatest weakness that I perceive amongst Irish bands is a lack of willingness to compare what they are doing to the best British and American bands. They make arguments that they are nearly as good or on a similar level as some local hero act that are on the road to nowhere fast. So if you think you band sounds like a combination of Muse and Radiohead or whatever, do you have any songs that are a comparable level to what they are doing? Don't put them on a pedestal, they are just people like everyone else. They struggled to play their first chords like everyone else. They might seem to be more talented than other people, but that is hard to say as they probably worked and continue to work a lot harder at it than other people. They wrote mediocre stuff in their time, and where others sat back and congratulated themselves after doing something mediocre they kept pushing their game up. If you can't be honest with yourself you won't improve.

Keeping with the idea of not making excuses for yourself, a lot of bands blame everything from Louis Walsh to the audience to major labels for their lack of success. In most cases it is simply the case they are not good enough. If it is the case that you have songs as good as great band X and are turning in live performances as good as great band X it will only be a matter of time before it is more than just your friends and family coming to the gigs.

There are always going to be acts that you could say fluke it to the top by just being in the right place at the right time. They enjoy their time in the sun but the history books are not going to remember them. Always aspire to not be one of these acts. Aim to be somebody, that whatever people think of your music, they can't really question how you got to where you did.

johnnylakes

Maybe this is a naive/idealistic thing to say but, shouldn't it be about making good "art" first and foremost? By art I mean good songs, well captured/recorded. I think if you are doing this to "make it" you are goosed before you start! Concentrate on getting better, send your music to everyone you can and if it's good enough, it will happen.... maybe....
As regards PR Companies...I think alot of it you can do yourself (if you are prepared to)...emailing,phoning,texting, posting...generally being a pain in the arse. I play in a band and about a year ago we sent our self-produced stuff to 2 radio staions, just to test the water. Both have played it, one of them plays it regularly, which is a nice suprise as we did it in a shed! Anyway..I think it's about belief and WORK...and to a certain extent Talent!! For me it's about progression...as a songwriter,as an engineer, as a producer, as a PR guy , as a booking agent, as a roadie...you get the idea..
So, we have upgraded our set-up and are working on album number 2 at the moment.
End of rant.

PaulBrewer

johnnylakes wrote: »

I think alot of it you can do yourself (if you are prepared to)

Johnny , you hit the nail on the head. I think it's only the renaissance men/women who have a chance from here on in.

Our own Frobizzle being an example ...

madtheory

+1, yes, DIY. When the promo starts to become too much to manage, then you farm it out. But it doesn't make sense to me to fork out for PR if you're only just about to gig and promote your first CD.

frobisher wrote: »

Banking on Colm knowing Alison is for amateurs.

OK, I should've said- that's what she advised at a recent conference. I think it's a good approach, it's baby steps, if it takes off then you can be more sure of investing serious money.

The majority of PR companies will take you on as long as you pay them. They don't care if you're not any good. Those you linked to are the cream of the crop, if you're not good they're not interested.

Thomas from Presence

I think PR is only really useful if you have anything interesting about your personal or career story to justify getting someone on board.

Excellent music is not enough to get publicity tragically. DIY can work but its a lot of work and would require a bit of PR training to be effective.

PR Tips (for DIY or for hire)

Who are the people you want to reach?
Where do they get their opinions?
What would a journalist/blogger be offered as newsworthy from you to cover you? Why are you special?

Compare yourself to whatever they cover and work out which head in your chosen media outlet is most likely to b sympathetic to your cause and pitch your story to them. Be sensitive, be cordial, be charming and NEVER EVER spam.

Make sure you have anything that might be useful for them on hand like a press release, a bio and high res photography. Write all in the style of the media outlet you are targeting. Write it like an ad and it will look shíte.

PR is very useful in making sales but if you don't have a story and a strategy then you're not going to get the benefit.

PaulBrewer

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

Excellent music is not enough to get publicity tragically.

I think it is .......... it's when it's not excellent you need it!

tibtib123

ciarj wrote: »

Hi,

EP is mastered and we're ready to release a single. We want to be on radio, in press and playing gigs.

Is this something we should try to do alone?

If not, has anyone experience working with Irish Music PR companies?

Do you see this as a necessary investment?

Any tips on making a return on the investments ?

Thank you!!

Ciaran

I would not limit yourself to have only IRISH PR companies maybe have a look at some london based PR firms. However the best for of promotion is self promotion, just look at artic monkeys? made it big through a social networking site!

frobisher

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Johnny , you hit the nail on the head. I think it's only the renaissance men/women who have a chance from here on in.

Our own Frobizzle being an example ...

Compliment taken

PaulBrewer

tibtib123 wrote: »

I made it big through a social networking site!

Evidence! Give us evidence ...

frobisher

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Evidence! Give us evidence ...

PR companies are like referees in that you shouldn't even notice them when the are doing their job well. The are not the enemies of art. They're usually music fans and love what they do. They are also not cheap. It's all very simple really :-)

madtheory

tibtib123 wrote: »

just look at artic monkeys? made it big through a social networking site!

That Arctic Monkeys thing was fabricated by the record co to make them sound cool. It worked.