This past week has been all about working to refine my Electronic Press Kit (EPK). An Electronic Press Kit is a professional tool used by music industry insiders exclusively. Think radio stations, music publishers, record companies, etc. I’ve found that having one is crucial for promoting my music and sharing my professional journey with the world. I’d been a little unsure about the exact approach to take with the EPK. It’s an intimidating assignment for any artist to be sure! It should be unique to the performer. It should showcase your work in a clear, concise and creative way. It ideally is interactive. No small feat! I worked tirelessly to finally make significant progress in crafting mine into a powerful, effective presentation that I feel good about. I wanted to ensure that my EPK reflected the artistic vision and musical style that defines my work. I focused on vintage Golden Era jazz motifs famous from 1920’s through 1950’s. I took extra care to highlight my love for classic jazz, blues, and Latin lounge music.
I wanted the style of my Electronic Press Kit to be one of elegance, style and sophistication. I featured my original compositions alongside of the classic jazz and blues standards I had already recorded. I included a playlist of my work for them to listen to. I included promotional images and a biography, along with my complete discography. I also included quick links to all of my artist pages on the major music streaming platforms. You may recall that I spent a great deal of week one perfecting all of those online streaming platform profiles specifically for this purpose. I included fun trivia facts about each classic jazz standard that appears when you hover over the album image. I even made a cool QR code that goes straight to my artist website. Ooh, fancy! This way, anyone viewing my EPK would have an immediate sense of the creative work I’m doing. I made sure to mention my upcoming plans – the vinyl LP, the lyric book and sheet music of my original works projects. I wanted people to understand and see that I have a clear vision and plan for where I want to take my brand and how I intend to expand it.
If I had only completed my EPK, I would have called it a successful week, but I went on and did even more. I’ve been diving into creating mp4 video shorts and reels to share on social media. This was very new to me. I had never made a short or a reel to use in social media. I didn’t even know where or how to start. Luckily, one of the companies that I utilize to distribute my song lyrics to the major music platforms had a feature that assists in the creation of mp4’s. Nice! The only catch was that I am only allowed to create shorts and reels of original music and content. I didn’t write those jazz standards so I couldn’t risk copyright violations. I focused on the two released originals. I created two really cool jazz graphics that related to the songs and used them to make my video shorts. I’ve found that video content, even short snippets, really helps create a stronger emotional connection with listeners and increases familiarity with the song. I set a goal to try to post some sort of music content three times weekly on my social media along with my weekly Wednesday blog entry on my main website.
Next, I took a huge step into serious marketing beyond social media by taking my newly finished EPK and using it to promote my music. To that end, radio submissions have been a central part of my work lately. I’ve started to submit my music to a range of prominent jazz radio stations around the world. Over the past week, I submitted my EPK to 15 different jazz radio stations, which was a major accomplishment. It’s important to me that my music reaches as many listeners as possible, and radio airplay is a fantastic way to connect with a broader audience. These submissions are part of my ongoing efforts to increase visibility for SoulePhix and bring my sound to people who truly appreciate the genre.
In addition to these radio submissions, I’ve been closely monitoring my social media and streaming platforms. I’ve noticed an uptick in engagement, which I can directly attribute to the recent Facebook ad campaign I launched promoting my various playlists and original songs. The campaign has been instrumental in bringing more people to my Facebook page and increasing interest in my music. I’ve also been working on a more cohesive branding strategy across my social media platforms. I made some additional tweaks to update my website during this time. I added a new donation button to my page through “Buy Me a Coffee,” which will allow my fans to directly support my music. I previously had a general PayPal donation button but it was not set up specifically for music donations. I wanted a link exclusively for SoulePhix donations.
Talking about this past week would be incomplete without mentioning my ongoing frustration and battles with Facebook’s Meta Suite. What a horrible set up they have! It is so difficult to figure out their “user friendly” business suite. I received daily notifications and threats to remove my ads because I was paying for them out of my personal page and not specifically my business page. I kept trying to communicate that I was having trouble setting it up properly and now had three different accounts that I couldn’t delete or alter. What a mess! I got locked out for the better part of a day. It wouldn’t upload my shorts. I had to verify everything what seemed like twenty times. Seriously?! Yikes!
Alongside all of this, I’ve been considering the broader strategy for Cinco Verde Publishing LLC. My company has always been about creating high-quality jazz and blues music and providing unique products to my fans. I mentioned the upcoming vinyl LP of jazz standards. I’ve also been thinking about how I can create a lyric book into an additional revenue stream. To that end, I will be meeting with my old guitar and music partner, Curtis Edwards this weekend to discuss this topic further. We made a CD of original music over a decade ago and all of that previous music work is just sitting on the shelf undeveloped so to speak. At one time, our CD was available on Amazon but when CreateSpace went under, so did all the projects created on it. So, that work is unavailable to the general public. It’s exciting to think about the opportunities that lie ahead for that collection of work as well as how it can be used as part of my newly founded publishing company. It’s been a very eventful week and I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made. I’m looking forward to the results as these efforts continue to unfold.
I’m especially excited for the upcoming year, with more original songs planned for release, including my first vinyl LP. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I’m confident that I’m on the right path, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me.