Music Business Contacts are a musician’s, life’s blood and effective, efficient follow-up can mean getting a record deal, getting reviewed or getting booked.
You’ve made your initial contact, sent your first email, letter, or complete packet. Now the next step is crucial and often the difference between throwing money or time out the door or getting what you want. Follow-up is not fun and often I hear artists say, they made the call or sent the packet so they’re done. What was sent is so often forgotten and three months later they wonder why they haven’t heard back from the person, the label, the media contact or the venue’s booking person.
Here are 4 tips to make your follow-up more streamline.
1. Keep your initial lists to bookers, media or other industry professionals, SHORT. Face it, there is no way you or anyone else can do adequate follow-up on a 400 piece mailing or emailing let alone a 4000 piece mailing or emailing and get the results you are looking for.
If you do your research first, then target 5 -10 prospective venue bookers, media or industry professional to send to, you are able to track that submission and set strategic follow up calls or emails for those few contacts. You’ll feel like you are accomplishing something rather than being overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of trying to follow-up on huge numbers.
2. Create a simple list or chart that you can keep in a visible place where you’ll see it everyday. Unless you have a pop-up program in your calendar that opens first thing and gives you your callback list, having this information buried in your computer, may be less helpful than having something printed out and visible, that hits you when you walk into your office or workspace. On it, indicate the contact name, emails, phone numbers, date sent, what you sent and the date and time you intend to re-contact them.
3. Now if your email client has auto responder capabilities, you might be able to set up an email sequence to send follow-up emails automatically over a period of week or two. But if you are not there yet technically, then schedule your follow up calls based on how you sent your material or information. Continue reading →
