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Editor's note: TicketPrinting.com has provided the following article, one of a series of marketing articles written with unsigned bands in mind. The articles cover topics such as social networking, email marketing, press releases, forum creation, blogging, and other step-by-step guides.

The Five Rules In Creating Successful Press Releases For Your Band

Press releases may be the biggest action a band can take to promote their band and gain free publicity. Artists have many reasons to write a press release, including:

• CD release
• Concert / performance
• New music video
• Sign to a label
• Member change / addition

Be careful, though, because if editors receive too many press releases, you will quickly annoy them. In order to write a successful press release that ensures editors will read and write about it, you must follow certain rules (Music Biz Academy).

Rule #1: If you cannot write well, hire someone. No editor will continue reading a badly written press release. The press release must catch and keep their attention as well as persuade them to write an article about you or the band. Write grammatically, smoothly and confidently. If you are unsure about your writing abilities, hire a professional. Cheap “professionals” result in low quality writing, so put some money into hiring a good writer to receive valuable press releases.

Rule #2: Make it interesting. Press releases are supposed to take a biased view to persuade someone to write about your music, but at the same time, it needs to hold their interest. Add relevant links to past press releases, past articles, your blogs, band bio, pictures, videos, and sound examples – anything that may be related and interesting to the editor. You want to pique their interest so they explore more about you or the band. Sound clips are especially important to give them an example of your music.

Rule #3: Relate to the editor. Before sending a press release to anyone, research is necessary. Find out if the editor even writes about the genre of music you play. If they don’t, sending them the press release will only annoy them. After sending a few press releases to the same editor and they still did not write about your band, let it go. Do not continue badgering them. When sending the press release, attach the URL of the whole article and only give them a sample of the article in the email. Whole press releases through email use their email storage space. Finally, if they do write about you, write them a hand-written thank-you note. They will appreciate it.

Rule #4: Do the necessities. All press releases should include the basic who, what, where, when and why. Give the editors every detail they need to include in their review. Do not make them research for it. It should also read like a news story. Be professional when writing the press release. In addition, include a catchy title and subject line. The title is what initiates readers to even read your press release, so the more interesting the title is, the more likely someone will read and write about it.

Rule #5: Write for the audience and the search engines. When writing your press release, make sure to include good keywords. Mentioning you or your band’s name, location, or other important words often boosts your keyword density, which search engines notice, boosting your results to the top when someone searches those words. Keyword density is the percentage of times a certain word shows up in your press release. Search engines also calculate the number of links pointing to your page, so submit your press release to certain press release directories.

Additional points to notice is to enable a RSS feed so editors and others can automatically receive an update when you add a new press release to the site. Keep all your press releases on separate pages with one page from your website providing the links to all the new articles (with the most recent press release on top). Writing a press release requires work and commitment, but the payoff is worth it.

By Lance Trebesch
lance@ticketprinting.com
www.TicketPrinting.com