Be sure to check out our FREE 4 Day How to Book [Profitable] Gigs e-Course. Whether you’re looking to start a career in music, just starting out, or a seasoned pro, this free 4 day e-course is full of great tips and information on how to make more money as an artist. Click Here to Enroll.
I wish I had more time for booking efforts. With promotions, administrative work, keeping up with my fans, and side hustles, I’ll admit, there’s not a lot of time left in the day for booking. But it’s still important to be consistent with booking efforts even if you might feel you have enough gigs. After all, you don’t want this happening to you. So how do I maintain consistency when putting my name in the hat for new gigs? Well, if you have some gigs already, start there. Earlier this year I wrote this post about boosting your income by organizing your booking efforts from an income/business perspective. This article is sort of a follow-up to that post. In this article, I’ll focus more on how to leverage current gigs to book future gigs.
Watch This Article on Video
Every show you do is an opportunity to book another show, especially if you do an excellent job at putting on great shows. There are countless opportunities to book follow-up gigs at your current shows such as the current venue, friends of the venue, neighbors of the venue, people in the audience, and friends of the people in the audience. We’ll start with your on-stage performance.
Look to your current gigs for booking new gigs. They are a valuable resource. The people at your shows, the venues that book you will probably want to see you again. Leverage that for future booking opportunities.
— The Crafty Musician (@IndieArtistsDIY) September 4, 2018
House Concerts
Do you want to do more house concerts? There’s no better place to promote house concerts other than at your live shows. Make a habit of announcing the fact that you do house concerts as part of your live show. Briefly explain about the concept and share how awesome it is to host one. Create a postcard like this one and include it on your merchandise. Couple that with some of these techniques, you’re sure to pique someone’s interest.
Private Gigs
In addition to a house concert postcard, you should also consider creating a ‘Hire Us’ postcard to include on your merchandise table as well. Trust me! People snag these postcards up like they are candy. Nearly everyone has a need for live entertainment at some point in their lives. If they don’t have a need, then surely some of their friends and family will. Your ‘Hire Us’ postcard should include a great promo picture, your web address, a sample price for a typical show, the type of music you can do and any variations of that, and finally contact information so they can easily get in touch with you. Be sure to include all possible forms of contact not just an email address. Some people like to call instead of email for example.
A lot of your follow-up booking happens immediately after the show. You might get people coming up to you after your show asking about booking you for private functions. Have your pricing strategy memorized for this and be ready to take down names, emails and phone numbers. If they’re serious, they’ll give you this information so you can follow-up with them. Do follow-up.
[bctt tweet=”As an indie artist, developing a long-lasting quality relationship with your supporters one person at a time is where you’re money and support comes from in the long run. ” username=”IndieArtistsDIY”]
Your Follow-up Strategy
Also, make a habit of following up right away with people who’ve signed up on your mailing list. By the way, I hope you’re doing a good job at collecting emails at your shows. If not, brush up on part 1 of these tips and start collecting emails. I can’t stress enough how important it is for you as an independent artist to always be getting email addresses and contact points from people, especially those you meet at your shows. Developing a long-lasting quality relationship with these people one person at a time is where you’re money and support comes from in the long run. Check out The Six Figure Musician by David Hooper to get some education on this. Now back to the following-up. It’s always best to strike the iron while it’s hot. Immediately following the show, your audience members are still cracking up at the jokes you made, talking about your attire, and singing your songs. Hearing from you at this particular time will feel natural. If you don’t reach out to them now, they might forget who you are. Don’t be like me and wait until the following month when you send your monthly mailer to reach out to new subscribers. I was so bad at sending emails that I had a lady respond to one of my emails asking who I was. It’s so easy to forget who you are because life happens.
In your follow-up email talk about how much fun you had and ask them a question about the show to get them engaged. Tell them about the next time you’ll be in the area, about what you do with your subscribers, how often you send mailers and what they should expect. To help book more follow-up gigs, tell them about booking you for their next party or event or use this opportunity to talk about house concerts. Ask them if they know of anyone who might be interested in booking you. You might even consider sending them a coupon or a discount on their next booking with you. This will get them thinking about you the next time they have a party or event. They might even be in the process of planning a celebration already and your email could be just the thing they need to get the ball rolling.
There is still another area you can look into when leveraging your current shows to book follow-up gigs and that’s the venue. Contact the person who booked you at the venue right after your show. Thank them for booking you. Send any pictures you might have taken especially if those pictures prove you had a good show! Use this time to see if you can schedule another booking for some time in the future. Ask them when their next openings are and see if you can get in. Even if it’s some time in the far future like the following year. There’s no time like the present to get a booking started. I’ve booked several of my residency gigs this way. If they really like you, they’ll book you for a recurring gig. Boom, you’ve added a significant amount of cash in recurring gigs to your calendar. Pro Tip – Take care of the venues that book you with holiday cards and random thank you notes/gifts. This forges a long-lasting bond with them which will result in even more gig offers. Another thing you can do is ask the venue if they know of any other venues you’d be a good fit for. See if you can get them to introduce you. A good word for a fellow venue will go a really long way. Don’t neglect the follow-up. Always follow-up on referrals. They are worth 10x more than a cold call. Use Boomerang to help you keep track of follow-ups if you’re too busy. It’s a very useful tool and it’s free!
When I worked a corporate job, I learned this principle. – always pick the low-hanging fruit first. It means that you should put effort into the easy stuff first before doing the hard stuff. It takes less money to resell to a customer than to find a new customer so we focused a lot of our outreach efforts to current and old clients. The same principle holds true in your independent music business. Booking follow-up gigs at your current shows is a lot easier than going out and trying to find brand new gigs. Use the resources you have to get more gigs. In what ways do you use current gigs to book future gigs? Did I miss anything? Let us know your tricks of the trade in the comments section.
Some of the links in this post could be affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and make a purchase, we could get a commission payment as a result. We are an Amazon Associate, so a lot of our links go directly to Amazon, one of our fave online retailers. The products we recommend on this site are personally recommended by us because we either have used the product personally or know close friends who have. There is no extra cost to you by clicking on our links. Plus, it helps keep this blog going. Win-Win! If you have any questions about our affiliate policy, click here to view our terms of service.
Enjoying this content? We’d love to send you our latest posts fresh off the press! We’ll deliver new posts directly to your inbox. Plus, you’ll be notified when we host giveaways, webinars, and other fun stuff. Join our mailing list here.
Want to showcase your product to our audience? Take a look at our advertising options here.
