A few weeks back I received an email from an artist who had booked her first solo show. As she explained it was coming up in two weeks. She was excited. She saw this as being an opportunity to truly establish herself and her artwork. She wanted us to work with her to launch a campaign to garner media coverage, create a buzz and start help drive peoples to the exhibit.
The problem? Although she had known about the show for over three months, she waited until a week before the event to contact us. A week before the event was to launch, she decided she needed a PR campaign.
She was right. She did need to launch a campaign, but in order to promote the show, she needed to launch it as soon as she had secured the exhibit. To start a PR campaign a week before an exhibit can be helpful for an artist’s overall image and career, but that will afford your PR team enough time to help market the event itself.
Remember, when it comes to media relations, the sooner you can launch the better. Different media have different lead times. The monthly magazines have a three month lead time (minimum), weeklies, daily newspapers, TV and online media all have different timelines that you have to take into consideration. So don’t wait to launch a PR campaign for an event. You want time to do pre-event media outreach, PR around the event itself and the post-event outreach.
So, not giving your PR campaign enough time to do its work is one of the two biggest cardinal mistakes artists make.
Another is illustrated by a call I received from a musician who was looking for PR representation. He explained had been in the studio for two months, had worked long and hard on writing and recording his music and was now ready to make his push and release them. He went on to explain that it was time for his music to find its audience. He had spent all of his money on the recording and had not considered saving any for her PR and marketing. He figured that since he had Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts, all he needed to was Tweet, post some images and information on the upcoming record release and the marketing would take care of itself.
Sounds good. Sometimes with the right contacts it can work, but seldom is it enough in and of itself. And in this case it wasn’t. He was receiving little if any responses to his social media postings and decided he needed to launch a PR campaign.
I asked him what type of marketing budget he had set aside for marketing and PR. I could tell by the ensuing silence that launching a PR campaign had not been high on his list – until now. After a long pause, he explained that he had spent his entire budget and had nothing left for marketing.
He had not prepared, saved or planned for a public relations campaign. He was left with a product he was proud of but with no viable avenues to get the product in front of the right people. He had not set anything aside for his marketing or PR.
Bottom line is, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a musician, painter, sculptor, or author, the bottom line is you owe it to your work to get it in front of the public and in front of influencers who can help champion your art. You do that through savvy PR and marketing.
So approach your art as a business, budget for the creative side of your work, but also budget for marketing.
Believe me, your planning will pay off in the long run.
Copyright © PR FOR ARTISTS 2015