As Summer heats up, it's a great time to review your online marketing and promotional efforts and start planning for the second half of 2009. To help you out, we thought it might be useful to take a quick look back and share some marketing resolutions we made at the beginning of the year.

10 Marketing Strategies for the Second Half of 2009

10 - Get Organized: Take some time to sit down and make a plan for the rest of 2009 for your marketing; it doesn't have to get too formal in this step, just make of list of your goals and what you can do to achieve them.

9 - Start a Blog: Along with your website, you should also host a blog. It is important to blog in order to establish a "voice." Increalingly, "blogs" can be sent through a variety of channels such as Facebook, Twitter and your own website.

8 - Create a Buzz: Right now, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular Social Media Networks, and all the online buzz is about these two easy-to-join networks. Also, offering promotions of free samples helps up your "wow" factor.

7 - Put Your Fans to Work for You: Get your fans to join your street team, tell their friends about your music and help you spread the word about your latest project. Social networks enable fans to spread the word more than ever before.

6 - Learn from the Best: Make a list of the artists you admire the most and watch what they do. Mimicking their tactics can help you learn from the best and put their ideas to work for you.

5 - Collect Email Addresses: There are many ways to build your email list. Put an opt-in list on every page of your website and be sure to have an email sign up at your concert events. Contests and promotions can also be a great way to collect info. Be sure to ask for zip codes too so you can let fans know when you will be playing nearby.

4 - Start a Referral Program: Get your fans to refer you to others. You can even try offering deals to the referrer and/or the referred for better results.

3 - Take Control of Your Data: Manage your lists. Be sure that your email list is up to date and utilize your ability to send communications to the people on your list.

2 - Do a Fan Survey: Ask your fans to participate in a short survey. Getting both negative and positive feedback is very important as it lets you know what they like best. This can also be a great source of ideas, inspiration and feedback.

1 - Analyze: You can use Google Analytics to track your website visits and find out where your traffic is coming from and how good it is. Then you can make changes to help increase your flow based on the results.

To download the PDF (Acrobat Reader) for the full article with more detailed steps and information on how to strategize your marketing click here!


Facebook and Twitter Cut Into MySpace's User Time
According to new figures from Nielsen Online, total minutes spent on Facebook in April rose 699% from a year ago. At MySpace, meanwhile, total minutes spent fell a jarring 31%.


Best,
Michael