Laura’s Blog

The Columbia River Gorge Amphitheatre. You can’t find a more gorgeous concert venue!

My family and I have just returned from four days at Creation Northwest, a Christian rock concert festival held annually at the Columbia River Gorge Amphitheatre near George, Washington. Eight rock concerts in four days. Can you say, “ruptured eardrums”?

Rock bands, like most business owners, know that a strong performance sells product. Christian rock bands are no exception; in fact, because they cater to a much smaller market than mainstream bands, they have to work that much harder to get noticed.

I took mental notes during the concerts we attended to see how the headliner bands marketed themselves during their performances. Based on my unscientific observation, I came up with seven tips anyone in business should remember when marketing yourself, your products, and your services:

1.  Pay your dues.

Skillet in concert. At least I think it’s Skillet. I’ll have to ask my sons. Skillet put on the splashiest, most exciting concert of the entire festival. They had fire. They had explosions. They had fun! The band’s energy rubbed off on the crowd, who couldn’t get enough.

Skillet has been around for over a decade, but hasn’t quite achieved mainstream popularity. Yet. I think they will, because these guys really have a handle on marketing. They’ve played at Creation Northwest during its entire 12-year existence. They started out playing afternoon concerts on the “fringe” stage, and slowly worked their way up to playing on the mainstage. Finally, this year, they were the headline band the first night of the festival. And they wowed the crowd so effectively that I will be surprised if they don’t get an even better billing next year.

Lesson: Be willing to strut your stuff at small venues while you wait for your chance to shine. When given the opportunity to move to the big time, make the most of it.

2.  Work the crowd.

The David Crowder Band is a terrific warmup band; through a combination of musicianship, goofiness, and charisma, they got the entire audience – even the “I’m-sitting-in-my-lawnchair-no-matter-what” people – on their feet, clapping, bopping, and yelling.

Lesson: Know your audience. Know what triggers to push to get them emotionally invested. And don’t hesitate to push those triggers.

3.  Do a sound check.

My sons trying to keep cool before the concert starts (it was 104 degrees that day)

Relient K got top billing at this year’s festival – they were the final band to play on the last night of the festival. My teenage sons were pumped; they planned to bounce and dance and sing along at the top of their lungs. But two songs into the show, one son mumbled in my ear, “I am so disappointed. I thought they’d be… better.”

A few minutes later, my other son commented, “These guys suck. Big time.”

And they were right (others in the crowd apparently agreed; almost a third of the audience left after the second song, and a steady exodus headed for the hills throughout the concert).

So, how did the headliner band manage to put on such an abysmal performance?

Simple: the sound guy didn’t do his job. We literally could not decipher a single word of any song – the instruments completely overpowered the vocals. The problem wasn’t the sound system; we could hear the warmup band crystal clear. The problem was the balance between the vocals and the instrumentation.

Lesson: If you’ve got a message to deliver – whether it’s a boardroom presentation, a speech to your classmates, or a concert in front of 20,000 crazed fans, make sure your audience can hear you, clearly and distinctly. If you’re using a microphone, check, double check, and triple check it well in advance of your performance. If your audience can’t make out your words, there’s no reason for them to hang around.

After the concert (yes, we stayed till the bitter end), my 13-year-old commented, “I’m still going to listen to their music, but Relient K should stop doing concerts and stick to recording their songs in a studio, where they can make themselves sound good.” Touché.

4.  Give ‘em your best stuff.

Casting Crowns has cranked out enough hits that they can keep an audience happy just by playing a string of their best songs. And they did. And they performed those hits exceptionally well. Not only did they give the audience all their favorite songs, but they threw in a few new songs to sweeten the pot.

Lesson: Be the consummate professional; know what your audience wants, and deliver top quality.

5.  Offer variety.

Just off a world tour, Chris Tomlin was über polished, professional, and sincere (a challenging combo to achieve). Unlike most of the other bands, which my hubby and I classified as “heavy metal” (think AC/DC or Aerosmith, only with clean lyrics), Chris Tomlin’s sound was more worship oriented. Sure, he provided plenty of loud rock, but there were moments when it was just him and the piano. When he sang, “How great is our God” in four different languages, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Chris Tomlin held the crowd in the palm of his hand, and I imagine all the parents who paid for their kids’ tickets rushed out to buy his CDs afterwards.

Lesson: Know your customer (are you starting to see a theme here?) and provide a little something special to please all of them.

6.  Be yourself.

Skillet. Chris Tomlin. Casting Crowns. Hawk Nelson.  My family rates these the top four bands of the festival, mainly because we remember their music and their performance several days after the fact.

Kutless?  Red? Excellent musicians, but what unique “sound” sets them apart from every other rock band on the face of the planet? If I heard five songs by five different artists, would I be able to pick Red out from the crowd? I doubt it.

But Chris Tomlin? Definitely. He has developed a unique voice.

Lesson: If you’re still developing your brand identity (and who isn’t?), don’t worry. It’ll come. Continue to focus on what makes your “sound” unique. Don’t focus on imitating others who have already achieved stardom; stay true to who you are as you strive to develop your unique voice.

7.  Make the sale.

During their concert, Skillet heavily promoted their upcoming album, Awake. They made it easy for people to pre-order the album, offering a card with a download code on it for only $9.00. My 16-year-old, who, up until this week has not been much of a Skillet fan, immediately ran out to preorder his album. On the album’s August 25 release date, all he has to do is enter his card’s code at a Web site and he can instantly download the entire album to his computer or MP3 player.

Lesson: So often, those of us who market our services or products forget to close the sale. It doesn’t have to be a hard sell, but we do need to remember to insert those all-important words, “Are you ready to buy? Just sign on the dotted line.”

Skillet is also savvy about the power of social media. The lead singer asked the crowd, “Do you wanna be on YouTube?” He filmed the crowd with his digital camera and told them where to go to see themselves on YouTube. Skillet understands the meaning of WII-FM (What’s In It For Me?) marketing.

Hawk Nelson touted their presence on Twitter, (they crank out very good tweets, incidentally), YouTube, and Facebook.

Am I going to follow them on all those social networks? No, I’ll follow them on Twitter, because I’m an avid Twitter user. But others, who are avid Facebook or MySpace or YouTube users, will follow them those places.

A final lesson: Give your fans multiple ways to stay in touch with you. Then make an effort to stay in touch with them. They may just become your next paying customer.