2. Burying offer. "Links to buy CD should be available at almost every page on your Website. Many Websites challenge, almost dare visitors to find product, let alone buy it."

3. Ignoring fans. "Many artist Websites have a registration feature, but it is not prominently displayed. When you are not selling albums at your Website, you need to be collecting email registrations." This builds a fan base where you can sell an album now and more in future.

4. Not giving fans what they want. "Make your music accessible. Offer a few full streams of your songs. Make a download available in exchange for an email registration. You will win more fans and sell more CDs giving your music away than you will by not letting your potential fans really listen before they buy."

5. Failing to design with bandwidth in mind. "Ever been to a Website and forgot why you were there before page fully loaded? Getting people to your site is hard enough. Losing them because they got tired of waiting for your page to load is a waste of everyone's time and energy."

CONSIDER OTHER OPTIONS:

Websites are a necessity, but don't overlook other ways of reaching out to potential fans on Internet. Banners can be bought or traded. Emails can be sent (be mindful of CAN-SPAM law; see below for link). Marketing can be done on search engines. You can join or participate in message boards and blogs (web logs). And latest advancement in music marketing involves social networks such as MySpace.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Meldrum had many specific suggestions for attendees, including:

* use Google for research * check out MySpace.com * target your audience * simplify your Website * give away some songs * interact with your audience often

"You can send emails in text or HTML format. With HTML (hyper text markup language), you can include pictures and graphics. They look nice, but we get twice 'open rate' with text emails."

THE BOTTOM LINE ON WEBSITES:

"To your online fans, you are your Website. If they love it, they will love you, and will be eager to follow your careers. Take all great things about you, your talent and your message, and translate to HTML. Keep it simple, easy-to-navigate and informative, and you will have a highly-effective marketing channel for your music."

Sources for more info: http://www.narip.com http://www.hypecouncil.com http://www.scottmeldrum.com http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm http://marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/ http://www.google.com http://www.myspace.com/thegman

Scott G records as The G-Man and you'll find his work on iTunes, at http://www.delvianrecords.com and http://www.gmanmusic.com

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To view sites I have listed, visit http://www.turningpointpresents.com/marketingtools.htm If you would like your site to be considered for a link exchange send me an email and let’s chat.

Here is a sample message I recently receive that resulted in sender getting their site listed on mine and mine on theirs.

“Thank you for putting together a great article. I wanted to let you know that I posted your article Titled "Visibility, Credibility and Position Through Articles and Celebrity Testimonials" you will find your article here: http://www.businessbooksandmore.com/BusinessArticles/yh/pm1.htm I would like to also exchange links with you. Here is my information: URL: http://www.businessbooksandmore.com/go/go.php/articles1 LINKED TEXT: BusinessBooksandMore.com”

It’s that simple. When you do post link, send a short email to webmaster to let them know you have done so. It is common courtesy.

Even though there are many people who fully understand value of creating this type of opportunity, more still just don’t get it. Fact is, this is one of easiest ways to gain position on Internet and to create a Win/Win situation. And what could be better than that?