Bob Baker Workshop review

Bob Baker is an indie marketing guru. He is known for his focus on empowering the indie musician and artist to truly succeed in the marketplace.I attended the "Guerrilla Music Marketing Workshop" Bob held in Nashville last week and thought I'd give you a review.

I don't want to give away intellectual material, so to summarize, Bob gave us a step-by-step understanding of the core of music marketing. I already knew a lot of it, from studying Internet marketing last winter, but he made perfect sense of it, tying it together into lists of things like "7 Secrets to Low-Cost Music Promotion", "3 Steps to Effective Music Marketing", "The 4 D's of Music Promotion". He showed how important it is to be persistent through what Internet marketing master Seth Godin calls the "dip" in your career. A dip is, by definition, right before a climb.

Bob had several special guest speakers join him- and I learned as much from them as from Baker himself.

• Doak Turner of The Nashville Muse ezine talked about everything from having business cards on you to NOT shoving your demo down the throat of music person you meet for the first time!
• Pop artist CC (don't remember last name) of http://www.firepitfriday.com/ podcast talked about this dynamite new Internet talk show opportunity- for artists by artists.
• David Hooper of Music Business Radio (I blogged about this show to you in a previous post) encouraged people to have accountability partners, to support the "scene" and the "scene" will support you, to be yourself when you ply your craft and suggested that all your marketing efforts must get a return worth the effort.
• Keith Mohr of Christian indie distributor IndieHeaven talked about finding a niche, connecting with musicians and artists similar to you, to start local and build regions of fans from there, to remember that bigger is not always better, that procrastination is your enemy, and - important- NOT to put mediocre content online. (uh- some of you may want to check your online audio clips!)

Bob and his special guests discussed ways to reach fans and bypass industry bottlenecks. He very much believes that you must chip away at success a little at time to build a prosperous, lasting career.

I came away feeling better than ever about the real possibilities of building a money-making career without being signed to a major label, IF you want to work hard and smart at it. What's that old saying..."Where there's a will there's a way!" I invite you to share your thoughts and experiences by clicking the comment link below this post.