If anything, the Internet provides the ability to locate many things you may not have been expecting to find.  This means that in order to reach your market (in this case, your music) you may need to find creative ways to get yourself noticed by those potential fans that may actually be searching for something else.

The previous V11 post quoted “The Fall of Communization and the Rise of the Music Fan.”  Once again a quote from that post is relevant here, as it pertains to the perspective of the music listener/music purchaser:

As music fans we are now walking in a crowded room where everyone wants our attention and what happens naturally is that we’ve tuned out the frequency of noise in our lives. The permeability of the walls we put up around ourselves now only lets certain messages through. You now have to be smarter about what you do, because it’s no longer as easy to buy your way into our headphones.

Because of this, we need to find different, more organic ways to get over those walls so that people hear can your message.

Creative Marketing is required.  Think of it as a combination of web surfing mixed with the long tail business approach.

These creative efforts should be relevant enough to music to bring people in but still different enough so they you can get passed their screening mechanisms for listening to new music.

One idea that works in this realm are posting videos on YouTube explaining how to play some of your favorite songs, or perhaps offering tips on how to play them better.  If people use these videos and enjoy your presentation they’ll very likely hit links to your website and check out your music too.  Not surprisingly, if you discuss and explain songs that influenced you, chances are you will share musical tastes with those who watch your explanatory video, and therefore they will be organically interested and more likely to truly listen to and enjoy your music.  This sort of targeted marketing, after all, is helpful for everyone.

Micah’s video discussing how to play a Jack Johnson song is a good example of this.  Note the many flowering comments on his ability to teach.  It is not much of a stretch, then, to predict that many of these viewers will also be curious to truly listen to his music.

Just another creative way to market yourself over the Internet, connect with new fans, and take advantage of the long tail.

After all, we are now at a time when you have to be as creative with your music business as you are with your music.