How do musicians promote themselves?

Rihanna - who is she?

Yes, obviously she is probably the most famous female pop musician of the 21st century.
But how come we know that?

Well, if there wouldnt have been Jay-Z, who brought her in that whole music business she would probably still be signing in her flat.
So first of all, have a contact in the scene - that helps you get in the press.
Be different, people dont want to see and hear what they have been seeing and hearing last year - htey want new styles!

Be crazy and make something that people associate you with. Get an image- Rihanna is famous for being the "Bad Girl", innocent font -but catchy, naughty color: 

And again RED in Rihanna's  latest video:

 Only Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa14VNsdSYM

She used the colour red -everything is red, even her hair:

She is not only on YouTube, MyVideo, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, she has a own homepage and several fan pages where her latest songs and videos are shown.

But most of the people who dont know her yet, wouldnt browse for her, so what can she do to extend her number of fans?

So Rihanna needs to be there where potential audience is, e.g. on big music festivals, where other artist are performing and therefore different fans are. She needs to present on MTV and give interviews about her new video. She needs to market it to the audience by being present, as well by going to talk shows and talk about her past and future - to satisfy the audience thirst of news!

Freddy

What is a Digipak?

Since it is one of our tasks to create a digipak for our music video + the song, I thought I first of all investigate in the difference of a CD/DVD case and a digipak.
Well, basically is a digipak nothing else than a fancy CD/DVD case - but why would you have one thing and two names?
This appears to be another influence of the internet. Since people are buying songs of the internet - some even get them for free, illegally - is it hard to keep the sales of CD cases up. This is because of cheaper, faster and easier access to the song in the internet. So what to do, if you want to keep the sales up and make sure your songs/videos do not get copied illegally and spread for free in the internet.

!You have to give the audience/customers something the only can get when the buy the song as hardware - and so was the digipak invented!

But what could it be? It cant be cheaper, because the costs are higher. It cant be easier as just a click in the internet. And it cant be faster than a download in 20 seconds. So what can the digipak do, what the mp3 file in the internet and the old CD case cant do?

Well, if there would be an easy answer, than I would not be sitting here because I would be a millionaire.
But there are different ways you can try to get the audience back to by the good old hardware.

How to attract my audience to buy my product as a hardware and not download it in the internet?

That is first of all up to the design of the digipak. Give the digipak a fancy layout and so that people will buy the pak due a unique selling point, e.g.
-3D image as a cover - that couldn't be displayed on a computer!
-Design the digipak different to competitors and old CD cases, make them fancy - space for two CDs. One song CD, on Video CD - that cant be downloaded in the internet.
-Release extras on the digipak version, like a bonus song or a bonus video.
-Give a 20% off voucher for this artist next concert.
-Put a little booklet in the case with extra information, song lyrics and extra pictures.
-Or put even fan articles in it, for example for an artist like 50 Cent, put a 50 Cent necklace in it.

This is how I would design my digipak - there will follow some designs!

Freddy