Make your PC work for you

[Casey H]

Hi Just a couple of things I'd like to share as to how I made my PC help with marketing.First, know how to Google... I'm sure by now most of you do... One thing that helps is to put words together in quotes when you want to find them in sequence. For example, "Blue Moment Publishing" as opposed to the 3 words with no quotes. You generally get the best hits up front. ( Google eyes)You can do a lot if you gain some proficiency in Word and Excel. Early on, I started tracking every submission I made in an Excel spreadsheet- name of company, contact name, address, email, phone, songs sent, date, etc. When I got a response that was also noted (i.e. rejected, did not listen yet, keeping on file, you suck , etc) This helps you know what's out there and you check dates to see if it is a good time for a follow-up email. I also like this in case a particular company's name comes up later on. You can see what notes you made.More advanced: the mass mailing. (This is complicated). Let's say you get a long list of companies and you want to ask then all permission to submit a demo. One such long list is the film/TV Music Supervisor's guide from filmmusic.net. They offer an electronic version which can be imported into Excel or a database program...Using the above as an example: First, you sort the list to only those that have mailing addresses. Then you filter out duplicate listings, which will be there for some reason. Some other work may be needed to make individual columns out of Mr. or Ms., first name, last name, etc. Next you need to know how to use Word to do a mail merge. A mail merge is when Word takes one document (in this case a letter) and duplicates it per each item in the mail list which in this case is the Excel spreadsheet. You can personalize the fields on the letter- name , address, Dear Mr. zzzz, etc. so that the letter does not appear to be a form letter.You can also use the mail merge information to address the envelopes or print mailing address mailing labels. Just be careful it doesn't look like junk mail...Handwrite something on each envelope such as "music submission".As I said, this is complicated, but if you are not afraid to learn more Microsoft Office tools you can can a l It of productivity in this area. Is sure beats doing 200 individual letters.You can do something similar for a mass e-mailing but I haven't figured out an equivalent to the mail merge yet. (If someone knows how, please let us know!). For mass e-mails, I've had to go the "Music Supervisor:" salutation route and you don't need the company name and address as in a formal business letter. For mass e-mailing, you can sort your spreadsheet to only show items that have email addresses. Then you can cut and paste a bunch of addresses, in one shot, to your email program.When you mass email, make sure you paste the target addresses in the "Bcc" (blind copy) field, not the "To" field. That way one recipient does not see who else the email went to. This is important! It looks very tacky if they see the names of a zillion other companies and it certainly screams of mass e-mailing. Some email systems have a limit on how many recipients you can use in a single email (i.e. 50)... So group into sets of 50 as needed.One last thing: Don't forget to track all these responses in a spreadsheet too. For email, I often just create email folders, one such as "Mass Mail March 06 YES","Mass Mail March 06 NO", and "Mass Mail March 06 CHECK BACK LATER". Well, I hope this was helpful. Casey

[hummingbird]

Great info Casey! The mass emailing - if you use one of the free or low=cost ways to send out a ezine (electonic newsletter), you could individually address each submission and you can include fields like 'first name' last name; etc.Another option (although I haven't tried it) - you can email directly from Word, so I think there's likely a way to 'mail merge' an email list. I'd set up a dummy list of 3 or 4 address for self & friends and give it a go.Great notes about keeping trackcheersHummin'bird

[nomiyah]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge again, Casey. Appreciate it.The BCC thing often shows up to all senders instead of being unseen. I'm not sure how to make sure the other addresses are hidden.If I may add to your suggestions, I highly recommend sending a test email to yourself in an alternate email.Nomi

[roughly]

Thanks Casey for all the great info. Speaking of databases, I'm actually having my dad (who's a database programmer) build us a database that has all the fields I want in it. It will work as a song, company and contact database. Using excel is just getting too messy for me to keep it all straight. It's still in the works but I'll let you all know when it's ready and maybe make it available for you guys to use too.Theresa

[Casey H]

Hi Roughly: Actually, a database program is better than Excel, this will be great for you. Mail merges with Word can also be done from databases like Microsoft Access.Vikki: Thanks for mentioning the e-newsletter software thing! I've received such newsletters but never noticed them as personalized with my name in the salutation. If the software can do that and have it not look like spam, that would be awesome!Nomi: Regarding Bcc, is should work and the test e-mail is definitely the thing to do. ...Are you are not confusing how the e-mail appears in your "Sent Items" with how others see it? Easy enough to check this with a test email...Practice "safe pitching"... Casey

[Casey H]

HeyIt really pays to google yourself once in a while even if your Mom told you not to... I just found out my song "Physical World" was played on an Internet station in Jan '06...Google's "Advanced Search" is faster when you are looking for exact phrases such as [first name] [last name], [first name][MI][last name], or other combinations with initials, nicknames, etc... Casey

[roughly]

Congrats on the internet airplay Casey!