Public Relations, Press Relations, Media Relations, or just Publicity; no matter what you call it, or how you divide it up, Public Relations is one of the most vital functions in building a career as a vocalist. Doing a bang-up job with your PR is probably second in importance only to your actual singing talent.
For most people, it is not hearing you on the radio that will cause them to remember you. It is the subconscious recognition of you that they will have acquired from hearing about you, reading about you, and seeing your picture several times. These are the things that make you familiar to them and it is the familiarity and recognition that will make them want to buy your CD or go to see you perform.
The art of Public Relations is aimed at getting you known and loved. Few, if any, successful vocalists ever gained their success by virtue of their singing talent alone. Although the talent is a must, it is the PR that gains the vocalist the opportunities to be heard and the desire of music fans to listen, support, and buy. It is PR that will gain you air-play and get you gigs.
Before we can put together your PR or Media Plan, we have to develop at least a basic Career Plan. The first step to that is to consider your goals. What do you want to do? Sing, and get paid for it, I assume. What do you want to sing; Opera, Country, Pop, Classical, Jazz…? Where? Do you dream of touring, working large venues? Do you prefer small intimate settings? Do you want to sing before an audience at all? It is possible to make a living recording in the studio and selling CD’s, or working as a session vocalist. Do you want to sing lead in a group, or join or form a band?
We will look at your long-term goals, determine how practical they are, and set some shorter term goals to work toward the big ones. It is okay to want to be the King of Music Land, as long as you realize that your castle will have to be built one stone at a time. While it is important to have those long-term goals, they are not something that can't be changed. As your career develops, you may decide that you want to go in a different direction. The Career Plan, like the Media Plan, are living documents. They will grow and change with you.
Once we know what the goals are, we can look at how to achieve them. This is where your Creative Stockpile and your Resources come into play. How you get where you want to be depends a lot on what you have to work with vs. what you have to acquire. The more time and business abilities you have, the fewer you will have to develop and the fewer you will have to pay other people to do for you. This is important, when starting out, as it will be some time before the money comes pouring in. Once you are established and have a decent income, you may want to farm out the jobs you don't care for or won't have time for. For now though, your own hard work, and a bit of begging, will cost you little of the cash you probably don't have.
Okay, now that we know where you want to go and how we are going to try to get you there, we can start to formulate the Media Plan. The Media Plan is based upon your Career Plan. It is a strategy for getting the media to propel you along your course. We will start with your local media, because locally is where you are going to begin your career.
Local Media consists of not only the radio stations and newspapers we first think of "media". The downtown drug store (the one with notices posted in their window), business and public bulletin boards (in the library, town hall, and the recreation or teen center), and the Community Web Page are all free media that we will happily take advantage of. We will mail press releases and PSA's to the Newspapers and radio stations. Those other media outlets will require face-to-face contact, with posters, flyers, and business cards. So, get ready to do some leg work, or find a personable family member or friend who will run around town for you.
At some point around here, we start to put together a Press Kit. Most up-and-coming entertainers are in a big rush to get their Press Kit put together. The fact is though, that you don’t need it until the media is actually interested in learning about you, and that comes after some PR. There is also the fact that, until you have done a few things, there won't be much to put in it. But, we will not wait for them to come looking for it. We will have it ready for when we do need it.
By the way, the beginning of the PR process is where we will have to start to work with your real name, as well as location and biography material. If we have been working with some degree of anonymity, this is where that ends.