I see a LOT of DIY bands and artists that don’t have websites and that troubles me.  I’m guessing these artists think websites are sooooooo 2006 and that fans can get all the information they need from their social media accounts, right?  Well, today I’m going to give you one good reason why you need a website.

I will…just keep reading.

I recently conducted an experiment for my own band in an effort to find out which channels people use to find out about my band’s gigs.  For a forthcoming tour I created unique URLs for all my different promotional channels (band website, Twitter, Facebook, band newsletter, promoters newsletter etc). Unique, trackable URLs for each channel were created to indentify clicks and traffic on each platform and the numbers were tallyed.  Here are there results in a pie chart (numbers shown are overall percentages).

So, let’s examine some of these findings.

Facebook Is King

This result doesn’t surprise me. My largest social media audience is on Facebook and I used video as well as a hefty paid boost to promote the tour in a post on my newsfeed (not simply relying on the Facebook events feature, though that does help).

Using video and a paid boost page post, I was able to get my tour dates out to a LOT of people.

Websites Are Very Important

Nearly 40% of sales traffic  is from my band’s website!

The ‘Gigs Page’ on your artist website is an easy, ‘one stop shop’ to let your fans know where you are playing.  If you have no website, people have no simple way to find out where you are playing and therefore there is less chance that people will turn up to see you.  And remember, other than the cost of hosting this method of gig promotion is FREE!

Takeaway Tip

If you haven’t got a website, there is no easy way to find out where you are playing and you could be missing out on ticket sales.

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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