Back in 2010, we ran a $50 Week column with advice from some of our favorite types of coaches—acting coaches, life coaches, organizational gurus [see June 2010]. With the new performance season underway, the idea of selling yourself and your work to the media may also be at the forefront of your mind.
And if you can’t afford the help of your own publicist, we’ve got you covered with an early holiday present: six top-shelf classical music publicists offering their advice for low-budget PR that can yield high-octane results.
Devon Estes
21C Media Group
Current clients include René Pape, Fabio Luisi, and Houston Grand Opera
“There are two kinds of publicity for an artist: publicizing yourself within the industry (raising awareness with conductors, admins, managers, taste makers, and other important people) and publicizing yourself to the public. For any artist that isn’t at the level where they need to hire a publicist (people like Anna Netrebko, René Pape, Thomas Hampson, and Susan Graham), it’s vastly more important to focus on improving your image and awareness within the industry.
“No matter how well known you are, you won’t succeed if you don’t have the talent—but it’s also very important to be involved, social, outgoing, collegial, fun (yet professional), and interesting. Always go to the party after rehearsal. Meet everyone in the room. Talk to the donors for the Young Artist Program that you’re doing or the company that you’re singing with. Everyone talks to everyone in this industry, and the more people that know you and like you, the better.
“But most importantly, just be a good person. One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received came from Mary Lou Falcone, one of the original classical music publicists: Never say anything bad about anyone and, God forbid, never write anything bad about anyone. This is especially true today, now that everything is online and there is no such thing as a secret anymore. Don’t write anything down unless you’d be comfortable showing it to your mother and the Pope. If you even have a second thought about something, don’t say it and don’t write it. It will come back to haunt you!” — Devon Estes
Rebecca Davis
Rebecca Davis Public Relations
Current clients include Elīna Garanča, Danielle de Niese, and Andreas Scholl
“A lot of times, clients will contact me wanting press—but they don’t know what they want, they don’t know where they want it, and they don’t understand that a publicist’s job is to get people who write about news to write about them. So there has to be a reason that somebody’s going to want to write about you. You have to find the places where your activity is going to be newsworthy. It’s such a fundamental part of promotion, and yet it seems to be one that so few people get.
“Sending out a press release about everything you’re doing that season to everybody who might possibly care is usually a wasted effort and will do nothing but irritate journalists. But sending out a press release or a bio or a pitch to a journalist in a market where you are going to be appearing is definitely much better targeted and a much better use of your time and your good name. You don’t want to just blast off something that’s not going to be relevant to those the journalist is talking to.
“Finally, know to whom you are pitching. Read that person’s column, read that person’s writing, read the publications. If you want to reach the Schenectady Gazette because you’re doing a concert in Troy, make sure you know who the writer is and what that writer is interested in writing about, and get a sense of what they have written about before. Don’t do a spaghetti-against-the-wall approach. Pay attention to the places you would like to appear in and figure out what they are writing about and what is being covered. And to that end, stack your story: don’t release your record in a vacuum if you’re going to be performing two months down the road. Even if the repertoire isn’t the same, stacking your story elements together increases your chances of getting picked up.” — Rebecca Davis
Christina Jensen
Christina Jensen PR
Current clients include the American Composers Orchestra, Lisa Bielawa, and Robert Sirota
“The thought I hear expressed most often by artists about their reticence to promote themselves and their work is usually some variation on the idea that they feel their work should speak for itself, and they think that by promoting it they are somehow selling out. I cannot stress enough that there is absolutely no reason for this fear. If you and/or your publicist are promoting you and your work in the right way, it should feel like you are simply telling your own story honestly and not like you have created anything fictional that you are ‘selling’ to the public.
“As a performer, if you are not working with your own publicist, one of the best and most often overlooked ways to reach the media is through concert presenters. Do not be hesitant to schedule a phone call with the staff at a presenting organization to talk about their media outreach plans. Most presenters will be grateful for direct access to an artist—we PR people are always hungry for information about you, and the more information we have, the better we can do our jobs.
“Ask them who they plan to contact and what coverage they are hoping to secure. Let them know you are available and happy to be interviewed—and then make good on your promise by being available and happy to be interviewed. Brainstorm ideas together, and stay in touch during the time leading up to the performance. Keep in mind media deadlines: most members of the press should be contacted four to six weeks before a concert or album release in order to allow them time to write something before their deadlines. Talk to the PR team long before this window. It does no good to call them a few days before the concert to talk about plans. (For monthly magazines, the lead time is even longer: four to six months.)” — Christina Jensen
Wende Persons
21C Media Group
Current clients include Angela Meade and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Also an adjunct professor in the graduate performing arts administration program at NYU’s Steinhardt School
“Run, don’t walk, to your nearest online bookstore and buy David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR—$10.80 (and less) at Amazon, the cheapest publicist around. I love how Scott shows that the Web has changed the rules, meaning how we get our stories told. You can communicate directly with your fans. And these are things we know—they’re really basic—but it makes a huge difference. It’s mostly a corporate book, it’s a business book; but he mentions nonprofits, he mentions artists, and people can pull from that.
“Join the conversation. Be a thought leader. A singer could do a blog post on five tips on warming up before you go sing in your chorus or five great recordings of Schubert’s Winterreise. We’re experts to people who love what we do, and so people can blog about what they do and what they’ve studied. Look at Tom Hampson’s site and all the resources he’s posted for years to that site—books for singers, resource lists, things he found valuable. I think we’re so concerned with our next concert, we forget about feeding the passions of the people who are coming. Look at how Jeremy Denk, with his blog, set himself apart as an artist. Soon you establish a personality.
“My former Pittsburgh Opera boss, impresario Tito Capobianco, used to say, ‘I am one finger artistic, nine fingers fundraising.’ The same goes for savvy artists who invest the time and energy in their own marketing and PR.” — Wende Persons
Andrew Ousley
Director of Publicity, EMI
Current clients include Joyce DiDonato, Angela Gheorghiu, and Diana Damrau
“Obviously aside from working the major social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), you absolutely need a good website. It should be something that’s not too flashy, but something that contains all of the necessary info in clear, concise presentation. Resources like Constant Contact make e-mail marketing quite easy and affordable.
“It’s also vital to have a clear idea of what your ‘story’ or ‘hook’ is for whatever you’re trying to promote (performance, recording, etc.). Why should people care more about you than about the thousands of other singers out there? Why should they attend your performance or buy your album when there are so many other things competing for their attention? The most successful stories create an emotional connection without being contrived or melodramatic or exaggerated. They take your best points (which are most relevant to what you’re promoting) and put them in the forefront.
“Then it would be a matter of determining whose relationships you can leverage to get your name and story to the press—PR folks from venues or presenters, benefactors, any writers or radio folks you know who might know other people, and the like.” — Andrew Ousley
Amanda Sweet
Founder and President, Bucklesweet Media
Current clients include the King’s Singers, the Remarkable Theater Brigade’s Opera Shorts, and Cameron Carpenter
“Think outside the typical public relations kind of box that we put ourselves in when we think promotions. People talking about things will create buzz, which will get you more media attention. Look at mom-and-pop stores or coffee houses that will put your poster up when you perform in town. Most journalists get inundated by tons of press releases, and something more visual may capture their attention.
“If you happen to be friends with a journalist on Facebook, do not live-chat with them. A lot of people don’t want to hear pitches over Twitter, either. Unless you’re clever about it, you have to have some kind of social etiquette to understand how to correctly promote yourself and not be annoying. Give it the old college three tries, and maybe part of that’s e-mail, maybe part of that’s a phone call. If you don’t get a hold of that person, assume they’re not interested.
“It’s all about research and keeping lots of notes. Say you read three months ago that [the New York Times’] Tony Tommasini wrote something interesting—reference that when you contact him later. We all respond to proper flattery, and if somebody takes the time to acknowledge the work you’ve done, it makes you feel really good. It settles the conversation up front so it’s not so scary for you as the person that’s pitching and, for the journalist, not like they’re being assaulted. Most importantly, be yourself.” — Amanda Sweet
