How To Attract Showcase Investment

Stay active on the Slicethepie forum

It is no coincidence that Showcase Artists that take an active part in the Slicethepie forum attract the most investment.  Posting a simple ‘hi’ on the forum is a great way to kickstart your investment, as most investors will not be interested in handing over funds unless they are sure a showcase artist is both active and interested.  Regularly updating the forum as to how you are promoting your investment proposal outside of Slicethepie will bolster investor confidence on the site, which can in turn provide extra momentum and an increased kitty.

Offer investors something ‘special’ for larger investments

It certainly worked for financed artist’s ‘Trail’!  They offered a free gig for individual investments over £750, thereby creating an incentive for larger investors.  However, incentives need not be limited to free gigs; use your imagination.  Incentives could range from a featured photoshoot of top investors with the band (on the album sleeve), allowing investors studio access to see (and be apart of) the recording process, 1 year free entry to future gigs, featuring in a music video shoot, or even vocally on one of the tracks (for the vocalists out there).  Perhaps offering something as simple  as a personalised thankyou letter or video message to your investors further afield might be worth considering.  By creating a staged ladder of additional incentives (in addition to the contractual benefits) it may be possible to attract larger investments from your investors.

Self finance to create a false momentum

It may sound strange to invest in yourself, but in doing so, you can create a false impression that your investment has momentum.  A little self investment is all it takes to get yourself amongst the Top 5 Showcased artists which then gives you additional promotion in the weekly STP news section as well as featuring you in the Top 5 on the Showcase Section Homepage.  Aside the extra limelight, drip feeding yourself investment can create a false momentum that can in turn be built on by other investors to create a real momentum.  Remember, if you do not reach your £15k target by the deadline all money is returned to you.  You may also take money back at any time up until you reach your £15k target, so technically this strategy costs you nothing.

Create videos promoting your investment proposal

Creating a promotional video can be fun.  More to the point, it can be a highly effective way to promote your investment proposal in cyberspace.  Having created a promotional video, you can embed it into your website and social networking profile, bulletin it, email it and upload it to Youtube!  Be sure when uploading it to Youtube to use as many ‘clever’ tags as possible.  Your ‘band name’, ‘financing’ and ‘Slicethepie’ may be obvious examples but what about ‘Dragons Den’, ‘Sellaband’, ‘Money’ and ‘Sex’?. Be creative with your tags and you never know who (or how many) might come across your video.

Create promotional CD’s to giveaway at gigs.

CD-R’s are cheap.  In fact you can easily get a spindle of 100 for under £15.  Cheaper if you look.  Invest a little time and money into creating some giveaway mini albums and you can reap the rewards later.  To optimise your promotion, create a 60 second ‘talkover’ track, explaining your slicethepie investment proposal.  Ensure you mention all the benefits of investing £1, £5 and more.  This ‘talkover’ track should then appear as the first and last track on your mini album.  If you are a band, splittin the chore of burning CD after CD can be split between you.  Once you have a load ready to go, simply tell people to at your gigs to collect them from you directly after your set, that way you are only giving away the CD’s to interested parties.  This is a great way to get your fans to pre-order your future album and help you reach your investment target.

Offer limited edition physical copies of your future album

Even in this day of digital media, everyone still loves the feel and look of a physical album.  If you set aside a budget from your prospective £15k, you might consider creating a limited run of exclusive physical copies for those investors that have invested £50 or more (you would need to verify this through STP).  In doing so, you can now provide an additional incentive to investors, many of whom may just be prepared to give that little bit more in return for something ‘real’ and ‘exclusive’.  The cost in creating a limited run of professional CD Albums is fairly low, still leaving plenty to record and promote the album.  If it get’s you over that £15k finishing line, it may be a strategy worth considering.

Promote your investment using the power of Beermats

There’s a reason BeerMats are a great promotional tool for bars, gigs and clubs! It’s because they are cheap, highly visible and can promote your message to every drinker in an establishment.  You can easily buy 1000 two-sided custom beermats for around £100.  If you are a band, this cost can be divided between members.  Have one side promoting your Band Logo and Slicethepie; the other side outlining your investment proposal with details of the relevant web addresses.  Use them at your gigs, or simply visit all your local pubs and ask them to help you out for a few weeks/months by using your beermats in their establishments.  A very simple, cheap and effective promotional tool.

Create and deliver promotional flyers for your local area

Flyers are a great way to reach people, whether handed out at gigs or posted through doors in your locality.  You can get these professionally made up but if cost is an issue, why not make your own?  A printer, some A4 paper and a little time spent creating a flyer outlining your investment proposal is all you need.  It’s a game of chance, the more you hand out, the greater the chance someone might take a look at the Slicethepie site and invest in you.  The more professional and eyecatching you can make your flyer, the better.  Keep it short, snappy and eyecatching on one side, with the details on the other side (similar to the BeerMats) to maximise your flyers effectiveness.

Contact your local newspaper/radio station

You may be surprised just how approachable and accomodating local Newspapers/Radio stations are!  It never hurts to contact them and ask if they would be interested in featuring you and your investment proposal, especially since you have beaten tens of thousands of artists globally to reach the showcase.  Many former showcase artists have found their local media very enthusiastic and all too happy to feature them and their investment proposal.  Contact them!!

Bulletin/E-mail your social networking contacts regulary

Ever heard of the Grand old Duke of York? Apparently he had 10,000 men which he marched to the top of a hill and back down again (for reasons unknown).  Luckily for you,  the only excercise you are asking your legions of online fans, family and friends to undertake is the simple finger clicking of a mouse in the direction of your investment page.  If you have fans, use them.  If you don’t, get networking and find some.  Given that an investment of £5 provides the investor with a free download of the future album, they are to all intents and purposes, pre-ordering the album for £5!  If this isn’t worth shouting about in Cyberspace, what is??

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