This Article Originally Published in 1994<p> by Bob Baker<p>

Having been involved in the music business for over 12 years, I can tell you without any hesitation that most music marketing communications—be they fliers, bios, cover letters, fact sheets, ads, calendars—are atrocious and ineffective. That is, they don’t perform the only function that any music marketing communication should ever do: getting the person receiving it to act. And preferably to act NOW!<p>It can be a phone call, a fax, a mailed response, coming to see you in person, writing an article or playing your record on the air—as long as you know what it is you want them to do and inspire them to do it (in a firm, yet polite and professional manner).<p>In other words, simply getting your stuff in the mail is not your ultimate goal. That’s where most so-called music marketers go wrong; they throw useless information out into the world and hope it sticks on something. But that’s not how you’ll be dealing with the media from now on, because now you know that it’s your job to send marketing messages that grab attention and motivate the people receiving them to respond right away!<p>Which means before you contact another media person, you must ask yourself these four questions: