Fundamentally, your band is selling a product. Whether It's recorded music or the experience of a live show, you need to market whatever it is you're selling. Unfortunately though, advertising and promotion costs can be quite expensive.

In a recent issue of For The Record, we highlighted a few great ways to take advantage of free publicity. For more information (or for those of you who missed the article), you can visit www.canarypromo.com/resources to check out Canary Promotions' essay on independent tour publicity.

In this month's issue, We're going to examine a vital aspect of independent promotion: the Mighty Flyer.

Flyers can be seen as the ammunition in your band's arsenal. They are cheap and plentiful, and it only takes one to be effective. A barrage of thousands should be "fired" at your "targets." Although most will miss, some will hit.

Even without knowing a lot about layout and design, most artistic-minded people will be able to put together a decent-looking flyer with your average computer. If you don't have programs like Photoshop, don't worry; most word-processing programs like Word will do just fine.

You'll obviously want to include the basic info of the event you're tying to promote. Venue info, date and time, cover charge and any age restrictions are a few things that should appear on the flyer. After you've got that info out of the way, It's time to get creative.

Photos or pictures are a great way to initially catch the reader's eye. Think about it: when was the last time you stopped to look at a piece of paper on the street with nothing but text on it? Band photos are fine, but the more original the better. Depending on the target audience, you might want to throw in a little shock value. Remember, the purpose of the picture is to entice someone passing by to actually stop and take a look.

Then there's the hook—something, anything to make people actually give a damn. I can't tell you how many flyers I've seen with just a little picture, the band's name and show info. That sort of flyer might be fine if the reader is already familiar with the band, but to everyone else, it won't mean a thing. Ninety-nine percent of people aren't going to come to your show simply based on your band name or photo (that is, unless you're lucky enough to be one of those scantily-clad, all-girl acts I love).

You'll need something extra—something to set your band apart from the rest. You can put your genre, live show antics or anything else that describes your band. You have to answer the question, "Why should I want to come to your show?"

After the flyer is designed, It's off to your local copy shop, where you'll want to run off as many copies as you can afford. (Know why Kinkos is open 24 hours – it takes them that long) At an average of seven cents per copy, $30 will get you over 400 flyers. If you design your flyers as two per page, that number doubles. Four to a page will get you 1,600 flyers and most bands use that size as they are easy to stick in someone's pocket. For just a little more, you can use colored paper instead of white. Just make sure that your design is still visible against dark-colored paper.

Okay, so now you've got a box-full of flyers and It's time to distribute. Flyers should be posted at the obvious places first: the venue, record shops, instrument stores, coffee shops, bookstores—anywhere that like-minded people visit.

Windsheilds are also an effective place to flyer. Although annoying, you usually look at the paper before you toss it aside, don't you?

Then there's the downtown or bar district in most cities. Whether or not you take into account local city laws regarding the posting of flyers is your choice. Let's assume you don't. Flyers should be plastered everywhere: light posts, garbage cans, payphones, public restrooms, near ATM's and anywhere else with a flat surface and decent visibility.

Keep in mind that the next day, half your flyers will be gone—either thrown away, torn down or (hopefully) pocketed by an interested person. You'll need to re-flyer the area each week or so.

Getting your band together and handing out flyers by hand is time-consuming but effective. This way you can target people who "look" like they might be interested in coming to your show. I'm not going to elaborate too much on this; you should know your audience. Handing out flyers in person also gives you the chance to make personal connections with people and tell them about your music.