There is nothing like playing music for a crowd of people. The rush is incredible, and it gets even better when your crowd of fans grows. I plan to write a series of articles on how to promote your band and grow your fan base.

If you don’t have a band yet, consider Bandmaking.com, where you can meet musicians, find band members and connect with fans.

How do you keep in contact with your fans? How do you find new fans?

Most bands start with a number of fans. Your mom, your friends from school… your co-workers. After that, using “social media” to promote your band is a great start. This allows you to advertise to a larger network of people. Unfortunately some of your fans will not always check your MySpace or Facebook page. They might not find out about your next gig in time, and they might even feel bad about missing it.

The next step your band should take is managing your own fan list. By having direct contact information for all your fans, you can be sure to let them know ahead of time. This is where you can use a website! It can cost as little as $5 or $10 a month to have your own band website. I would recommend choosing a hosting company that supports Wordpress or Joomla. They are pre-built websites that allow you to pick a template, add your own content and images, and even program (or hire a programmer) to add your own applications. Once you have a website, you should put a form on your home page that tells your fans something like “Sign up to find out where and when we are playing our next show” It should ask for a minimum of name and email. I would also recommend some optional fields such as phone number and city where they live.

Now, the next time you have a show booked, you can send out an email to all your fans and even text or phone them. The personal touch of a phone call can make your fans feel great and they will be more inclined to attend your show.

In Part 2 I will explain how you can get your own website up and running.

Feel free to contact me if you are ready to get your own band site, or you need a programmer to add some features to your site.

All the best for the New Year!

Frank Forte
www.bandmaking.com

In the case of connecting to MySQL in a PHP script, usually a fatal error will tell you where you provided invalid connection info (i.e. wrong password), this is the file and line where the mysql_connect() function is called.

This is not useful if you use a php class to deal with the database connection. The error message will show the file and line where the mysql_connect() function is (and it is always the same place, within the database class!)

It turns out that this is not where the wrong password is provided to the class, so it can take some time to find the file and line where you send the credentials to MySQL.

To find the line where you actually provided the wrong password:
1. First, suppress the fatal error with the @ symbol.
2. Then, check if there is an error. If so, store the error and then trigger the error outside of the class.

/* Index.php */
$db = new MySQL($host,$user,$password,$dbName);
if($db->dbError){trigger_error($db->dbError,512);}

/* mysql.class.php */
class MySQL{
var $db;

function __construct($host, $dbUser, $dbPass, $dbName) {

// or the old school constructor: function MySQL($host, $dbUser, $dbPass, $dbName) {
$this->host=$host;
$this->dbUser=$dbUser;
$this->dbPass=$dbPass;
$this->dbName=$dbName;
$this->dbError=FALSE;
$this->connectToDb();

}
// connection method
function connectToDb(){

if (!$this->dbConn = @mysql_connect($this->host, $this->dbUser, $this->dbPass)) {
$this->dbError=’Error connection to database: ‘.mysql_error();
return;
}

// … check if database can be selected in the same way
}

Note 1: this does not work if it is normal for the function to return bool (a value that equates to false)

Note 2: if you use a custom error handler you need to have the following to suppress the error

function errorHandler($errno, $errdetails, $errfile = null, $errline = null, $errcontext = null)
{

// check for error suppression
if(error_reporting()==0){
return;
}
// continue processing the error here

}

With custom functions you can use the following error() function instead of trigger_error()

function error($message, $level=E_USER_NOTICE)
{

$dbk=debug_backtrace();
$caller = next($dbk);
trigger_error($message.’ in ‘.$caller['function'].’.’.$caller['file'].’ ‘.$caller['line'].”\n
error handler”, $level);

}

Example use:

function custom($val)
{

if(!is_array($val)){
error(’You must provide an array to the custom function’);
} else {
// do whatever
}

}

A well designed website is a good investment these days. Anyone that needs to buy a product will first consult their favorite search engine to do their research and then find a good price.

Before spending a(nother) dime on your website, do some research. Here are a few tips:

1) Avoid graphics and video or flash, unless you are selling graphics, video or flash. Unless the focus is placed on the product or service (and not how cool your website looks) you will only distract your customer, possibly making them leave the site without getting your message. (You should still have some elements to make your website look beautiful and professional)

2) Appearing in the first few Google or Bing results can give you a steady stream of leads. SEO (search engine optimization) can help you get there, but careful of people claiming to be SEO experts. At the end of the day you need to know what your customers will type to find your product or service, and make sure your content reflects this.

3) Most importantly, make it as easy as possible for your customer to get information and place an order. Give them step by step instructions so they are comfortable taking the next step.

4) Getting them on the phone and helping them with information is the best way to show you have good customer service and support, and it can get them from the “research” phase to the “placing an order” phase.

Remember, when someone goes to the hardware store, they might want to buy a hole, but come home with a drill. In the end, it is the service that is most important, so make sure you provide the best service and the referrals will come.

These tips are aimed at increasing sales leads for your business.

Note: You can hire me as a consultant and/or programmer for your website. The benefit of hiring me is that you get someone who knows how to program websites, and who has great sales experience. Can you have a better combination when you want a website that sells?

This post is for people that want to increase sales and leads through their company website.

There are many reasons that we would want to engage customers in a conversation rather than just giving them information about our company, products, and/or services. I will leave these reasons for another post. For now I want to show you how to engage customers in a conversation on your website.

When is the last time you filled out a feedback form?  Most of the time, if a website does not meet your needs, you make sure to let the website owner know, right? I’m sure you must either look for a feedback form, or use their contact form or email address to get in touch? Okay, if you didn’t get the sarcasm, I’m sure that you probably don’t provide feedback when a website does not meet your needs or wants.

On the flip side, you probably find it difficult to get feedback from visitors on your website. If you haven’t thought about getting feedback on your website, you should. This would allow you to improve the website, and your service so that you can attract more visitors and convert more of them into paying customers. Please read on before putting a feedback form on your website.

In a conversation, we constantly pause to see if someone is still listening.  A feedback form on your website probably does not give the impression that there is a live human listening and waiting for a response. If you phone someone and ask a question on the other hand, or even send an email and ask a question, the person that is being asked knows that you are waiting for a response. This is a very important difference, and will determine whether you will get feedback from your customer or not.

You need give the visitor/customer the impression that someone is waiting for a response.

You should really consider applying this concept on your website.  Some companies already use a great technique to do this. As soon as the website loads, a pop up will say “We are available for a live chat, what do you want to know?”.  These are a great way to engage customers.  Before they even bother searching your website, they have the opportunity to tell you exactly why they are visiting your site. This saves them time, and allows you to engage in a conversation. You can also have a video of a real person asking the visitor if they need help and directing them to a form on the site where they can type in their question.

Once the customer is engaged, it is much easier to get their contact information, whether it is an email or phone number, so that you take the conversation in the direction that you want and be more effective in satisfying your customers’ needs.  So I encourage you to think of ways to initiate a conversation with customers on your website, in combination with a form that asks for a name, and email or phone number so you can help you customers buy from you.

In a future post, I will discuss the benefits of engaging customers in conversation versus giving them a “pitch”.  I’m sure you can already think of some benefits.

-Frank