You refresh your inbox and are flabbergasted to actually find a response from that legendary producer you emailed just for the heck of it. He’s interested in meeting, but wants to hear your songs and get to know more about you first.
What are you going to do? Send him a bunch of random Soundcloud links and attach some JPEGs directly to the email thread?
No. You’re going to send him an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) like any professional musician would. An EPK is a simple web page—a one-stop-shop where important people like producers, booking agents, and artist managers can ingest the bullet points of who you are, what you look like, and what your music is all about.
As a former touring musician, I know firsthand how an EPK (or lack thereof) can make or break potential collaborations. The problem is, making an EPK is tough. You could spend days or weeks putting all your content together, only to end up with a final product that looks a little sad next to the pros.
I recently spent a lot of time with Bandzoogle’s new EPK builder, and found many of my previous EPK woes were totally eliminated. Below I’m going to give you an honest account of what to expect.
In short, Bandzoogle’s tool has made the EPK creation process easier than it’s ever been—even for people who have absolutely no experience with website building at all.
Who the Bandzoogle EPK Builder Is For
Bandzoogle’s EPK builder is for any artists who are serious about marketing themselves, but who aren’t also proficient front-end website coders—so, basically all of them.
In all seriousness, this tool is ideal for people who are closer to the beginning stages of their journeys as artists. If you don’t have a huge following, a massive budget to spend on website creation, or the requisite experience to create a web page from scratch, this EPK builder is made for you.
That said, don’t let Bandzoogle’s ease of use fool you—it’s definitely not for newbies only. By nature, EPKs are clean, straightforward and relatively simple. Unless you’re literally Taylor Swift-level famous, you will have a need for an EPK, and Bandzoogle’s builder will serve your purposes nearly as well as any of the other, pricier options out there.
Pros and Cons of the Bandzoogle EPK Builder
I’ve used many different website builders in my day, including WordPress and Squarespace, which are arguably the most popular and reputable of them all.
Speaking generally from a website-design perspective, Bandzoogle absolutely holds its own with the best of them. But when you’re coming at the website game as an artist, Bandzoogle outshines them all—and it’s not even close.
Bandzoogle EPK Builder Pros
- You won’t get overwhelmed with options. Like I mentioned earlier, EPKs are simple. And if yours isn’t, it should be. Bandzoogle’s EPK builder features four main design presets (oh, and they’re all gorgeous), which means you can get started right away with minimal head scratching. And if you feel like four presets is not enough…
- There are still more than enough options. Within each preset, there is an abundance of editing and customization potential—this means the preset you start out with might end up looking quite different by the time you’re done. Bandzoogle has found a way to strike a really nice balance here in terms of overall design options.
- It’s mobile-friendly. In 2024, this is huge. Most first-time website owners are shocked when they view their analytics and see how the vast majority of visitors are using smartphones. Whichever Bandzoogle template you choose, and however you customize it, rest assured it will look excellent on both desktop and mobile.
- The tool is intuitive and easy to learn. I said earlier that I have lots of experience with Squarespace (which I think is excellent), and Bandzoogle functions in much the same way. After only a few minutes of poking around, you’ll easily get the gist of how to use the EPK builder.
- The customer support is top-notch. When using Bandzoogle, you’ll find that you don’t actually need much customer support (see the above bullet). But just in case you do, the company is forthcoming with help videos, community forms, and live agent support.
- It’s extremely cost-effective. This one doesn’t need much explanation—$6.95 per month is almost criminal. And don’t worry, I’ll spare you the classic guilt-trip analogy of just how few Starbucks coffees you’d have to forfeit every month in order to pay for Bandzoogle.
Bandzoogle EPK Builder Cons
- It supports only four different languages. As of now, Bandzoogle only supports EPKs in English, French, Spanish and German. If you primarily speak another language, Bandzoogle won’t be the best fit for you.
Bandzoogle Pricing
Bandzoogle has four different plans.
The EPK plan is $6.95 per month, and features:
- 1 page
- EPK design templates
- EPK content layouts
- Web hosting
- Custom design tools
- Music players
- Tour calendar
- Contact form
- Award-winning support
The other plans are Lite, Standard, and Pro, and they feature everything in the EPK plan, plus more pages, additional design tools, selling tools, visitor analytics, and more. These plans are $9.95, $14.95, and $19.95 per month, respectively.
Regardless of the plan you end up choosing, Bandzoogle offers a completely free 30-day trial.
Bandzoogle EPK Builder: The Details
Let’s go one level deeper and take a look at a few specific, standout features of Bandzoogle’s EPK builder.
Dedicated Header Edit Panel
The header is arguably the most important piece of any website—visitors use it to navigate around and get a quick summary of the different parts of the site.
It might not sound like a huge deal if you’ve never used a website builder before, but Bandzoogle makes the header editing process a breeze by dedicating an entire section to it.
Click Edit header in the sidebar, and you’ll be able to choose a video or still image for the background, fill vs. fit options, view a preview for both desktop and mobile, and much more.
Organized Add-Feature Menu
You’re creating your own EPK here, so chances are you’ll need to add some features in the process.
When you click Add feature in the sidebar, you get a sub-menu that’s extremely well-designed. The categories of the features you can add are:
- Text
- Image
- Image and text
- Button
- Album
- Single
- Store (only available with the Lite plan or higher)
- Blog (only available with the Lite plan or higher)
I found that the intuitive organization here boosted my efficiency quite a bit, allowing me to try out more designs and find an ideal layout much faster.
Detailed Content Blocks
A content block is simply a chunk of a web page where you can add in different types of content.
Bandzoogle’s EPK builder makes this very easy by having the main content block options display right on the web page itself, as opposed to in some distant settings menu.
With a few clicks and absolutely zero searching around, you can add video embeds, forms, links, and more.
Constantly Visible View Site Button
For those who are experienced with website builders, you know the process always involves editing and then viewing the site from a new tab to see your edits. And then you change something else, and need to view that. And then something else—and around and around it goes.
Bandzoogle’s EPK builder features a handy little View site button on the top right of the screen. It’s always there, no matter where you navigate to. This makes checking your edits and reviewing your work incredibly easy.
Stunning Template Themes
A lot of times preset themes look… well, like presets. They look sterile and boring, and they fool no one. It’s definitely not so with Bandzoogle’s themes.
There are four main options to choose from: Neutral, Playful, Elegant, and Minimal. While they each look stunning right from the get-go, you’ll find that with the plethora of customization options, you can truly make each theme your own—this includes color combos, fonts, and much more.
The design team really did an excellent job here of creating themes that don’t look outdated. They’re classy, but also totally modern and right at home in 2024.
Bandzoogle EPK Builder: A Summary
I’ll be blunt with you: My experience with Bandzoogle’s new EPK builder has been an overwhelmingly positive one.
If you really want to do this musician thing, you’re going to need an EPK. Once you’re ready to take that step, Bandzoogle should absolutely be in the conversation.
If you’re not sold yet, give it a go yourself with the 30-day free trial—what’s there to lose?
Images Courtesy of Bandzoogle
