Even if you’re not a fan of this Chicago group’s Nintendocore — super-sugary powerpunk that uses 8-bit video game sound effects as ornamentation — you’ve gotta admire the marketing savvy of I Fight Dragons (whose music actually is pretty catchy).

Not even a year into its career as a band and still without label support, I Fight Dragons has already shown more online marketing prowess than many established acts and labels have in years and years of making and selling music. First, check out the group’s social networking page, which cleverly integrates the vintage video game aesthetic with links to IFD’s many social media destinations, Twitter being the most prominent at the moment. Side note to bands: Having an official website is the way to go, rather than relying on MySpace or a similar site to host your main web presence. (That moment has passed.)

But beyond the web grooviness, I Fight Dragons has also made huge strides in its nine months of existence toward building a community of fans who are willing to get our their wallets and support the band in a real way. But before the group started selling music, it gave it away for free — and a lot of it at that. In a guest post at We Are Listening this past summer titled How to Get 200 Fans a Week, IFD frontman Brian Mazzaferri extols the virtues of flat-out giving away music, trading music for email addresses and interacting with fans on social media. He wrote:

This seems like a no-brainer, but it actually takes a LOT of work. We’re on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, our Blog, and TheSixtyOne every day, talking with people and being involved in conversations. I’m NOT talking about one-way, blast-yourself-out-there stuff like MySpace adding. I’m talking about joining in conversations on Twitter that you have something to add to. About commenting earnestly on music you like. About joining a community, not trumpeting your own message.

Amen, Brian!

Then, having built up a supportive fan network through online engagement and musical generosity (”Regularly give away stuff that’s way too good to give away,” says Brian), the band was ready to cash in. Rather than release its first physical product in the old-fashioned way of putting out a CD, I Fight Dragons decided to sell Lifetime Membership USB Drives: fetching little units that “come preloaded with all of the music we’ve ever released (including email-list only tracks), and they guarantee the owner a free digital copy of anything we ever release, as well as free admission to any live show of ours now and forever.”

The band chose to make only 100, pricing them at $100 each, and had no problem selling out in two days. Mazzaferri notes that usually only famous/established acts manage to sell high-priced commemorative items (see: the Pixies), but he feels that his band was able to pull this off by establishing themselves as big givers first, then by setting up this membership package as a gift that keeps on giving.

And not long ago, this level of ingenuity would’ve been prohibitively expensive for a band on Dragons’ level to see through to a finished product. But with the advent of sites like Bandcamp and Storenvy, DIY sales of custom physical products is becoming as easy for bands as selling digital music has been.

But, as I Fight Dragons demonstrates, you’ve still gotta build that community first.