Part 1: From Beats to Brands: A Marketer's Framework for Independent Musicians
Apply MBA Marketing Thinking To Your Music Career
Do you have a clear plan for your music marketing? Or are you too busy just making the actual music?
Does marketing yourself and your sound feel like a chaotic flurry of content creation?
Posting on TikTok.
Updating your YouTube channel or Spotify profile.
Uploading behind the scenes footage on Instagram.
I’m sure you feel like you just need to be doing stuff. All. The. Time.
But, as the old saying goes, “fail to plan, plan to fail.”
If you’re ready to stop just doing stuff, for the sake of doing stuff. If you’re ready to start thinking like a marketer, not just like a musician, this is a blueprint you can follow.
Broken down over the next two issues of The Music Marketer, we’ll explore an adapted version of esteemed Marketing Professor, Mark Ritson’s, Mini MBA Marketing Course.
This framework has been honed from decades of real-world brand strategy experience in the commercial sector. However, it’s entirely possible to use the same thinking to build a smart and structured plan of action for promoting your music.
Remember, remember … just knocking out a few videos and shareable posts when you get a chance is simply not a proper marketing plan. It is spray-and-pray. It might work but you’ll need to get very good at praying for it to pay off!
What does the methodical marketer do to get towards realising a shiny marketing plan then?
Essentially, there are three distinct sections to crack for this marketing wizardry to take shape;
Market Orientation and Market Research
Marketing Strategy – composed of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP)
Marketing Tactics – made up of the “4 P’s” (Product, Price, Promotion or marketing communications and Place or distribution channels)
What is the most common error made by marketers, businesses and individuals performing any type of marketing?
Starting with number 3. Starting with the tactics.
Starting by just doing stuff to feel busy and have some things “out there.”
It’s arse-about-face.
Don’t ever just do stuff.
Stop.
Think.
Doing stuff is the complete opposite and wrong way to go about your marketing!
Let’s look at how Marketing should be done properly.
I’m not going to get deep into the weeds of each part of the academic marketing framework in these articles. It’s safe to say there is a wealth of information out there on the subject if you want to know more.
However, I’ll give a brief overview of some of the potential considerations and leave you to think how you can apply this to your own situation. In the remainder of Part 1 of this article, I’ll look at Market Orientation and Market Research, together with the three components of Marketing Strategy.
Stage 1: Market Orientation and Market Research: Start With Fans, Not Just Your Music
In business, market orientation means starting with and obsessing over what your prospects, what your potential customers, actually want, as opposed to starting with the “product.”
There are sometimes quoted, apparent exceptions to this mantra. Nobody realised they wanted an iPod until Steve Jobs decided we all needed one just over 20 years ago. However, Jobs’ genius was understanding the consumer actually wanted “1,000 songs in their pocket.” That was the consumer need or insight. The iPod solved the problem of previously only being able to have one cassette or CD to listen to while on the move with your “Walkman" or “Discman.” I’m definitely old enough to remember that very real music listening problem as I trooped across the pavements of many English towns in my youth!
As an artform, music might arguably be considered a slightly different beast to your favourite electronic gadget, shampoo or other everyday consumer good. Noel Gallagher, of Oasis fame, very colourfully said;
“The consumer didn’t ****ing want Jimi Hendrix. But they got him. And it changed the world.
And the consumer didn’t want Sgt Pepper’s. But they got it.
And they didn’t want the Sex Pistols. But they got it.
**** the customer. The customer doesn’t know what he wants. You ****ing give it to him and he likes it.”
A music artist will have an intuitive feel for what the public wants to hear. Often this will be based on their own tastes, feelings and cultural preferences. The successful artists will often be the ones who tap into the “zeitgeist of the moment” or create one of cultural significance through their work. The emotive, tribal and arty nature of music is perhaps slightly unique.
If you’re already playing gigs, you’ll know the sort of venues and crowd you’re appealing to. You’ll know who is responding positively to your songs. You need to understand your audience as deeply as you understand your own sound.
Ask yourself:
Who listens to artists like me?
What other artists are they into?
What are their interests, hobbies and beliefs?
What kind of content do they like to engage with?
What platforms do they use?
There are a variety of tools you can use to help deep-dive and understand your audience more accurately:
Music-Map: I’ve touched on this one in a previous article as a tool to identify popular artists with similar fanbases and audience overlap
Spotify for Artists: includes tools for demographics and top listener locations
Instagram, Facebook and TikTok analytics: for age and gender breakdowns
Reddit, Discord or Fan Forums: observe language, behaviours, wants and needs
Instagram polls or comments threads to ask your own fans directly.
Why market orientation and research matters: great marketing is more than just pushing your music. It’s about fitting your content into and around your fans lives in a way which feels authentic, needed and valuable to them.
Stage 2: Marketing Strategy: STP – Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning
Once you’ve researched the entire market potential for your music, it’s time to get strategic. In marketing, strategy is often confused or over-complicated but essentially boils down to answering the following questions;
Who are you targeting and why?
Just as, or more importantly, who you’re choosing NOT to target and why?
You may decide you want to target all potential people in your target market. Equally, as an emerging artist, you may have limited funds, time or other resources which prevent you from spreading so broadly.
Segmentation (of entire market/audience)
By segmenting your whole potential market into different, distinct groups, gleaned from your market research of course, you can make rational, value-led decisions on which sub-groups to focus upon.
Your segmentation may be made up of factors like:
Age range (older, younger or perceived financial independence)
Location (own city or country where you are more active playing live versus further afield)
Behaviour (highly active, engaged fans or purchasers versus passively interested)
Music interests (split by artists or genres)
Targeting
Based on your segmentation criteria, you would then choose which individual segments to focus your efforts upon.
For example, if geography is a critical factor in fans likely interest of you, you may double-down on local followers as your priority.
In the same example, this may mean choosing to be less focussed on potential fans further afield, perhaps because you have no ability to be able to play to them live any time soon.
Note, you can still choose to target the whole market, but you may tailor more focussed live event or meet-up communications for your hardcore “local” fans.
Positioning
This is a fancy marketing word for defining what you’re about and what you stand for (as an artist). This is the reason or reasons people should care about your music and you as an artist. You want to make this as simple and succinct as possible. As a musician it will likely be defined by your music itself and the genre or sub-culture you sit within.
A positioning statement template might look something like this:
For [target audience segment], I’m a [genre/style] artist who [differentiator], unlike [alternative artist types].
As an example:
“For fans of raw, emotional indie music, I’m a bedroom artist who writes stripped down, melodic songs about personal relationships and loss, with an intimate lo-fi vibe, setting me apart from the overly polished big name acts such as X, Y, Z.”
Your positioning should then run through every aspect of your output, look, feel and “brand.” Your visuals, tone, even how you speak and act on social media or other platforms.
If you have more than one segment to target, you will have different positioning statements for each, or at least specific variations of the wider umbrella positioning for the whole market.
That’s it.
Marketing Strategy in a nutshell.
If you can crack the strategic part effectively, understanding the tactics you should employ, based on the 4 P’s, should follow relatively straightforwardly. You will already know who you’re planning to target and why.
In the next issue of The Music Marketer, we’ll review the tactical choices you need to consider. Yes, this includes the “doing lots of stuff” parts of the equation!
While you’re waiting, think about your current marketing approach:
Are you just doing stuff?
Do you really understand your potential audience and what they want from their music?
Do you really know who you’re targeting and why?
Do you have a unique differentiator to position yourself to potential fans?