Guerrilla music basic training series; 3 simple steps to effective music marketing

Here’s a simple question for you:

What is music marketing?

Sure, you know it’s something you have to do. You have at least some grasp of what is it. You recognise it when you see it (most of the time). But at its most basic level, can you explain what it is?

And more importantly, can you spell out the basic elements of effective music marketing? Because, after all, if you’re going to invest your time and energy in promotion, it better be effective. Right?

Don’t worry if you can’t come up with a quick answer to my question. On the other hand, please don’t curse me if you think you know the answer and feel my probing here is pointless. Because it isn’t.

If you plan to the upcoming series and use these ideas to create a music promotion plan for your music, you better damn well know why you’re doing it. You need to understand the underlying principles at work here. These elements are simple, but they’re often glossed over by eager musicians who just want to “get their name out there.”

Getting your name out there is fine. It’s better than doing nothing at all. But mindless music marketing – without focus and purpose – usually leads to frustration and continued obscurity.

The solution: Look under the hood and get a grasp of what’s at the core of every effective music promotion plan.

The three stages of music marketing

When it comes right down to it, music marketing consists of these three elements:

1) Creating awareness – taking action to communicate your identity to a specific audience

2) Making connections – starting and maintaining relationships with a growing number of fans and media/business contacts

3) Asking for the sale – generating cash flow and creating incentives for fans to spend money

There they are. The three stages of marketing. In a nutshell.

Seems simple enough, right? Then why do so many music promoters get it wrong? They spend time on one or two of these stages but ignore the second or third. Or they get busy doing a bunch of marketing “stuff” but don’t stop and think long enough to ponder how their efforts fit into the three-stage process.

Don’t make these mistakes!

Want some examples? Have you ever seen a band or record label run an ad that shouts out something along the lines of “Wakeup Call, the new CD From the ABC Band. In stores Now!” Just the name of the band, the name of the CD, and the fact that it is on sale. Perhaps you’ve even created an ad or flier like this yourself.

What’s wrong with this picture? Well, with this ad, the band is creating awareness, and it is asking for the sale. But it leaves out an entire, all-important stage: developing relationships with fans.

This error would be especially unforgivable if this was the only marketing method the band was using. Why? Because consumers typically need repeated exposures to something before they’ll get out their wallets. In addition, they need to feel a connection to the music and the artist. This ad does nothing to facilitate the relationship. And that means wasted money spent on advertising.

Another example: Have you ever known (or been in) a wonderful band that does a good job of creating awareness and a great job of connecting with fans – perhaps through their live shows? But then they drop the ball when it comes to asking for the sale and generating cash flow. They don’t make people aware that they even have CDs for sale and don’t make enticing offers for fans to buy now.

Again, they’re only putting together pieces of the puzzle. And it’s the missing pieces that are stopping them from reaching the music career level they really want to be at.

To help use the three stages of music marketing better, let’s examine each stage and go over a summary of how you can make the most effective use of each one.

1) Creating awareness

This is the crucial first step. You can’t do much with the next two stages until you’re getting results from this stage. Obviously, exposure is your main goal here. But before fans, the media and other people in the music business can help you, they need to be aware of you. They need to be familiar with your name and the type of sound you create.

As you’ll read in a number of articles throughout this and subsequent series, there are certain things you need to do before you march out into the world and start promoting yourself. First, you must:

1. Define who you are as an artist.

2. Determine who your ideal fans are.

3. Come up with a way to clearly communicate your identity to these ideal fans (and media/business contacts).

Once those issues have been addressed, you take action to communicate your musical identity (and the benefits you offer) to a specific target audience. Some of the ways you accomplish this is to:

1. Perform live as often as you can

2. Pin up posters to promote your gigs

3. Register a domain name and create an artist website

4. Set up a Facebook.com artist page

5. Research and discover where your ideal fans congregate online and off.

6. Contact influential bloggers and podcasters

7. Pursue media coverage online and off

8. Set up shop on sites like GarageBand.com, SonicBids.com, Last.fm and more.

9. Write and distribute press releases

10. Pursue radio airplay online and off

11. Determine the words and phrases that potential fans use to search for new music like yours

12. Optimise your web pages so they’re more likely to be found with those key words and phrases.

13. Determine what popular artists you sound like and tie into those artists’ existing fan bases.

This is just a quick overview of the steps involved in this stage (I’ll get into more details about many of them later), but it should give you a good idea of what creating awareness is all about.