often-overlooked promotion strategies you should be using to market your music

Have you been in a marketing rut lately? Are you having a tough time coming up with new and innovative promotion ideas? You won’t be for long. Soak up the ideas in this series and get moving. Every day that passes without you actively promoting your music is lost time. So read on… then get busy!

Music marketing and the state of your fans

In this first section, let’s talk about sizzle and steak. You’ve most likely heard the old advertising credo “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” It’s another way of saying “Push customer benefits, not product features.” This mantra has been repeated time and time again in marketing circles for decades. Unfortunately, most people continue to ignore the wisdom.

To see how you stack up in this area, I’ll give you a quick test. Answer these two questions:

1. What business are you in?

2. What do you really offer your fans?

If you answered, “I’m in the music business, and I offer them my CDs and live concerts,” you’re dead wrong. Items such as music, CDs and concerts are pure features. And features are simply things you technically do or produce in the course of creating your music. Sure, you must focus on these things when you create them. But they’re not what your fans focus on when they spend money on your recordings and live shows.

Question: So… what do fans buy? Here’s the answer (and write this down in a visible place and remind yourself of it often): The real reason consumers buy music is to experience the emotional and physical “state change” that occurs within them – because of the music you create. For instance…

1. High-energy music pumps up its followers and gets their adrenaline flowing.

2. New Age and acoustic music soothes the minds and the bodies of listeners.

3. Sad love songs remind romantic folks of a similar event in their lives.

4. Ethnic music helps people connect with their roots.

5. Oldies bring back memories and feelings of the good old days.

6. Classical music awes and inspires.

Regardless of the style or genre, music touches people on both an emotional and physical level. The state of the listener before hearing your music is decidedly different from what it is during the hearing (or watching) of it. State changes add adventure and excitement to our lives – which is exactly why so many people turn to sex, drugs, alcohol, and extreme sports to do the same thing for them.

Never forget this. And start asking yourself, “What kind of state change does my music inspire in my fans?” When you’re creating, by all means focus on the music, the CDs, and the concerts. But forget all that when it comes to communicating with your fans – and start concentrating on how your music affects people on a deeper level.

Key questions: When it comes to sending out marketing messages about your music, what’s going to get the best response? Talking about your “new CD, now available at your favourite local record store?” Or reminding people of the real reason they’re going to buy it? Meaning the emotional and physical payoff they get when they spend a few dollars or more on your music.

In case you didn’t know it, you’re no longer in the music business. You’re now in the “state change” business – especially when it comes to marketing your music.

How to use pain and pleasure to promote yourself

Let me ask you another question: What are the two major forces that motivate human beings to act? You might be tempted to say things like “money and sex” or “security and respect.”

Yes, those are motivating factors, but let’s break them down into the two most basic components. Here they are: Human beings either want to move closer to pleasure or away from pain. That’s it. The motivation behind everything you or any other person does can be broken down into one or both of these categories: getting pleasure or avoiding pain.

Examples: Eating helps you avoid hunger pains and at times enjoy a fine meal (sorry, a Big Mac doesn’t count). You’re inspired to make money to avoid the pain of not paying your bills and get the pleasure of treating yourself to the things you want.

Perhaps you play music to get the pleasure of creating music and the recognition that comes when you share it with others. Or maybe you play music to avoid the pain of not having an outlet for your creative urges.