The First 5 Steps to Marketing (and Profiting) Your Music (III)

Continuing from last week’s article:

4) Focus on the benefits your music delivers

Now it’s time to connect with the music fans whose lives you are about to touch and improve. But first we’re going to dissect the way you communicate with these fans. We’ll start by using the information you gathered about who your fans are and why they spend time and money on you. Then you’ll use those details as you pursue various means of communicating your message, including:

1. News releases sent to the media

2. Your brochure, letterhead and business card

3. Your promo package and photos

4. Web pages

5. Blogs

6. Podcasts

7. Music video clips

8. Email messages

9. Voice mail

10. Posters

11. Radio interviews

12. Album cover artwork

13. Paid ads

14. Direct mail pieces

Bottom line: as you create the marketing materials listed above, you must keep one thing foremost in mind: the needs of your fans! In other words, stop talking so much about yourself, your needs and your qualifications. Start talking about what matters most: The benefits fans get when they support your music.

“The objective here is plain,” says marketing expert Jeffrey Lant. “It is not merely to tell what you’ve got… it’s to motivate a human being to take immediate action so you can move to the next stage of the marketing process.” Lant has self-published more than 10 business books (including Cash Copy and Money-Making Marketing) and has sold a ton of them using the same tactics he preaches about in them.

In his book No More Cold Calls, Lant advises, “You must list every feature of your service, transform every one into a benefit, then make sure the benefit is as specific and enticing as possible.”

Let’s see how this works in the real world. As an example, I’ll list each feature first, then its corresponding benefit.

Feature: Sixty minutes in length.

Benefit: Jammed packed with a full hour of career-boosting details you can start using the same day you order.

Feature: Available only in audio format.

Benefit: Soak up these useful success secrets at your convenience: while you drive, jog, ride a bike, or clean the house. Audio books make learning easy.

Feature: It’s an MP3 download.

Benefit: Why wait? Start putting these ideas to use immediately. Get instant access as soon as your order is approved online.

Get the idea? You must learn to do the same thing when describing your music.

Affirm your commitment to step 4:

“No more bland résumé listings for me! I now take every feature related to myself and my music and transform them into benefits that my clearly defined audience of potential fans finds irrestistible.”

5) Stop talking so much about yourself

I know it seems like we’ve beaten this premise to death: But just in case it hasn’t sunk in. let’s drive it home one more time: Make certain your words – whether in person or on the phone, by email or on your website, in ads or on post cards – focus on the benefits to your fans.

Time and time again I explained this essential concept to the business owners who advertised in my former music newspaper. And, sure enough, when they turned in the wording for their ads, they were filled with “I can do this, we’ve done that, I, me, mine… blah, blah, blah!

Reality: Human beings gravitate toward talking and thinking about themselves. And for good reason. For millions of years, members of our species had to think about their own needs to survive. In the caveman days, if you weren’t consumed with self-preservation, you’d be consumed by any number of wild predators, not to mention being done in by members of rival tribes. There’s a long-standing tradition of human self-indulgence.

So you’re not going to wipe out millions of years of conditioning in a couple days. But you can use your advanced, reasoning brain to resist these primitive urges when it comes to marketing your music-related pursuits.

Also, realise that you can use this knowledge of human nature to your advantage. When you approach potential fans through your live shows, website, business cards, press kits and so on, who will these fans be focusing on? Don’t kid yourself and think it’s you.

Knowing this, give fans what they want and make sure your marketing message hits them squarely on the head with what’s in it for them. Lead off with the number one benefit fans get from you, followed by the number two benefit and so on. Pile the motivating reasons they should care about you one on top of the other until even the most thickheaded of humans can figure it out.

A more specific example: Let’s say you were put in charge of marketing a new electric for carpenters. How would you go about it? Most people would start listing features: the manufacturers, mechanical specs, and material the drill is made of… all focusing on – you guessed it – the drill. But what do people really want when they buy a drill?

A hole

They also want a hole that can be created quickly, easily and economically. It really doesn’t matter if the hole gets there because of a drill, a toaster, a pair of socks, or a monk – as long as the appropriate hole is conveniently creating in the appropriate place.

Affirm your commitment to step 5:

“It isn’t all about me. I resist the human urge to talk about myself and will, instead, focus on what my fans are most interested in: what’s in it for them!”

There you have it: The first five steps to more effective music marketing. Now affirm your commitment to these principles and get busy thinking, observing, asking questions, researching your ideal fans, creating a BIS, and focusing on the benefits you offer. A world of notoriety and profit awaits you