Marketing Your Music: Part 1 — Persona
The world of marketing has always been a gray area for me. Like most artists, I’ve always preferred to focus on honing my craft instead of selling it.
And like most artists, I’ve enjoyed little to no exposure for my work.
Therefore, I decided to do something about my lack of exposure and got a degree in digital marketing. After learning so much, I wanted to share the knowledge I gained with other musicians.
This series is geared toward indie musicians, but I’ve made an effort to keep the principles as generic as possible.
Establish Your Why And Your What
Simon Sinek has a video on YouTube describing how great leaders inspire action. It’s been out for many years now, but one key phrase still holds true:
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
Establishing why you create music is crucial to the success of your business. It will strengthen your marketing campaigns and build trust between you and your fans. It also looks good if you aren’t stumped when someone asks why you started writing music!
What you’re aiming for is also important. Are you only interested in creating weird sounds with the latest synths? Do you want to play your music at Coachella? Or are you more into scoring films? The possibilities are endless.
Figure out why you chose this path over another vocation and what you hope to achieve with your work.
Customer Persona
Having your why and what firmly in hand, it’s time to look at the ideal consumer of your product. Also known as a buyer persona, this is a fictional representation of your ideal customer.
Creating a customer persona would normally be done by segmenting your audience into demographics, hobbies, and so forth, but because this guide assumes you’re starting from scratch, we’ll build a basic template which can be iterated on in the future.
To get started, create a 3x3 table in Google Sheets or an application of your choice and label it as follows:
Row 1
- Background: occupation, marital status, level of education
- Name of your customer: it doesn’t have to be a real name!
- Challenges: a couple of pain points your persona faces that are preventing them from reaching their goals
Row 2
- Demographics: gender, age, income, and general area of residence)
- Blank: this is where the picture of your customer will go
- Common objectives: objectives that you share with your persona
Row 3
- Goals: what your persona ultimately wants to achieve in their personal or professional careers
- Hobbies/Interests: What do they like to do? Where do they like to hang out? What gives them peace of mind after a long day? What makes them feel alive?
- Fears: what your customer persona fears will happen if they fail to achieve their goals
Certain values such as age, number of kids, or annual income don’t need to be exact. Begin with broader ranges and adjust as needed.
I’ve gone ahead and filled out my chart so you can see what kind of consumer I would want for my music.
Note: You will most likely have many buyer personas unless your work sits in a niche genre. Create as many personas as you need to cover every aspect of your business.
Print these charts out and keep them close by. They’re going to influence every stage of your marketing!
Customer Journey
This is the series of steps people take when shopping either online or offline. It is important to be familiar with shopping patterns when planning marketing campaigns.
The steps are as follows:
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Subscription
- Conversion
- Excitement
- Ascension
- Advocate/Promoter
Awareness: Most people don’t know who you are. And they won’t know until they become familiar with you or your work. Social media, a blog, and free and/or paid advertising are all great ways to generate awareness.
Engagement: Interact with your lead and offer value either at no charge or at a deep discount (50% or more). Access to a Youtube tutorial series or free ebook are some good examples.
Subscription: Your lead has given you their time and is now allowing you to communicate with them via email or through social media. This step is where marketing typically begins.
Conversion: During this step, you’ll want to convert leads into paying customers either through a subscription service or with the sale of your product.
The conversion stage is more about acquisition than good ROI. Building a loyal following is crucial for public image and future monetization campaigns.
Excitement: This step builds upon the value of the product your customer invested in.
Examples of how to increase excitement might include:
- A short guide on how to make certain sounds with the virtual instrument you developed
- Demonstrating how to use a sample pack you released
- Writing a track with presets or samples from the aforementioned products
Ascension: For every person who buys one product, there will be a percentage that wants to buy more. Demonstrating the value behind additional purchases is how you increase that percentage.
Create content that shows how using multiple products can achieve a goal no one product can do alone.
This idea applies to your body of music as well. There will be a percentage of people who listen to one song and move on. There will be another percentage who will listen to your full discography. Maintain quality and cohesion in your work so that people will want to follow you.
Advocate/Promoter: This is the ideal state you want to achieve in your customer. They love what you do, and tell everyone to buy your product. This sort of marketing is — quite literally — priceless.
Campaigns
Campaigns are necessary for controlling the flow of leads and customers you get. They outline clear goals and allow you to focus your efforts. There are three campaigns we’ll focus on in this guide. They’ll be expanded upon in part two.
Acquisition
Acquisition campaigns generate new customers and raise awareness for your brand or service. These campaigns encompass the awareness and engagement stages of the customer journey.
Monetization
Monetization campaigns generate revenue from new leads and customers. These campaigns encapsulate the subscription, conversion, and excitement stages of the customer journey.
Engagement
Engagement campaigns are about interacting with the community. Any place where people congregate can be leveraged as a form of engagement. Hosting a webinar, real-life meetup, or Twitch stream are great places to start. These campaigns are typically designed to turn brand advocates into brand promoters.
As a musician, this step is arguably the most important. Interacting with fans positions you as an important part of their lives. It also opens channels through which you can respond to questions, critiques, or feedback.
Takeaways
Knowing who you’re marketing to and how they shop is a fundamental step in the practice of marketing. Take the time to know your audience and I guarantee they’ll be more receptive towards you and your music. In part two we’ll dive deeper into campaigns.
If there is a specific topic you would like me to cover, let me know in the comments or reach out to me on social media.
In addition to this guide, Neil Patel has a great website full of useful marketing information, and Seth Godin’s blog is amazing.
