Music Strategy: An Essential Part of Modern-day Branding
How to turn your audience into hardcore fans
Imagine a life without music, shitty. Even though music is a part of our everyday life, it often goes unexplored when it comes to content marketing strategies. Like fashion, music is a form of self-expression, people bond equally over sneakers and Drake, so why only focus on visuals? Music should not go overlooked, as it can build great value for your brand. Therefore, we have identified three core values brought by music; Identity, Engagement & Currency, as well as the do’s and don’ts of implementing a music strategy.
Identity — Let music tell your story
People use music to reinforce their identities, by sharing the songs and artists that help define who they are. When sound and music are designed to evoke a brand persona and values, the connection with your audience works at a far deeper and emotional level. Let’s say you have a new concept targeted towards millennials, whereas your current market is slightly older. Music can be a shortcut to win the hearts of a new audience by providing relevant content at the right time. Music comes the closest to expressing the inexpressible — it has a language of its own and the power to make your brand bigger than words, hitting the emotional nerve that is within us all.
Engagement — Be more than just a brand
This enriched brand identity will trigger more frequent engagement; awaking associations, generating emotions and increasing the sympathy towards you. The music creates buzz and excitement beyond your original value proposition and brings additional content for your audience to discover and share. Just as your visual strategy is consistent across all touch points — so should a music strategy be consistent across all “ear points”.
Currency — Music as an asset
The goal of marketing is for your audience to make both emotional and transactional investments back into your brand. Music provides the value that brands need to connect on an emotional level, turning loyalty into advocacy, as well as differentiating themselves among competitors. Music is a universal language so brands that are able to find the right sound will greatly improve their results and reach a bigger audience than comparative marketing tools.
Stop for a sec..
… Is it actually effective?
There is ultimately no limit to what marketers can achieve by using the power of music to drive impactful results. A worldwide survey made by the Havas media group proves that a relevant and meaningful music strategy has an overall positive impact on the marketing approach of any brand — 73% of people think that music partnerships improve brand image, while 70% think it makes a brand stand out from its competitors — and 62% say it encourages them to engage with the brand. Define the goals and KPIs of your own music strategy, and watch your growth levels soar!
Where do I start?
The possibilities of creating interactions centered around music are endless. Do some split testing and experiment to find what your audience responds most to. You might want to organize a concert, offer sponsorships to an up and coming artist or create music games on your website, or perhaps start by sharing a playlist. Like any type of content marketing strategist would tell you, frequency is key. It’s hard to hit a home run your first time, however frequency is a pathway to better quality content..
Don’t act like fans
A common mistake in music strategies are editors thinking like fans, pushing the music THEY like and not necessarily what their audience like. For instance, if you’re making a playlist, DON’T ask the whole team to come up with one song, it will make the playlist fragmented and incoherent, and foremost unpleasant to listen to. It’s especially important to pair the right music with the right audience if you’re introducing a new segment with a new market. Sign up for analytics tools like NextBigSound to find out if Queen B’s fans really match your audience demographics.
With that in mind, have fun exploring platforms, tactics and find out what your brand sound like!
/ Miranda Lundberg: Community + Content at Soundsgood
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