Marketing is at the heart of what drives business and entrepreneurship. You can have a brilliant idea and even the capital, but you will sink if your marketing is poor. That is why discussions on marketing ought always to be centre stage. There are many ways to learn or discuss marketing. One of those ways is to draw lessons from a particular industry or domain. For instance, you can draw marketing lessons from vendors. Today the focus shall be on marketing lessons from the music industry.
Content Strategy
Renowned music artistes are not haphazard regarding content creation and propagation. This is something you can observe for all notable music artistes. Their content is well curated and with a particular voice unique to the artiste. You will also notice that their content is propagated on certain platforms, in a certain format, and at strategic times. You will also notice that their content is often intricately tied to their fan base.
It is typical to see music artistes involving and engaging their fans in their content. This makes their audiences dedicated followers and active propagators of their content. No wonder fans are giving themselves endearments based on the artiste’s name. An example is Beliebers for Justin Bieber fans. The overriding lesson from all those aspects is that musicians have a well-structured content strategy. They even hire experts to work on that.
Partnerships
When it comes to partnerships, the music industry is replete with such. Most of you follow some of the top music artistes in Zimbabwe. I want you to follow how they roll out their album launches closely. Take time to check out the fliers or posters they put out closely. Even at the venues of the album launches, check the number of banners, posters, and the like. You will quickly notice that there will be many different brands involved.
All that is to show you how much musicians value partnerships. That is why on an album launch, so much revenue can be realized via several means. That was just an example, but it is meant to show you the principle of partnerships in marketing. Musicians even partner with other musicians. Even when you look at the basic ecosystem of the industry, it is glued by partnerships. The same principle works in general business and entrepreneurship marketing.
Thinking Unconventionally
Marketing has been done for countless years. It can be easy to conform to what seems like marketing norms. However, the music industry continues to demonstrate how daring they are in being unconventional. For example, the ‘norm’ is to release audio versions first and then do videos for each song later. Yet we have seen some artistes realising both at once. We have also seen some artists starting social media dance challenges for their newly released songs.
This is something that has become commonplace in Zimbabwe. These are examples of approaches that never used to be norms locally. That shows you that artistes are thinking as if there is no box. That is an important lesson for any business person or entrepreneur. Do not be limited by the box; do not even consider it. Be daring enough to explore unique marketing approaches. Coming up with a novel marketing strategy may pay huge dividends.
Empathy
Here I am referring to the importance of seeing things from the lenses of your audience or followers. In this day and age of social media and the internet, it is so easy. Your online audience is a huge pool of unlimited feedback. You must actively engage with them and pay attention to what they say. Then you find creative ways to get involved in your audience’s lives. The central idea will be to demonstrate empathy. One of the most effective ways to capture people’s hearts is by showing empathy.
You probably have seen musicians doing charity concerts. You may have also seen them contributing towards community development initiatives. It is also common for any notable musician to start a charity organization. As much as this does well for others, it primes people to cherish an artiste’s music more. Thus an active demonstration of genuine empathy is a double-edged sword in marketing strategies. You should emulate that and apply it to your business or startup.
Exclusive Offers
People generally like exclusive stuff. That is why many people easily get drawn in when there are exclusive offers. No wonder most YouTubers are on Patreon. They use it to redirect their YouTube audience to Patreon, where they provide exclusive offers. Musicians are typical for giving exclusive offers. They come in many different types of forms. For instance, they can offer bonus tracks to a particular first group of people to purchase or stream a new album.
They can offer signed merch to a particular first group of people to buy tickets to a concert. These are just a few examples. People love to show off when they have exclusive access to certain things. That is why it particularly works well for musicians. This is a principle that you can apply to any business or startup. Find ways to provide exclusive offers; they will exponentially drive brand awareness and lead generation.
Data Analytics
We live in a data-driven world. No wonder many of you are hooked on social media. It is because social media companies have painstakingly studied you through data they have on you. Musicians base most of their decisions on data. For instance, the choice of where they should hold their concerts. Even the way they should structure their music is mostly evidence-based. Musicians take time to study their fan base’s habits and preferences. This is majorly done through data. This is relevant to business and entrepreneurship in general.
These are some of the important lessons to learn from the music industry. There are more lessons. Pay close attention the next time you go to a musical event or see an album being promoted. You might pick up some valuable marketing lessons.
