Marketing Recipe
Ok, here’s the recipe I use that helped me make some of my biggest, best and most successful marketing plans. I’m going to use music as my example.
What’s your goal?
Be as specific as possible. Write it out.
Your ultimate goal might be to sell out arenas, but what are the many steps to get you there? What about growing your fanbase and building an extremely engaged following? Making sure people are actually buying your music and sharing with their friends is important. I know it seems like a lot, but let’s take this one step at a time, capisce?
Now that you know the end-goal, let’s start with that next single you want to release.
Before you start posting all over socials about your new baby, let’s get people excited first. How do we make them want to come back to your profile for new content? I’m a huge fan of a good tease (insert devilish grin here).
A good rule of thumb, if you can get away with it, is to pick your release date 3 months from day one. 3 MONTHS?! I can hear the heavy sighs from here…yes, 3 months. Here’s the laundry list of things you will need to accomplish in those 3 months:
Create cover art/branding for the single (Do you need to schedule a photoshoot? What about hiring an artist to design something for you?
Pick your distributor (AWAL, Distrokid and Tunecore are a couple popular choices)
Create “teaser” content for socials (“coming soon”, “next week”, etc.
Remember: when it comes to social media marketing, LESS IS MORE. If you’re promoting a song, grab a 10-30 sec clip of the song and put it over a fun video you shot on your phone and POST THAT. You will get way more engagement than a static image.
Now that you have that awesome 10-30 sec teaser video, put some money behind it. Yes, it takes money to make money. You know this, I’m just reminding you in case you think there’s some magic potion hiding up my sleeve. My sincere apologies.
HOW MUCH MONEY?? HOW DO I DO IT??
I plan on writing an entire blog post on social media ads because they are a beast. Until then, I suggest putting at least $50.00/day for 7 days. Why? Again, I will dive deeper into this in another blog post so be sure to check back, but basically ads need time to “learn.”
Why so much money? You’re trying to reach thousands of people and you’re competing with A LOT of other ads so the more money you throw at it, the more FB/Instagram will like you and bump your ad to reach more folks. Another very important note is targeting location. DO NOT PUT THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. You would need a few thousands dollars to make any sort of impact on that range SO, pick the city you’re currently in and maybe one or two others. Remember though, the bigger the audience, the more money you will need to put towards it. (ex: Los Angeles, CA = $$$, Fort Wayne, IN = $)
If you have the budget for other avenues of advertising like billboards, radio, magazines, etc. by all means, go for it! Any questions on how to execute those avenues, hit me up! I’m also a big advocate for grassroots marketing. What is that? Examples of grassroots marketing are: Posters around town, custom coasters at your favorite dive bar, partnerships with local businesses to maybe put together a social media contest to grow your fans and give them an exclusive listen to the single before anyone else. The ideas are endless really, just set yourself outside the box and start jotting down ideas! The crazier the better in my opinion. Keep it legal though….
Another HUGE key to a successful marketing campaign is PR (public relations). Please, please, please spend the money and hire an awesome publicist. Reach out to them around day one since they also enjoy a good 3 month lead time. Publicists will help you build your “story” and they have the connections to media outlets who can preview your single or give the first listen to their audience. Publicists are also your voice and coach when it comes to getting interviews. A lot of publicists nowadays also have “ins” with Spotify playlists. I personally think Spotify playlists are not what they once used to be BUT again probably a necessary evil. All in all, publicists are the pitchers and there’s no argument that every team needs a good pitcher. Look at me with sports metaphors!
By now you are probably glad I gave you that 3 month working time. There’s a lot that goes into this! Next up is planning for the hype the week/day of the release. If you’re able, book a show for the day of your release and make it a free show if possible. Offer fans free downloads if they attend and maybe a piece of merch (another blog post topic coming soon), signed CD, etc. Promote this as a “can’t miss event.” Start promoting this show day one as well. People are anxious to get out these days so their calendars fill up fast. Make sure your release show makes the cut!
Whew! Are you still with me? This just about covers the basics. There is always so much more you can do and lots of little details to remember but I think this novel covers the gist. If you would like a more detailed timeline and checklist, I have created downloadable .pdfs for purchase in my store. Again, I believe in you! You got this and as I mentioned before, if you need help, give me a shout!
Until next time,
