Marketing principals for musicians 101

If you never went for your MBA, you knowledge of business is very limited. If you do have your MBA, you knowledge of music marketing would still be kind of sketchy. Today I’m going to try and give you a primer on how to get a little attention. The following axioms seem to work even as the paradigm of selling music changes.

A marketing campaign is a lot of work.

The word campaign is it’s more common usage refers to a series of battle in a war. A marketing campaign is not much different. There are those that say, “work smarter, not harder”, but the sad fact of the matter is you have to work both smart and hard. Campaigning operates on a three-stage drill. Plan, execute, and adjust.

Plan: figure out your goal and devise a method to achieve it.
Execute: employ the methodology of your plan.
Adjust: figure out what went right, what went wrong and where you are now. Even a smashing success that achieves your goal leaves you with an adjustment. That being where do you go from here. One battle won; there are more to fight.

Perception is reality.

In marketing, this is the golden rule… or at least one of them. Whatever product or act you have, you wish to instill in your marketing target a perception. In music that perception would be, “This music is worth you attention”. In Second Life people see a glib, personable, poet, rock star named Zorch. In reality I’m just a guy with a guitar singing some songs I wrote. But reality is not what marketing is about, it’s about perception.

WARNING. Do not claim to be a Rock Star and expect people to accept it as so. You often see goober claiming to have 1,000 members in their group, or claiming to be Billboard magazine’s most promising new talent of 2008. This can only prove to backfire because people will be predisposed to think it’s a lie (and in all likelihood it is), and be exceptionally critical of your performance. What you want to do is give them the clues you are something special and let them draw their own conclusions.

People need to hear things three times before it sticks.

Get your name in front of people as often as possible, In theory it only takes three times to be remembered, but more never hurts. This leads to a “Rule of Thumb”. In music if more people have heard of you then have actually heard you, then you marketing is working.

This is one of the reason I insist venues post my shows in “Live Music Events”. Even if people don’t come to the show, they will see the name. I play at least two shows a day at this point. If every venue owner list me that is 60 views of my name per-month. Sooner or later, people tend to come check it out.

The Six “P” principal.

Learn it, Live it, and all will be well with you. The Six “P”s are, Proper preparation prevents pitiful poor performance. Every show should be the best it can be, always bring you “A” game. I know that is a tall order and we all have off days, but the more prepared you are the better you’ll do.

Dare to be different.

You have to stick out to get attention. I know of one guy that wears women’s clothing. He is a crossdressing (male avatar in female clothing) musician. His act is pretty lame but he gets attention. If you act isn’t lame… do something different to get attention.

WARNING. Don’t be a furry. Even if you are into that crap, it just makes you look retarded. As people watch your show they’ll be thinking “Fucking furry”, and not listen to a note you play.

Actually the best thing you can do to be different is something musically different. But that is a lot more work then slapping on a frock and some bunny ears.

WARING PART 2. Don’t stand in crowds. There are tons of place that feature musicians advert boards. Click on them get some info. I don’t recommend you do this because you take on the drab patina of all the other losers that imagine themselves to be musicians.


Once again this is just a primer, not intended to be a book. So good campaigning to all you talented souls. And if you aren’t talented, do the opposite of everything outlined in this entry.