It's officially THAT time of the year when companies start digging into their data to find out how their current year went and what can be improved for 2024 in terms of sales, marketing and overall brand awareness.
After the big struggles during and after the covid area, the music industry is finally back on track and with an even bigger potential for growth in several type of businesses: from music distribution brands and AI production softwares to events and festivals, the competition in our sector has never been so high. On this topic, I highly recommend this article about the music festival market and its predicted growth for the next 6 years.
Even though every year we witness new trends in the marketing world, it is extremely important to ensure that your music brand is actually nailing the most basic rules of online and offline promotion before exploring new and crazy ways to market your products or services. Check out my top 10 marketing tips for music industry brands for 2024:
1 - Don't overcomplicate your strategy
Very often companies think that marketing needs to be complicated in order to be original when the reality is that a clear and easy communication is what your audience wants.
2 - Study your target market
Not everyone is your client. Research your target audience based on location, age group, interests, education level and profession and create different client avatars for you to target during your promotion
3 - Set your goals
Your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are a set of goals that measure your progress against your most strategic objectives. Your goals should be written down at the beginning of each year and quarter and analysed once the period of time is over.
4 - Define your communication tone
Your communication tone is a mix of elements that define the way you speak to your audience. Make sure that you follow one communication style based on your industry and your clients and that your language is easy to understand on an international level.
5 - Study your competition
What are your competitors doing? What can you learn from them and how can you make it better? Researching what other similar brands are doing is a fundamental step for you to set your own strategy. Just make sure you never copy what others do!
6 - Define your mission and values
Every single company nowadays should have a clear mission statement on their website. Potential clients want to know exactly what a company is about and their values so ensure that those are clear and recurring often in your social media communication.
7 - It takes time...
Often, music companies expect immediate results even though they have not invested enough time in marketing themselves. Remember, it is not a race but a marathon!
8 - Your community is everything
Investing time in your community is the best way for your business to grow organically and to make your clients feel special. Make sure that all emails, DMs, comments always get an answer and network with other brands in the music business every single day.
9 - Focus on 2-3 social media platforms
Once you study your target market, you should define the top 3 social media platforms where your potential clients hang out and focus all your efforts there. My suggestion is always to focus on 1 long form way of communication ( like blogs, Youtube videos or podcasts) and 2 short form platforms like Instagram and TikTok
10 - If it's too good to be true, it's probably a scam
I swear that every single day I come across several marketing gurus on different social media platforms that promise to achieve incredible results in a very short amount of time. 99% of the times those companies are a scam so make sure that you only work with professionals who can prove results.