The Musician’s Guide to the Complete Marketing Plan, Part I

Onstage & Backstage

Bobby Borg, author of Music Marketing for the DIY Musician, details a complete marketing plan for musicians in his latest article from SonicBids!

The Musician’s Guide to the Complete Marketing Plan, Part I

Marketing is the complete process of innovating products and services to satisfy fans, build awareness, and make sales. This process involves a series of important building blocks including researching, goal setting, strategizing, and executing. While these concepts are covered in detail in my book, Music Marketing for the DIY Musician, I’ve broken them down into 10 important steps over a three-part series. What follows are steps one through three, from describing your vision to analyzing your customers. So, which steps are you forgetting when marketing your music?

1. Describe your band’s vision and set your career on course

The first step in the marketing process involves identifying your “vision” and creating a vision statement –…

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Steal This Idea: Independent music streaming as a “fair-pay” Internet utility.

You are thinking in the right direction, but most people listen to music to do exactly that.. listen. Offering reading material to people will not likely generate interest, especially in the internet age.
For this idea to work, some great music publicists would need to be involved on a day in day out basis. Those types of organizations already exist in Pitchfork, Hypebot, etc. If Pitchfork launched their own streaming service, then we would have a perfect example of the company you describe.

I think the solution to the music industry issue is soon to hit the market and spread like wildfire. That is: the exploration of alternate forms of currency and payment.

Technological and intellectual advance of culture is always fueled by a general interest in improving art. TIDAL may have been the spark of lifeblood and publicity that the music industry, and maybe capitalism, needed. It was an S.O.S. from the popular faces we respect as the best, and I believe that music fans the world over will respond in kind with ideas that will leave the rest of us wide eyed and drooling.

Art Note Social

With the creation of a new music service that benefits artists who are already ridiculously rich, here’s an alternative idea:

Create a streaming service for independent music.

Here’s the idea:

– there is a massive number of sites that review indie music, right? So why not bring their reviews together and create a “metacritic”-type site that initially serves music based on the average review score.

As listeners have a chance to listen (or not), the number of plays on the site can take over as the main scoring mechanism.

– the creators of the service can start out by getting paid a decent salary, but nothing exorbitant. As the service picks up steam, the revenues go to the artists until all artists receive 80% (or whatever is agreed on) of revenues from their music. Beyond that, the site keeps the money as profit. This ensures that artists get paid _before_…

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Top Albums of 2014

Another student recommended I listen to CombiChrist today.
Here is Combichrist as referenced by Avid Audiophile. Also, I share because I did not know that Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) has a solo album out. Here’s to learning new things, Avid Audiophile’s top albums of 2014:

Edit: this album by Mr Kitty turned out to be great background study sound. I wouldn’t put it in my top albums list… but a happy find, for sure.

Adventures of an Avid Audiophile

2014 is drawing to a close so I decided to compile my favourite albums of this year. This year I sure have been listening to more industrial… In no particular order .

All tracks belong to the artists and their respective labels. I own nothing.

Mr. Kitty – TIME

I fell in love with Mr. Kitty’s music shortly before seeing him at InFest in the UK. His music is hauntingly beautiful. The delicate balance of synth sounds and quite dark lyrics make him a favourite for rainy fall nights with a glass of wine.

Mr. Kitty – After Dark

The Gothsicles – Squid Icarus

Only after pledging to their Kickstarter did I realize what a great decision I had made. Described as “Lovecraftian geek culture dance party,” I couldn’t have possibly said it better!

The Gothsicles – Drop Dead Squid Face

Voltaire – Raised by Bats

Another self-funded project I am…

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Mission Statement

In my first week of class at South, I realize I am surrounded by people with many different backgrounds and interests. I am finding a bridge between their lives and my own through the music we listen to and the music we create.
People seem comfortable talking about their music tastes. In preparation for my job as a music publicist, I wish to explore the ways I can develop their musical interests while inspiring a deeper involvement in their local music industry.

South University Music Spotlight Mission Statement:
We make it our goal to represent intelligently the interests and achievements of South University’s diverse community of musicians ( and enthusiasts ).
We vow to treat all genre-of-music fans with respect, and all forms of showmanship will be regarded highly; carefully, constructively, we will commit to our comments.
Plagiarism will not be accepted, all sources MUST be linked to and/or obviously referenced.
We will reply promptly to any and all emails.
For the benefit of the community, we reserve the right to publish any email we receive on the blog, as accompanied by comment and reply.

The mission statement may be subject to change at any time. Any changes will be posted and sufficiently advertised.