Market Like A Musician
What relevance do artists like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce have to your business? A lot actually!
With many musicians today collecting revenue outside of their album sales, they have evolved into unlikely, yet amazing marketing gurus.
Although these musicians tend to market their own personal brands, some of their marketing tactics can easily be adapted and used by business owners like you.
Know Your Audience and Connect with Them Like Taylor Swift
No matter if you love or loathe her, Taylor Swift is a musical powerhouse. And with her award-winning albums, sold out tours and numerous product endorsements, she also proves that she is a marketing powerhouse too. Among the many things Ms. Swift has done so well, her getting to know her audience and connecting with them has been a big key to her success.
Taylor Swift not only knows the key demographics of her fans like their age, but she also knows their digital analytics and their personal interests. Knowing this information, Taylor has been able to create experiences that keep her fans coming back for more and drinking the “Taylor Swift koolaid”. For instance, during her 1989 World Tour, she surprised concert-goers at 38 tour stops with different guest performers because she knew her audience.
One great example of her connecting with her fans is her “Shake It Off” video. She realized her fans live on Instagram and Twitter, so she took to the social networks to enlist fans to dance in her video. Another example is when she dropped her 1989 album. Instead of a Hollywood-clad event, she hosted a listening party at her home for fans. Now, that’s what we call connecting with your audience!
Marketing Takeaway: With so many marketing channels available today, it’s important that you know your target audience. This will help you place your marketing dollars exactly where your customers are and create a multichannel marketing mix that helps you connect with them.
Get People Talking like Lady Gaga
Back in 2008, Lady Gaga catapulted to fame with a voice that is out of this world. She has won many awards and created a persona that is well-recognized. But, it’s not just her voice that got her to this level of stardom. It’s her talent matched with her personality that created this recipe for success. Why? Because she made people talk about her by creating her own publicity.
Whether she’s dressed like a piece of meat at the VMAs or as a sparkly star while walking the streets of London, Lady Gaga doesn’t wait for branding opportunities to come her way. Instead, she creates them.
Marketing Takeaway: It’s important that you make people talk about your business. Luckily, today this is an easier task with the help of social media. By consistently cranking out good content, you can help keep your brand on the minds of others through social media engagement.
Tell a Story like Beyonce
Beyonce is a musical great, a true performer, and believe it or not, a fantastic storyteller.
Storytelling is one of the basic premises of great marketing which makes Beyonce a great marketer too.
From her album releases to her social media posts, everything she touches is a hit because of her master storytelling skills. For example, Beyonce’s sixth studio album Lemonade. Before the world knew about the upcoming album, Beyonce started telling a marketing story that created momentum.
Since she was scheduled to guest perform at Super Bowl 50, she surprise-released her new single Formation the morning of the performance. Next, she performed the song at the Super Bowl, and before she could exit stage left, a new promo rolled out to the 111.9 million TV viewers about her upcoming The Formation World Tour. Fans purchased tickets in droves and bought them out in minutes. Two months later, she and HBO released a 7-second trailer titled LEMONADE that gave the world no details other than the premiere date. On premiere night, Beyonce presented us with her captivating visual album that laid out her inner thoughts and gave us a peek inside her life through music. During the premiere of the HBO event, she garnered 1,800 tweets per minute. Weeks later, she kicked off the first leg of her sold-out tour and further cemented that when done correctly, storytelling can take a product launch to another level.
Marketing Takeaway: As a business owner, your marketing should always tell a story that speaks to your target audience. Make them feel that they can relate to your brand by building a marketing story that shows what you have to offer and reels them in like these examples.
Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce are more than just musical artists. They can teach us all a thing or two about marketing.
Keep these ideas in mind when launching your next marketing campaign, and you‘ll be marketing like a musician in no time!
Looking for more business marketing guidance? We got your back! Contact Belo Media Group to get started.