Transferrable skills: Music and Marketing

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Parallels between being an independent musician and a customer marketer.

You’re a corporate marketer with a creative side that you can’t ignore. I get it. I’m just like you in that respect.

I’m a B2B customer marketing professional in terms of how I financially support my family, however, I’ve been an artist, singer/songwriter, and creative entrepreneur for longer than I’ve been in my marketing career.

Though, as I write that, I think, “are the concepts and principals between the two that different?”

The goal here is to help you make some mental connections between your career, creative interests, and the resulting transferable skills that flow between them.

As you read this, think about corporate marketing roles and the go-to-market process they often employ to execute their marketing strategies, and be inspired by another way to think about it from a different industry or vantage point.
So picture this…

Been writing songs, practicing guitar, and rehearsing to perfect my craft for years.
I’ve developed a brand around my music and the audience I want to attract.
In marketing terms, demand generation begins.

The shows are booked now.

I am promoting on every relevant platform where my ideal audience hangs out online.

I’m partnering with other musician friends to collaborate on marketing opportunities and swapping shows to cross pollinate audiences.

All this is to bring people into my musical ecosystem. It’s not unlike a corporate marketing department actively promoting their products and services on the broader, “rented” spaces of the internet to draw buyers into their “owned” online ecosystems (social media profiles, website, landing pages).

Live performance is where the real music business rubber meets the road. The crowd that was attracted from the demand efforts is now there to have an experience.

It’s not lost on me that the venue hosting the show is a business partner and needs to make its money from the crowd, buying food and drink. That means, as a good partner, I need to plug the venue and remind people of what they have to offer. Meanwhile, providing quality entertainment to ensure they stay longer and make more purchases from the venue.

Being successful at that means, I will likely have another performance at that same venue in the future.

The actual performance is the culmination of all the years of writing and rehearsing songs coming together. This is how I focus on my business as a musician. I design a set list for the venue and the audience to tell a story throughout the performance, and take them on an emotional journey. However, I also have to read the room and understand what’s landing with the audience and adjust on the fly by changing up the set list based on the reactions - the “data,” - the audience gives me.

Just by being at the show, the audience already got the free trial of my product, and now between songs I need to sell the stories and their emotional experience in a way that makes them want to have another such experience, and ideally take a bit of that experience home with them after the event via my available merchandise and albums for sale - the upsells. At the very least, I’d like to get them to follow my social profiles and sign up on my email list so we can continue the conversation beyond the event.

Immediately after the show, it’s all about relationships; connecting with fans selling merchandise, connecting with the venue owner and staff; getting feedback about how the show went in an effort to book another gig there; inviting those fans to your next show; and working to build their anticipation for the next song or album to be released. That’s all customer marketing to drive retention, upsells, and cross-sells to the next show.

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Recommended Reading: 

Fanocracy
by David Meerman Scott and Reiko Scott