Music Promotion: The Ultimate Guide

Seven stuffed chapters, teaching you the latest music marketing techniques!

Chapter – 1 : Identifying Your Target Audience

With all the talk about music promotion, “making it,” getting signed, or becoming a rock star, it’s easy to forget a little thing that happens to be the foundation of any band; Your Fans.

Seriously, without fan recognition there is no such thing as “your music”.  Music promotion is the ultimate way to gain followers, but with all the information on the internet, it is hard to find a starting point for success.  Well today all of that changes. We have put together this guide to make life a little easier.

Ready…  Set…  Lets Rock!

Before we get all excited about finding our fans and getting paid, we need to identify our target audience.

Target Audience:  Where 95% of Musicians Fail.

Target Audience Bullseye Gigmor GuideAs I mentioned earlier, this will set you up to be more successful in your marketing efforts than 95% of musicians out there.

So what is a target audience?  This is a simple way to determine who your customer is; the people that come to your shows and the people that pay for your music and merchandise.

What if I don’t have an audience yet?  Don’t worry.  Continue reading we will build a persona profile together.

Exercise

We will be creating a buyer’s persona, this is a term used in the world of marketing.  This persona uses detailed information about your customer, to create marketing guidelines for your marketing efforts.  The following are examples of what are included in a buyer’s persona’s.

  • Demographic
  • Age
  • Location
  • Gender
  • Hobbies and interests
  • Marital or family status

It is best to create multiple persona’s for each buyer.  Now get a piece of paper ready, because you will be taking notes on your target market.  Write down and answer the following questions.

  1. What kind of music do you play? Rock, indie, progressive, jazz, Hip-hop, you get the picture.
  2. Who is your competition?  Name some other bands like you or that you want to be like? [Start with local competition]
  3. What is the most prominent gender that goes to your shows?
  4. Are there interests that are similar among your fans?
  5. What location is the Group in?
  6. Is your fanbase younger and unmarried, or older and have kids?

Answer in as much detail as possible.  Once you have one written you can write another one for a smaller subset group, that you might notice also attends your shows.

In my experience, it is best laid out on a piece of paper so you have enough room for notes. Below is an example of the Toronto based band, the Greys:

Example:

Identify your buyer's persona

Tips And Tricks For Identifying Your Buyer’s Persona

If you’re having trouble here is an awesome list of resources to help you.

Wikipedia – If you look up your band or another similar one, take a look at the contents, there is a list with a bunch of great things that are related to that subject.

Boardreader – This is a search engine for forums.  Once again look up your bands name, or genre of music.  You will be shown a bunch of listings.  Click on any of the forum listings and explore what there is out there.  Look at comments.  Also take a look at the category pages or topics of discussion.  These usually hold golden nuggets of topics your fans are interested in.

Google –  Search google.com for relevant topics that have to do with your target audiences interests.  You will find things you didn’t even think related.

Concert – Go to a competitors show and write down the type of person that attends [trust me, you will notice].  There is an overwhelming amount of [blank] people here (fill in the blank).  Write down traits from the list above of things that you notice.  You are looking for an overview and larger generalizations  like the items above.

Terrific!  You are off to an incredible start.  Continue to put in the work and you will find a clear direction starting to reveal itself.

Time to jump into chapter two to get the low down on networking and how it can accelerate all of your efforts.