Trident’s marketing segment is growing! Most notably we’ve experienced a spurt of new clients in the music industry, which we certainly welcome. Just like with a standard business, a professional musical band/group needs a marketing strategy. That’s where we come in.

I figure I’ll take this recent trend as an excuse to do a write up on an effective system for promotion for a music group, whether it’s done by us or them. In essence what we’re creating is the equivalent of a brand; a memorable and effective look that will not only exert the band’s mission, but help get their name out in the process.

Anyway, with a musical project launch the following steps are usually taken in this order.

Scope the market

This includes profitability, similar local and mainstream artists, market susceptibility. At this stage it’s all ideas and raw statistics.

Assess and Establish Target Audience

uncovering insights-Researching culture trends, fan base, genre popularity from city to city (then later state to state). Every area’s penetration is to be tailored and strategically initiated, so as to prevent the outcome from becoming a game of chance.

Developing an Identity

The brand/band identity will serve as a guiding post for the marketing and communication strategy, the creative expression and on a larger scale, the band and fan base culture. The audience’s insights and the client vision will have a great influence on this portion of developing an effective strategy. This is in the end the client’s project, not the marketing agent’s- sometimes branding and marketing firms forget this. Identity includes but isn’t limited to overall tone, personality, color scheme, and standardization of correspondence.

Developing Marketing Roadmap

The strategy will be like a blueprint which will guide the actual activations to bring the brand to life. At this point it’s important that we’ve gotten a grasp of the previous steps (assessed potential audience), because it’s the foundation for how we develop the visuals (whether for banners or CD covers). A tailored marketing campaign is then tailored to correlate to all materials prepared; this ensures everyone stays on track once the campaign is in motion. Contacts are pulled, calls are made, and meetings are called regularly.

Branding

This part will usually include logo, feel, catch phrases, flyers, banners, key visuals, website, etc. Essentially we’re getting all materials together for launch, and ensuring the client’s image is absolutely established, documented, and drawn out.

Execution and Measurement

This is where events and venues are booked, concerts and gigs go live, and advertisements go live, cities get plastered with promo materials and other marketing and sales activities see life. Brand awareness is constantly being tracked at this point, and our work goes public.
At this point the process becomes a cycle with continuous tracking on consumers, branding effectiveness, group performance and overall exposure.