WHAT IS MARKETING??
Marketing is a funny word that many people still don't quite understand.
But its simple!
Marketing is the science that goes into promotion,
the creative ideas that make reaching new people fun and successful.
It does this by asking very simple questions to improve the promotion.
Questions like
1. Who are you targeting, and why?
What are the things they like and why do they like them?
2. Where do you reach them?
Which social media groups do they join, which websites do they visit, which events do they attend, which products do they buy?
3. What do you want them to see?
Is it better to show them your SoundCloud page, your next show or your website?
Promoting is just letting someone know something or someone exist. Question, for every 100 people you reach, how many click through to your site or listen to your music? If your answer is too low for your liking, then your marketing may need to be addressed.
In order to do marketing you have to become familiar with data, and a lot of it.
Data is a big part identifying Patterns, which is the essense of marketing. The goal is to find a pattern, prove its a pattern and then use it to improve results.
For example, I know every day there is an average of 100 people walking down 3rd street at 12:00pm
But on Thursday, 300 people are walking down that street at that time.
Knowing that means you have an understanding of the market and can make a better choice of when to promote.
For another example, lets say everyday 100 people are walking down 3rd street, but 400 people are walking down 9th street.
But 9th street is full of executive buildings and 3rd street is full of restaurants, stores and the subway.
As a hip hop artists, you would avoid 9th street and stick to 3rd street because the crowd is better.
The ASA network is centered around making this kind of information available to you.
Either you, someone you know or a professional company should be marketing for you.
Joining ASA will help you get a hold of marketing strategies and one on one conversations with professionals.
So do we have communities or groups here for like minded artists ?