The importance of branding in music
The music business is much like any other, you need to have connections, you need to invest and you need a lot of effort and love in order for you to succeed. And as in any other business, you need quality marketing. So the first thing that we need to ask is, how does a band or a rapper promote himself? The obvious reasons always come to mind, Facebook posting and Twitter tweeting are the most common ways for any musician to promote. While these methods are free and they do work to a certain extent they lack a couple of features that remain reserved to marketing that requires some form of investment.
The art of branding!
Branding is a wide term, and can mean all sorts of things. But when it comes to music, it means one simple thing. Making you and what you are recognizable from your logos, your flyer designs, your mixtape design or anything related to your name is professional and uses the same emblem or logo to give everything the same look . If you still feel unsure about what branding is all about, just think back a couple of years and try to remember how the famous rapper 50 cent branded his own name “50 cent”. And by doing so he immortalized his music in the daily lives we all live. So anybody who has even heard of his name will immediately remember him when they see a coin lying around the house. With this said we feel that we should first explain, what are the most common ways for any musician to brand their name or image into the future?
- Branding your design
- Branding your style
- Branding your image
- Branding your music
All of the previously mentioned methods were done by some musicians in the past and they are guaranteed to work for anybody who is trying to make a name for themselves.
How to make people remember you?
The fact still remains that the best way for any musician to make a name for himself is to put on a show that will be remembered for months. When it comes to this method, it has some drawbacks. The first and foremost is the fact that if the show was an absolute killer, you have to remember that people are drunk at the show and it might be hard for them to remember anything that happened that night. While the previous statement was harsh, it doesn’t make it any less true. The fact still remains that you need to make people remember you. So how does a musician go about doing such a thing? This is where branding comes in to play.
It is a scientifically proven fact that people have a much easier time connecting to pictures and unified objects than they do to actual people and the things they do. Let’s look at the famous band “guns n roses”. The symbol they branded for their custom logo design, is two revolvers and the rose in between them makes it instantly recognizable by people all round the world. So needless to say that people from the United States will recognize the symbol just as fine as the people from Japan. This just goes to show how powerful image and design branding really is. So in accordance with this we suggest the following for any band.
Make an emblem that will generalize and show what your music is all about, also make it reflect your own personalities, people will have much easier time connecting to thing they find closer to themselves and easier to understand. After you have achieved this, the next step is simple. Make your image recognizable by all the people that are on your show, so how would you do this when you have a drunk crowd? Flyers and business cards with links to your facebook to connect with you and links to your music and videos. The whole purpose to build your fanbase and, these methods of promotion only need a small investment, but the results they bring are well worth it.Even after a night of heavy drinking once they see your business card in the morning they will be able to connect with you.,. Whatever the case is, the fact remains that your symbol will be looked at for days to come. Even after an extensive period people will still tend to find your flyers and business cards around, branding your image into their mind for years to come, and making your band recognizable almost anywhere.
The psychology aspect
People, like you and me, are simple creatures, and we tend to emotionally relate to our memories. This fact can be used to your advantage, and is one more step in making your band that much more famous. Let’s say that your band made an awesome show last night, and you gave out autographed business cards to the crowd and were throwing flyers everywhere for people to find and pick up. The fact is that your show was a positive experience for the entire crowd, and some of them maybe experienced shivers when you started playing. So imagine their mental reaction when they find your autographed business card in their pocket three days later . All those positive emotions would came back in an instant reminding them how good of a time they had at your show. This will ultimately work to your advantage because of course they will share their experience and your music with all their facebook friends which will get you even more exposure.
Branding Music!
So, music being tricky as it is, how does one artist go around branding their own sound? While this sounds complicated in reality it really is quite simple. Like many times before let’s take a look at an example, the artist “Young Jeezy”. For everybody that doesn’t know Young Jeezy,he is a down south rapper from Atlanta and calls himself Jeezy The Snowman and used a Snowman for his emblem we all know what he was talking about and when you seen the Snowman anywhere you see a snowman you would relate it to Young Jeezy he did a good job branding himself, same thing for Trina Da Baddest Bitch when you here baddest bitch its related to Trina due to her branding that with her name all over the place.
So with all this said, what can we get out of the entire ordeal. Branding music simply means that you need to understand what kind of emotions and what kind of tone your songs have, do you express anger or love through your songs, and is the general tone of your music dark or mild? Understanding your own music is the most challenging part of the entire process, and will ultimately lead to the understanding of it. Your ultimate goal should be to make the music your fans recognize and love. And when they hear one of your new songs they immediately say, “Is this a song from such and such ….”
This method of promoting your music can be implemented into the marketing campaigns you already have in motion. We previously mentioned that business cards and flyers were a good way for you to promote your music. What we didn’t mention is the fact that you can put some of the more catchy lyrics on to the flyers and business cards, making the words spin inside the persons head the whole day, while this can be psychological warfare to some degree, all is fair in love and war. If your ready to brand yourself and start really building your fanbase everywhere we got you covered at www.MixtapeCoverKing.com we can get you your branding package deal today for a affordable price you can checkout an example below of a fan generating business card. These are a great marketing tool. Hell you can be at the Mall and see some teenagers who look like they listen to your type of music and hand them a card. they will be excited that they get to meet a musician two They won’t have no choice but to look at you like a a professional because you will have a professional designed card and that will bait them to check you out on the links you provide on your card. The good thing is that if they like your music they will post and share it on facebook , tell their friends and more.So start building your fanbase and branding yourself today Use the contact link above and we will contact you within a hr.
