The music industry screams for you to be different, forge your own path, take risks, and be creative in everything you do including marketing your music. And being different is a great thing – to a point. But being different does not mean you have to stay away from tried and true ideas, concepts, strategies, or means in which you market your music. Being different – or better yet – unique – means you find ways to set yourself apart from the crowd while utilizing proven systems of marketing. It does not mean you buck the entire system and “go it the hard way.” But a sad fact is that many, many independents feel that the only way they can have street cred or feel like they are truly independent is to take the hardest road they can find, or worse – try to reinvent the wheel – and somehow grind themselves up the road and hope to miraculously get the same results as the “sell outs” that are using the proven concepts, ideas, and strategies to market their music. CRAZY!

“But what does all this have to do with funneling fans to buy my music?”

For some reason, the music industry stays out of “traditional” marketing channels like it’s a plague. Now, don’t get me wrong, most of the successful artists and labels adopt “traditional” marketing techniques from day one – and they have the sales to prove it! These successful independents get that the easiest, and fastest way to get more fans is to understand marketing as a whole, instead of looking for a quick fix or one-off solution. They understand that marketing music is a process in which you have to first find your potential fans, then get them interested, get them to take a small step of action – not a giant step like buying your music or merchandise yet – then continue to build a relationship and trust, communicate some more, then get them to take a bigger desired action step – get them involved, and then get them to actually buy music and attend live shows. This is called “Funnel Marketing” in the world outside of the music industry. But it’s called the same thing by the successful independents that use it everyday to sell more and more music as well!

Funnel marketing is the backbone of any successful marketing campaign in the real world as well as in the music industry. The concept is simple. Think about a funnel, at the top is a huge area used to collect or attract anyone who may be interested in your music. As those people start down the funnel, through strategic marketing strategies put in place to funnel out people who may not really be into your music, they are asked to take small, actually tiny, steps of action like signing up for your weekly newsletter or participating in your user forum. As the hole in the funnel gets smaller and smaller, the fans that are still in the funnel are increasingly going to be life long fans that support your music. At the bottom of the funnel, where the fan comes out is your shopping cart where the fan can buy your music, buy merchandise, get tickets for live events, or anything else you may want them to purchase or do as an action item that only true fans will actually follow through with.

The key to funnel marketing is starting with a broad range of potential fans at the top of the funnel and directing those fans through strategies – funnel holes – by means of getting them to interact and take small action steps – so by the time they get to the tiny hole in the bottom of the funnel you know you have a dedicated, true fan, that will want to buy your music. You see, most independents try to sell their music way, way before it is time. What happens is that a potential fan is hit with sales pitches everywhere they turn. This automatically sends red flags up in a potential fans mind. They want to discover music, find a cool or groovy artist, or want to feel they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Simply buying a CD does none of this. But by using the funnel marketing technique you offer the potential fan the ability to discover your music, join your community, take action to become involved, communicate with you and other fans, help your movement through small action steps around their own network of friends, become more involved, and only after all that – buy your music. You are letting them test drive the music at their own pace, under their own direction and commitment of involvement, but in reality, through funnel marketing you are guiding them to exactly where you want them to end up – your shopping cart to buy your music. But you are not asking them to buy your music before they are ready! This is important. You are guiding them to the decision and by the time they get through the funnel they are ready with money in hand and can not get your music fast enough!

“Now, this sounds a lot like marketing! Oh NO!  – what gives?”

This is marketing, yes. But I am not saying you are not genuine in what you are doing. Meaning, you still have to be real. You still have to communicate. You still have to offer good music. And you still have to be a real artist, label, producer, agent, or manager. I am not saying stop being who you are or want to be and go put on a suit and tie and call yourself a marketing guru because you have now learned about the marketing funnel. Not at all – THAT IS CRAZY!

What I am saying is in your unique way, being as creative as you want to be, use the funnel marketing technique to gently guide your potential fans down the funnel towards your ultimate goal of selling more music – therefor allowing you to ability to make your living from the music you create or manage. I am saying once you learn that you are trying to sell your music too soon to potential fans you will start to sell more music all together. The music marketing funnel allows you to gently get fans to buy your music by weeding out the people that may not be 100% into your music as well as pull the potential fans that could be into your music if they were given a chance instead of bombarded with “BUY MY MUSIC NOW!” messages and lead to your shopping cart all while having the satisfaction of building a good relationship with you.

Click on the link to learn how to use the music marketing funnel to increase awareness, generate buzz, & drive CD sales!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”