Music Marketing Project Blog Post #1

Music Marketing Project: The Early Stages

     At the beginning of January, my class was assigned a marketing project in which we create and market a band based on a song that was randomly assigned to us. After listening to the song and identifying its genre and message, we began to create a fictional band, its "brand" and a potential marketing strategy to promote the group. Throughout the duration of this project, I will be documenting our thought process and progress on this blog. 

Basic Planning

    First, we created a Google document where we began to lay out the musical group's fundamental characteristics: their name, brand, and overall feel. We decided on the name "Venus," since the idea of having an "other-worldly" and space-like theme seemed not only aesthetically pleasing, but could also help us come up with innovative marketing strategies. We also decided that the colors would consist of warm tones (mainly orange), black, and white, and that the band itself would be made up of three members. With all of the basics laid out, we moved onto the more logical yet equally creative part: marketing.

These are screenshots from our Google document that demonstrate 

our brainstorming process at the beginning of our meeting.

This is an image we believed to capture the band's essence well, since the band's theme 

revolves around space and how humanity must focus on "the big picture."

In addition to creating a Google document, we also created a Pinterest board in order to 

fully capture the essence of the band and the colors we wanted to include in Venus's branding.

Marketing

    First, we agreed that our target audience would be teenagers and young adults ranging from ages 14 to 28. By narrowing down the audience, we were able to determine what strategies to use in order to maximize the exposure that Venus received. One of these strategies was replicating standard techniques that are commonly found in the music industry. These included making a website, creating social media accounts on multiple platforms (Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), and interacting with fans through those mediums. We expanded on this and also decided to make Venus act as guests on rock music podcasts, perform on live TV shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live and tour with bigger artists with similar music, such as the band Nothing But Thieves. This way, consumers with similar tastes are also being exposed to our musical group, maximizing the amount of new loyal fans that the band would gain after participating in these events.

These are two more screenshots from our Google document outlining our target 

audience as well as our marketing plans for our band, Venus.

    However, we knew that replicating these standard techniques would not be enough to make this new band successful - we needed to be more innovative. Because of this, we thought that partnering with a small and growing clothing company would be a promising move. The band could create a slogan that would become a significant part of their brand, and then the clothing company could design merchandise that not only incorporates that slogan, but also captures the band's essence. This would not only allow the store's customers to be exposed to be band, but it would ensure that the company would gain more customers as well. My group has not made an official decision regarding the slogan, however we know it must be appealing to the target audience and offer design opportunities to profit off of.

Distribution

    As for distribution, we determined that Venus's music would be disseminated through streaming applications, radio stations and other platforms. These include Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, YouTube, Amazon Prime Music, Pandora, and stations such as iHeartRadio. By having multiple outlets, our band's music would be able to reach as many people as possible and expand its audience.

Above is a list of the companies we would like to work with regarding 

the distribution of Venus's music.

    Though the details are not completely sorted out, I believe that our marketing and distribution plans are both promising and innovative. After finalizing these plans and producing ninety seconds of Venus's first music video, we will be presenting this information to our class and learning about other groups' bands and plans. Very exciting!