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1:28 am
September 22, 2016
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QuoteHey Inner Circle,
New member to MMM and the Inner Circle. This is my 2nd go around at music marketing my songwriting, and so far I've found the MMM way more informative and enjoyable than my previous marketing course.
My major issue is that I'm an L.A. based professional saxophone player/studio musician with a degree in Jazz performance but I also write songs and sing/play acoustic guitar. I've got 3 songwriting albums out and a full length Jazz album under my name, but I find it confusing and difficult to market both together.
So I've decided to not market both together, I'm gonna keep my webpage for my saxophone business, and bought a new URL to focus on a squeeze page and blog for my songwriting. Do you think that wise as I find the two just don't fit together for branding? I think it's confusing fans of my saxophone work and fans of my songwriting to contain both under the same site.
Here's my marketing issue:
I'm finding it hard to define a niche to market my songwriting as I'm heavily influenced by so many artists and I span a variety of styles. If I could describe it I would say it's primarily Folk Rock with an influence of Country Blues and Jazz. Think a kind of Randy Newman approach with lyric driven ballads, story telling style, along with occasional satire/sarcasm.
But here's the problem: Randy Newman is also a hugely successful film composer so a lot of his fans are young disney princess types who don't know much about his history in songwriting. Also I'm not really sure what genre you would place him in to find similar artists and define a proper marketing approach...
Here's my bandcamp if you want to take a listen to see if you have any genre ideas marketing suggestions. I'll probably be taking down all my music sources once I have a good funnel to try and focus more on direct sales.
https://peterslocombe.bandcamp.com/
Any thoughts? Thanks and sorry for the long post!
1:54 am
June 7, 2011
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Hey Peter,
Glad to hear you're enjoying MMM and the IC. That means a lot!
There are a couple of ways you could slice things. if it was me, I would pick one aspect of my music and create a brand around that. The hardest part of this process is finding an audience that will be receptive to what you do. Figure out what audience exists out there that will like some aspect of what you do, then distill that into an easy to communicate brand. It will be easy to sell your back catalog to fans, once they have purchased from you and feel connected with you as a person and an artist. But trying to combine jazz and singer songwriting will likely become confusing.
I'm a huge fan of Bob Dylan. If it turned out that he was in a doo-wop band before he was a folk artist, I'd happily buy that as well. But if the first impression I ever had of Bob Dylan was as a lyrics based singer songwriter who also made doo-wop music I'd probably be confused and pass right by it.
There is nothing to say you can't have two funnels. One targeting singer songwriters and one targeting jazz fans. But I'd probably start with one and expand later rather than spread yourself too thin.
I only had the chance to check out one track, but what I heard reminded me of a sort of countryfied Warren Zevon. Good stuff!
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
1:55 am
June 7, 2011
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I also meant to add, I think Randy Newman is a fine target audience. I wouldn't worry about his modern "fans" being interested in his movie scores. Target the older audience of say 30 - 60 and speak directly to them. There won't be any confusion. Worth a shot anyway.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
7:37 am
September 22, 2016
OfflineAh thanks so much John!
This has cleared up a lot for me! I think I'll focus on branding my songwriting for marketing since that is what I find most enjoyment at right now and have a clear picture of and I'll try some marketing for Randy Newman and Warren Zevon (hadn't thought of that but that might be a good one!).
Looking forward to continuing the course and learning more!
Cheers, thanks again!
Peter
6:53 pm
June 7, 2011
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Sounds good Peter, all the best.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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