Atomic Wax

It’s guaranteed that all your competitors are following your industry news and trends. But you can gain a huge competitive advantage by watching experts in another industry. Especially one that is in transition like the Music Industry.

A couple years ago I met a social/viral media consultant to the Music Industry named Makeda Taylor (http://twitter.com/MakedaTaylor). Makeda is watching for good music marketing ideas which she shares with other musicians. But the ideas are great for any business, including yours. All you need to do is follow her on Twitter and then think about how the new models of selling music could apply to your business.

The reason the Music Industry is a great one to follow is that is has been redesigning itself for years. The record company model has turned inside out. Artists now have the benefit of control over their careers, with the downside of being left alone to work out how to do that. Musicians are driven and creative people with minimal resources. They need to sell to thousands of people just to scrape by. To succeed they need to sell to millions. Many are marketing themselves in ways that are so counterintuitive that they seem ridiculous at first glance. Some go as far as giving their music away for free.

There’s a great opportunity here for non-music businesses to watch what musicians are doing. Imagine if you had to sell ten times the volume with one tenth of the budget. How would you do it? Musicians might hold the answer for you.

Here’s a great example from a linked article from one of Makeda’s Twitter posts:

The post is, “Marketing In The New Music Business Vol. 2 http://bit.ly/csUM1N via Music Industry Report”. There is a lot to be gleaned from this article. Here are three concepts with questions to ask yourself:

1. Rethink your industry
The article looks at which industry musicians are actually in, and it’s not the Recording Industry. It’s the Touring Industry. Knowing that allows musicians to re-think how they use recordings and how they earn income. Recordings transform from products to marketing opportunities for getting people to buy a concert ticket.

Ask yourself, what industry to you think you’re in? What industry are you actually in? (Hint: It’s the one that pays the bills.) It may be as simple as I think I’m in graphic design, but really I’m in customer service. What new product or marketing opportunities do you see from this new point of view?

2. Marketing hubs
Certain existing fans/clients are the best marketing for the musician. Giving them tools and incentive to get the word out can increase the musicians fan-base exponentially.

What tools or incentive could you provide your existing clients to create a client marketing hub? This could be as simple as a ‘friend-referral’ card with discounts for the client’s friend and for the client that referred them, or a Facebook fan page with exclusive promotions.

3. New client acquisition costs
Calculating the cost of finding a new client is not a new idea. However in Music, acquisition budgets are tiny. The famous marketing quote by John Wanaker, “Half my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” reflects the shotgun spatter marketing that most businesses engage in, where they spend a lot and hope that someone buys their product. A musician has no budget for that, so they have to be focused and measured. The fan-incentive example in the article offers a free t-shirt for any client who provides 5 names of their friends for a mailing. The friends are then sent a free CD to introduce them to the band. The value of these new clients is then estimated over one year at a profit (based on ticket sales minus acquisition costs). What I love about this is it takes out the middle-men who profit on advertising whether it works or not, and it focuses the entire marketing budget on creating value for the music fan and their friends.

If you offered a free gift for referrals and then sent a free gift to the new prospects, what would that cost you? Would it be more or less than your current advertising?

If you liked this article please let me know.

The best and scariest part of being a graphic designer is the speed at which the technology of design is changing. It’s never boring.

When I started my career, desktop publishing was still new enough that many of the non-computer-based designers were still around. Within a few years, they had either retired or went on to other jobs. It was rare to see someone actually transition from designing by hand to computer design.

Even though I’ve been designing professionally for 15 years, I feel as though I’ve had many careers in that time. I’ve designed 3D weapons for video games, interactive multimedia for educational workshops, branding and print design for corporations, and lots of websites. Constant learning is no longer a choice, but is a necessity for all of us.

When I look back I can clearly see transition periods where one design career would end and another design career begins. The last major transition was the period between September 11, 2001 and January, 2002. When 911 happened, the majority of my business was interactive media for workshops, CD-ROMs, and interactive signage. Between 911 and the New Year, I received little work. It all just dried up. I did lots of proposals, but it turned out that my clients were all waiting for the New Year. Once January came I was busier than ever before, but my business had changed. I was no longer doing interactive media as my primary product. For the next eight years it was an even split between print and web design.

Well things are changing again…2009 was a transition year as well, both professionally and personally. And I don’t think that’s just for me. Many people are taking a fresh look at their lives and reevaluating what they want to invest themselves into.

I’ve become clear that I want to work on similar and more focused projects. Lots of them. I intend to simplify my processes and offer better design for less money. I want to make my business more personal and have more fun with my clients, because I really have great clients.

I’m working on some high-value initiatives that I will unveil in the next few weeks. I’ll have more details soon.

-PB

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