Musicians Are Natural Marketers
Copywriting is to marketing what melody and lyrics are to a song. In order to bring a song to life, you first need instruments. To bring those instruments to life, you need skill and knowledge. obviously, instruments aren’t enough. You need a chord structure, so you need knowledge of how chords are pieced together.
Making Your Marketing a Hit
You need knowledge of common chordal patterns. You need an arrangement. You need rhythmic patterns to tie this music together. Ultimately, what determines whether this song is going to be a hit or not is the melody and the lyrics. The band, the chords, the rhythms, that creates a backdrop for the song. It sets the stage for the song. It’s the melody and the lyrics that will determine whether the song is a hit or not.
The same applies to your marketing. The words that you place into your marketing are what determine whether your marketing will be a hit or not, whether it will succeed in capturing people’s attention and motivating people to take action.
In order to get your message out there, it requires knowledge of certain tactics, whether it’s social media, email marketing, website advertising. They’re delivery systems, but they’re hollow delivery systems without a message. A marketing message is formed through copywriting. Copy is what allows your target audience to know that this advertisement is speaking to them. Copy is what allows them to feel a feeling.
It allows them to imagine what their life would look like with this product or service in their life. It’s not enough to create a Facebook ad and slap in the words, “We’re open for business. Music lessons. All ages and skill levels welcome. We teach all styles of music.” Those are statements of facts, statements of expectations.
Good melodies and good marketing trigger Emotions
Good melodies, good lyrics, and good sales copy trigger emotions. They inspire people. They inspire people to take action. A good melody and lyric will inspire people to buy an album, to download a song, to buy concert tickets. Good sales copy will inspire people to buy your music lessons. The musical artist or the rock band that can’t get a record deal, the problem’s always the same. The label doesn’t hear hits. “We need hits to sign you guys.” I know of a few local bands from my hometown in St. Louis that had record labels looking at them, but they didn’t hear hits so they didn’t sign the deal, or they signed the deal and there were no hits on the album so they dropped them. The same applies to your marketing. If you don’t have hits in your marketing, your marketing will fail.
How to Write a Hit
So how do you write a hit? In order to write a hit song, you have to understand the wants, desires, the world view of your ideal listener. If your ideal listeners are teenagers, you’re not going to write a song about aging and feeling lonely, and you’re going to write a song that uses language that uses musical motifs that resonate with them, that echo other musical motifs in contemporary pop music. The same applies to your marketing.
The better you understand your ideal client, you better understand their worldview, their wants, their needs, their fears, the better you can make your marketing resonate with them. The more personal it can feel. The more it can feel like it’s speaking to them. I remember when I was in junior high school in seventh grade, my girlfriend decided, that some song on the radio was our song. It summed up, or it summarized the essence of our seventh-grade relationship. It spoke to her. She could relate to it. The melody engaged her, triggered her emotions.
Stop Throwing Money at Your Marketing Problems
A music school owner who’s struggling to get their marketing to work and keeps throwing money at Facebook ads and doesn’t understand why it’s not working is the equivalent to the rock band or the pop artist who thinks, if they could just come up with the perfect chord combination or the perfect beat, they would have a hit. They’re looking in the wrong place.
It all boils down to melody and lyrics. It all ties back to your sales copy. The answer to your marketing problems will most likely be fixed by re-examining the words you’re writing, what promises you’re making. I wish I could say that the way to fix your marketing is to adjust a setting in Facebook ads manager, click this button instead of that button. It’s not that easy. Your success in marketing is determined by your ability to create a message that resonates with your ideal client. It’s that simple.
Today’s Featured Music School
Thank you to Raquel Kelly of Franklin Brentwood Arts Academy for her recent Google review of the podcast.
Episode Sponsor
Today’s show is brought to you by Kidzrock. Kidzrock fills the education and age gap in music education by teaching children ages 4-7 how to play guitar, drums and keyboards in a real performing rock band.
