The Importance of Strategy in the Music Industry

There are so many talented musicians but how do you get heard amongst the crowd?

You need an effective strategy that defines your brand, focusses your marketing and makes your release relevant.

Master this and the world will pay attention.

An Introduction to Music Strategy

Strategy

/ˈstratɪdʒi/noun

1. 1. a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.

Whilst consistently releasing good music is a great way to make a name for yourself as a new artist, you must establish a strategy to make a real mark. By outlining a clear course of action, you will be able to track your trajectory and plan your releases effectively.

In an ideal world, you would have a brand strategy, release strategy and marketing strategy for each release.

What’s the difference? Your brand strategy should be an overarching theme that defines your look and sound. For men, this can be the sweet boy versus the gangster.

For women, it is usually the sex symbol versus female empowerment. This differs from your release strategy which looks to provide structure during a project activation. It can usually come in the form of a checklist.

Items here would range from setting the release date to ensuring you are registered to appropriate rights and collection service in the right territories (e.g. PRS, ISRC), from scheduling a photo shoot for the single artwork to submitting your song to digital streaming platforms and pitching for playlists.

Lastly, your marketing strategy should be focussed on getting your release heard and seen. Ultimately the goal here is to convert people to listeners which then converts to money!

In this write-up, you will find pointers on how best to draft a strategy but remember, one size doesn’t fit all.

To make a strategy effective, you have to review industry standards and best practises, refer to experts to leverage their knowledge of the field and receive recommendations, and conduct market research; look at case studies or examples to learn from when activations have gone, but also when they haven’t gone as planned.

Once a strategy is defined, consistency is key. You must follow through what has been outlined for the specified amount of time.

Those who deviate never really test whether the strategy has been effective so they cannot evaluate and improve the process effectively.

Testing the strategy is the most important part. By reviewing the process, you should be able to adapt and improve for current and future releases.

How to Write an Effective Strategy

With every strategy, you must ask yourself (and your team):

1. What are the objectives of this strategy?

a. All objectives should be SMART (i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound)

i. With strategy, the more granular, the better! Specify what you would like to achieve with minimal jargon and ambiguity. Try to avoid subjective terms like “more” and “better” that can be open to interpretation

ii. Objectives should speak to measurable outputs. E.g. each release should have a defined objective for quantifiable uplifts and increases or reductions decreases within a fixed time period (e.g. I would like to gain 1,000 followers within 4 weeks of my first release)

iii. Everything is achievable with hard work and determination, but it’s important to outline what can be attained with the resources you have at present, and outline what you will need for any stretch goals

iv. Realism helps manage expectations on all sides

v. Time limits help focus on the strategy and efforts

b. All objectives should be subject to MoSCoW

• Mo: Must Have
• S: Should Have
• Co: Could Have
• W: Would Have

2. What are the key performance indicators?

To judge whether the strategy has achieved the objectives, you need to outline success criteria specific to the success of the song. At a minimum, these should cover streams, locations, platforms, followers, engagement and reach.

Many artists focus on charting and playlisting position, and these are important, but the focus should also be on how much money was generated based on the investment.

3. What is the scope of this release?

Each release serves a different purpose. Some projects are to increase brand awareness; these may be tongue in cheek tracks that follow trends or are situation-specific. The objective here is to grow your audience. Other projects may focus on brand loyalty; that is retaining your current audience.

This can happen when you haven’t released a song in a while, and you need to remind your listeners that you’re relevant.

Other scenarios include pivoting from one sound to another during a rebrand, attaining traction in a new market (e.g. collaborating with an artist from another genre), releasing seasonal tracks (e.g. Christmas or Independence Day), responding to live events (e.g. pandemics, personal mourning, civil war).

It’s important to remember that every project serves a purpose, whilst everyone is aiming for the number one spot, some releases have other functions.

4. Who is the target audience?

With each release, you must define who the song is for. If you’re aiming to be relevant to everyone, you’ll be so unfocussed, you will engage with no one. Define your audience as accurately as possible and include the following factors: gender, age, location, nationality, religion, ability and interests.

5. What dependencies do I have?

With each strategy, it is key to outline what you will need in order to move the strategy from being on paper to enabling it in real life! The real question is “what am I depending on?”

This can be something as obvious as funding and studio time, to something as specialised as having a Spanish translator for an overseas collaboration.

Carefully plot what you need to rely on for this activation to be a success and plan how you will obtain these.

6. What are the risks?

Prudence is paramount when defining a strategy. Identifying the risks and creating mitigation plans to circumvent these, gives your strategy the best chance of being successful. Consider everything with care! Here is a quick list of things to evaluate when drafting your strategy:

• Release name
• Release date
• Obtaining the beat
• Recording of song
• Mixing and mastering of the track
• Registering the song to the appropriate collection service
• Cover art
• Submission to DSPs and lyric websites
• Shooting and editing music video
• Marketing and advertising
• Press tour

This can seem overwhelming, but it is important to apply strategy to each release for maximum impact. Remember, it’s quality over quantity.

Putting in the time and energy gives your project the best chance of success, and whilst we can’t plan around everything (e.g. Corona Virus), you can give yourself the best starting point by not rushing your release.

Give yourself the best foundation and begin your journey down the defined roadmap to success.

Gracey Mae –  I’m a London-born Nigerian and serial plate spinner which is excellent as I’m also a big foodie.

Faith comes first, and I balance this with my 9-5 as a project manager in IT, The Afronation Show: my weekly radio broadcast and Frobeats: my weekly Afro-Pop podcast.

I keep busy with my weekly music reviews and ad hoc interviews for publications such as Pause Magazine, The F Word Magazine.

I offer Branding and PR Services with Laude London: a music management consultancy firm, as well as, curating My Dream Wedding Fair: the largest bridal show for couples of African and Caribbean descent in the UK. Both businesses I co-own.

If you would like assistance with strategy, contact Laude London at www.laudelondon.com or email Gracey directly: graceymae@laudelondon.com

Lastly, stay up to date with all you need to know about African music at SOA, right here.