Transcription
Here's four simple steps to getting your music and artist branding right. But before I get to that, I know that immediately loads of artists are just going to be put off by the subject of branding. We get it. When we work with artists for the first time, we generally even avoid using the word "branding" because we know how off-putting it is for artists, even though we do lots of work on it with them. So we totally understand it. Most artists tend to think of branding as something that's corporate, or contrived and phony, or odds with whatever music and Artistry should be all about. I guess generally, branding just feels uncalled for.
Put that thought out of your head, because that isn't what branding needs to be about, and it certainly shouldn't be what it's about for music artists. And more importantly than this, I guarantee that by not developing and using your artist brand, you are not making the most of your music releases. So just think of any artist that you know, or follow, or a fan of. Okay, either they or their label have definitely worked on their brand.
Now there's loads of branding and marketing information out there online that you can find and use to your benefit, and some of it goes into some really great detail with fancy diagrams and all sorts. And as you grow as an artist, I do recommend that you delve much deeper into this topic, because it is so beneficial for any modern music artist who wants to have proper success. But for an emerging artist in the real world looking for simple concepts that are practical and will give them the greatest benefit, then I'm going to go through what I think is the sort of bare minimum that you need to be thinking about and doing.
Now the basics of artist branding are fairly straightforward, and it's really likely that you've already got within you and within your music an artist brand just waiting to be brought to life. So I'm going to go through with you four simple, straightforward steps that you can use to start building your brand and using it. Okay, so these steps are: identifying your audience, identifying your brand, communicating your brand, and consistency.
First, identify your audience. It seems obvious, but if you don't know who your audience is, then how are you going to know how to speak to them? It's really important this step doesn't get missed out. I know that lots of artists tend to think that their music can speak to everybody and that it's suited to anyone. But actually, in reality, if your music, by definition, suits anyone generally, then it means it isn't highly suited to anybody in particular, and that is not a good place to be. So as you really think about it, you'll see that your music can't be specifically for everybody. Okay, so now you can start to begin to narrow down at least the genres and styles, and think of other artists who are maybe similar to you, who may have fan bases who will be interested in the music that you are doing. This is where you're going to find people who are more likely to really get into your music, and then you can start drilling down into demographics such as age groups and nationalities, locations, cities, fashions, and all sorts of things. Okay, whatever it may be relevant to what you're doing. So these are the people that you are going to try to connect with. So when, as you are thinking about what your brand can be, always think about: will your brand resonate with these people? Okay, just keep in mind that they are your potential audience, and forget about trying to appeal to other people at the moment.
The next step, step two, is to identify your brand. And I've deliberately used the word "identify" and not "create," because your brand is not something that you just invent or concoct out of thin air. Okay, it needs to be something that's true and authentic to you as an artist and your music. Okay, it's not an invention. This means the foundations of your brand are already within you as an artist and within your music. So you just need to find a way to articulate what these are with the greatest clarity possible. Now, how do you actually do that? So when we work with artists, we tend to think in terms of: what is your story? Some people call this "The Narrative." So think about: what is your story? What are you all about? What's your thing? What is it you're trying to communicate? What are you trying to say to your audience? Okay, this also needs to include your character and your personality as well. So your brand needs to be a reflection of you, your music, and everything that you're about—your artist's vision and your artistic voice. So I stress again that your brand needs to be authentic. Okay, don't go for something that's phony and not real just because you might think it's more popular at the moment or could be more impressive to other people. Okay, that's going to be a lot harder for you to maintain and articulate. Okay, be real and be honest.
Now the second step is not always as simple as the first step, so do stick with it and persevere. Even record label execs grapple with this idea of trying to identify what the artist brand is. So it can be the case that after a year or two of working with an artist, they look back and realize that the brand that they kind of thought they were articulating and had identified wasn't quite what the artist brand was at the time. So you won't get it perfect is the point I'm trying to make here. But what is important is that you understand that you're trying to identify something that's good enough for the time that you are in now, and that you use that to inform what you're going to do, to build upon. And that leads you into how you're going to communicate and use your brand.
So step three is communicating your brand. So hopefully you can see right there that if you haven't already done the first two steps, which is identify your audience and identify your brand, then you can't really do step three, which is to communicate your brand. Okay, so once you've already got your brand in mind, step three is about trying to understand how you're going to portray this, communicate it, and reinforce it to your audience. This includes aesthetic—so think about artwork and image and color schemes and styles and fashions if that's important to your brand—and also consider your live shows and how you present them and how you behave and what it will look like and all these kinds of aspects. So with all of these decisions, keep in mind who you're trying to connect with. Will your potential audience engage with your brand? That's what you're trying to achieve here. How can you build a relationship and a connection with your potential fan base? People will make quick decisions about you, so you need to find a way, a mechanism that you can use to provide an instant connection, and a brand is how you go about doing this. So don't just think about this in an abstract way; actually write down these ideas of what your brand is going to be, and then you use these as your guidelines to make sure that you stay on brand. And this leads us to the final step, step four, which is consistency.
This is staying on brand. You need to make sure that once you've got your brand, you're using it properly. So your image and style and aesthetic should run through everything that you're doing—it'll be through your music, through your social media, your website, your live performances, and how you behave and what it is that you're saying—everything that you're doing. You need to be consistent, and you need to stay on brand, and you need to stick to this brand for a period of time. I would advise you stick to it for an entire set of releases and touring as a minimum. Fine to change your brand and develop it and do something new over a long period of time, but you need to let your brand do its thing, give it time to breathe and become part of what you're about, so that you can have something that you can build a fan base around.
Now, not only does this help you build a fan base in the first place because you'll have more clarity to your brand and look more professional, but it will also make you more attractive to the music industry itself and labels, because when they come to check you out, they're going to see that you get it. They're going to see that you can present yourself and that you're offering something that you can build an audience around. It's just going to make it seem like you understand the mechanisms for building your own success, and it's going to make you seem more likely to succeed. And the reality is you are going to become more likely to succeed because you have followed these simple steps of how to brand your artist projects and your music releases.
So are you really doing these four things properly for yourself? Most of the artists that we tend to work with in the early stages just kind of assume that they've naturally got a brand because of the things that they're doing, but actually it takes consistent effort and consideration to really deliver this for yourself. Once you've done this, once you've found your brand and start using it properly, you'll see what a massive difference it makes for you to be able to build a fan base and actually start getting some proper growth to what it is that you're doing. If you found this useful, please do let us know, and don't forget to like and subscribe. We really do appreciate it. Good luck with everything out there, take care, and we'll see you next time.