How to Write Your Own Music Marketing Plan

I Have a Question for You... What Are Your Goals?

If you look up the word 'goal' in a dictionary the word is defined as "something to aim at, or hope to obtain." So, I want you to sit down right now and write the answer to this question on a piece of paper:

"Of all the things I could do in my life, WHY do I want to learn how to write a music marketing plan?" Or better yet, answer this question: "Why do I want to start and run a record label?"

I ask you to do this because the only business that needs to know how to market music are record labels, they are the ones who have to write these danged things. So, if you are just an independent musician who has recorded a CD but wants it to sell, then (whether or not you want to admit it...) you are starting your own record label, and record labels must write music marketing plans if they have any chance of selling the recordings they have made!

Music marketing plans are written for a couple of reasons. Primarily they are written by a record label so that they can figure out what they are going to do to get their recording heard by the public and eventually sell. Secondly, music marketing plans are written to show investors or other financial lenders that you have a clear picture of the music marketplace and how you will be successful with your label. Also it is important to remember that these plans are not seen directly by music fans or consumers. But your fans and customers react to the results of your plan when they hear and buy your music.

So, what should you do before you begin to write your 'FourFront Music Marketing Plan'? First off, do some research on your abilities to run a business, and then research what the business of music marketing entails... and:

Think About A Few Things Before You Start Writing

What is your financial situation? Consider what your money situation is. If you or any partners in your venture have been in any other businesses check out how well (or not) those ventures went. Find out if you really have the ability to start and operate your own record label. (Take a look at any previous profit and loss statements, start-up budgets, equipment you bought, operating budgets you created, etc) and analyze honestly your opinion of yourself and any potential partners as savvy business people.)

Now, please answer these questions:

* If you are just starting out, have you done any 'business modeling' on an Excel spreadsheet? (In other words have you at least tried to project the expenses and possible realistic income your record release may generate over the next year to 3 years?)

* Are you aware of all the contracts and responsibilities you might encounter as a record label; recording contracts, royalty payments, mechanical licenses, sampling clearances, music publishing issues, etc?

* Do you really have a real understanding of your particular music marketplace: your competitors, the geographical areas you want to cover?

* Are you crystal clear about who your target customer or fan is, (in other words... what your niche is?)

* Do you have the latest and most useful demographic AND psychographic data on your chosen customers/fans? (the hard facts about them and the more subtle psychological traits they portray?)

* Have you considered all the legal or business issues your label needs to be aware of, such as what business form your label will take, what kind of business licenses you might need, what taxes you must pay?

* Do you have any knowledge of existing distribution channels that might be available to you?

* Do you keep up on any and all information on the music trends in your chosen music markets? Meaning, do you subscribe to such music industry magazines as Billboard, or subscribe online to any of the many music industry newsletters, blogs or podcasts that are available to you?

If you still feel like you are a candidate for starting-up and running your own record label, then It's now time to start learning how to write a music marketing plan based on The Four Fronts of Music Marketing that the book Music Is Your Business; A Musician's FourFront Strategy for Success, 3rd Edition is all about.

Before I start getting into all the details involved with writing a music marketing plan, lets take a quick refresher course on what the 'Four Fronts Of Music Marketing' are all about and how they "work together":

The First Front is called Artist and Product Development and it is the ONLY Front that is divided into Two Parts: Artist Development is concerned with the issues surrounding preparing your career while Product Development is about making and selling your records.

Then comes:
The Second Front: Promotion (Getting Airplay for Your Music)
The Third Front: Publicity (Creating a Buzz in the Media)
The Fourth Front: Performance (Finding Your Audience)

The last 3 Fronts are called the Exposure Fronts, which means that getting music fans to hear the music is the job of Promotion plans, reading or hearing about the music or the artist is the job of Publicity plans, and seeing the music performed live is the job of any Performance plans, which IF all of these Fronts have been coordinated well, ultimately will lead back to the Product Development plans that are concerned with getting your fans and customers to buy or download the music.

Remember that all parts of the music business are INTERDEPENDENT on each other... meaning they all feed off each other and need each other if a music marketing plan is be successful.

And now, it's time to start writing your plan!

First of All: Discuss Your 'Market Situation'

This is the section of your FourFront Music Marketing Plan where you write a clear description of what the state of the music industry is today. You succinctly describe the health of the music business, as you see it and what your research has shown

* What specific products are record labels concerned with, and what kind of services are record labels and other aspects of the recording industry offering?

* What is the value, in dollars, of music today in terms of sales and sales trends?

* What are your specific music sales and distribution options available today?

* What broadcasting opportunities are available to you?

* What press and other media could be of use to you?

* What type of music venues might you be able to perform at?

* What regions of the country or the world do you intend to cover?

* Describe your fanbase and customers in terms of their population base, demographics, ages, income levels, ethnic or religious backgrounds.

* Who are your direct and indirect music competitors in your chosen music marketplace?

* Historically, how well has your genre of music and more recently how well is it selling?

Your market situation section might read like this if you were starting a label:

Caustic Records is an independent record label that started up in late 2007. We specialize in Northwest singer/songwriter releases from artists that write their own music. This segment of the music industry accounts for 15% of the total music market place for over the last 10 years. We estimate that there are over 3 million people who enjoy and support the many independent singer/songwriter's CDs and digital releases annually in the U.S. alone, (according to Neilson/Soundscan's annual report on music sales), and the singer/songwriter genre brings in close to a billion dollars in revenue from sales of CDs, MP3 file downloads, sheet music and various music licensing deals.

We hope to build the company in the first 3 years to bring in around $200,000 in annual sales by the end of our third year in business. We will use independent record distributors and music stores as our source of getting the music to our demographic, while at the same time taking advantage of the increasing digital aggregators like iTunes and CDBaby to reach our target audience of mid-twenties to early thirties men and women who are of mixed races, middle class, college graduates who seek out this style of music regularly.

We will research and target alternative broadcasting possibilities such as non-commercial college and public radio stations, Internet radio, as well as satellite broadcaster XM and Sirius.

In additions we will seek to make connections with the alternative print media publications on and offline, and will suggest alternative live performance venues for our artists when they go on tour.

Our competition are the hundreds of other independent labels putting out this style of music, but we are confident that by concentrating on Pacific Northwest singer/songwriters we will gain a reputation of releasing the best artists in this genre and help put the Northwest on the map for this style of music. Historically, singer/songwriter music has been a staple of the music industry at large since the 1970's, and we are confident that with sales of this genre fairly steady over the last three decades, it will continue to grow and prosper.

This is just an example of how the Marketing Situation part of a FourFront Music Marketing Plan might work. Since it is only an example YOU have to write down what your particular situation is like... That is the purpose of this exercise. For example, how much information do you haveãright nowãon your competition, and any demographic information as well?

The 'market situation' part of a music marketing plan gives you a chance to pull all this information together in one place, to cement your ideas and justify your actions, which will come up later in your plan.
Now, consider your first label release in the coming year and explain how it stacks-up against the releases of your competitors and describe any significant market opportunity for you that neither you nor your competitors are currently exploiting?

When you finish your FourFront Music Marketing Plan it will provide a good test of the validity of your research to capture the different snapshots of the market you are in and competing with.

What Are the Threats and Opportunities You Face?

This section is an extension of the "market situation" section, and it should focus on both the bad and good implications of the current market:

* What trends in the music marketplace are against you?

* Are there competitive music marketing trends that are ominous?

* Are your current music products relevant to your target audience and how can you explain how you will succeed in the market as it now exists?

* What trends in the music marketplace favor you?

* Are there any competitive trends working to your benefit?

* Are the demographics of your market in your favor? Against you?

There are lots of places to go to get information on the trends in your market. You can subscribe to Billboard magazine, or go online and subscribe to the many free email newsletters, like mi2n.com or www.mosesavalon.com or go out and interview music business professionals in your target region to get the answers to the questions that have been brought up so far, or you will soon discover as your planning continues. Also, go online and use Google.com to create "Google Alerts" on music business topics relevant to your situation and interest.

In addition, be sure you join your local chapter of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) www.grammy.com who put on regular events to help you and your competitors keep up on all the changes going on technically and business-wise.

Here is an example of how a Threats and Opportunities statement might be written:

Threats

Our company faces four identifiable threats in the coming year:

1. Our PC computers need upgrading to the latest version of any product management software that is currently being used by other indie labels. In addition we should check out and new accounting and tax software. To do this will be costly. We'll need to work with the existing version of our software for another 10 months, even though this may put us at a service disadvantage with some of our competitors.

2. There are two other independent record labels in the Northwest releasing similar singer/songwriter CDs, etc. However, neither of them are currently signing any of the latest talent in this category. Nevertheless we will have to keep a close eye on these two labels to see if they are starting to sing acts similar to ours.

3. Our label is currently being run by the two owners of the label and we realize that we must use 'street-teams' volunteers to help us grow, and too we must be prepared by the 3rd year of being in business to hire and pay at least 1 fulltime publicity person, and 1 part-time sales rep to help us as we grow forward.

4. Rents and leases for our label's office needs are getting harder and harder to find at affordable rates. We will need to watch this carefully, and if possible get out of our home-office, as this can adversely affect our image in the Northwest music community.

Opportunities

1. We are talking to Dell computers to ask for a donation of 2 PCs and it looks like we have the inside track to get the computers because we talked to a Dell representative and qualify for their "start-up business support" program.

2. A local(Seattle) club has offered their venue on Monday nights for a "Caustic Records Night of New Talent" which will give us a great chance to showcase not only our latest signed act, but be a showcase for any upcoming singer/songwriters we may want to work with.

3. We are going to work with the Audio Production Department at the Art Institute of Seattle. They have a student internship program which could, at least for the short time get us help with the work that needs to be done in the office to address the current shortage of employees we are currently dealing with. These interns will help us in the areas of Promotion, Publicity, and getting our Product into various music retailers, both on and offline.

4. In the Georgetown neighborhood of South Seattle they are building new 'artist workspace' lofts that are going to be rented out to start-up businesses that are on limited budgets for rent space.

What are Your Marketing Objectives?

In this section of your FourFront Music Marketing Plan, you discuss what you think the future holds for your business: What marketing objectives do you want to achieve over the course of your plan? Each of your marketing objectives should include both a narrative description of what you intend to accomplish with 'the numbers' to back up what your business projections are.

If you say you just want to make a mark in the singer/songwriter marketplace in the Northwest, that isn't enough. Saying you want to go from having 0 percent to 5 percent of the regional market for independent singer/songwriter music in the next two years is more realistic AND you can backup that statement with solid data. (For example, in Seattle the Mayor's Office for the Arts conducted a survey of the health of the music industry in the greater Puget Sound area in 2005, and that data is still quite reliable and eye opening for anyone interested in the financial impact of music in that area.)

What Are the Objectives You Hope to Obtain?

As you can see so far, writing a realistic music marketing plan isn't the easiest thing to do if you are new to this type of work. So, up next you have to write an Objectives statement that is again-realistic and viable. How do you do that?

Even if you have just dabbled and dreamed about starting some kind of music oriented business, go back and talk about your past interest in the music business and how this led to your new label idea. Perhaps you helped some band or artist with their first release. Review the past sales figures of that project and don't worry if the sales results were poor and not very impressive.

The point is this; Talk about the interest you have had for a long time about being involved in the music business and let your story demonstrates that you have a real passion and desire for this industry AND write about HOW it led to your idea to have your own legitimate Indie label. Mention anything that is positive that happened to the act you volunteered to help, for example. (By the way it's OK to embellish what you did and what happened to that record, so make a low but reasonable projection for what you'll be able to accomplish with marketing support toward your new marketing objectives for your new label. Set modest goals to start, and don't be tempted to jump too far too fast with any financial information you may guesstimate.
Limit the number of marketing objectives you plan to take on in a given year. Again, keep your objectives realistic and believable.

Here are some typical general marketing objectives.

* Introduce your new release - not just the CD, but what formats it will be made available in and maybe mention any merchandise that you will create to go with it.

* State generally what current regions or states you want to work your product.

* Mention any new marketplaces you plan to move into. i.e. the west coast, the whole U.S. and/or the international market. (Remember if you plan to use the Internet and all it has to offer for the music business, you will be International whether you are prepared for it or not. It will happen the minute you get your website up and running.)

* Talk about your 'break-out market' and suggest overall financial goals you can reach in your own 'backyard'. (These figures should be lower at first than any projections of national sales for all your music products)

* Mention, without yet going into great detail any unique sales ideas you have to sell your artist's music, like bundling several releases together and offering them at cheaper prices than buying single CDs.

* Discuss how you plan to setup arrangements for your label and your artists to communicate regularly with your fans. i.e. Blogs, Podcasts, etc.

* Write about how you believe in the 'Long Tail Theory' (If you are not familiar with it go to www.thelongtail.com and learn about how that theory works, and then write about your plans to offer your CDs and downloadable music at lower prices than other indie labels, and why you believe in doing that, plus how it will ultimately help both your label and artists grow and prosper.

* Mention how you will work with both traditional 'brick and mortar' music distributors and music stores, and how you will work with the many online music aggregators like www.Tunecore.com, www.cdbaby.com, www.amazon.com etc.

* State in general what your plans are for getting any kind of radio airplay such as those college radio and other non-commercial broadcasters, as well as Internet radio stations and even the satellite, and latest type of radio broadcasting-- HD radio stations. (Hybrid Digital Radio)

* Describe what your publicity plans will be to get your artist's CDs reviewed, and/or articles written about them in the press, both on and offline publications.

* Discuss your touring and performance plans. Both, what types of venues they will play, what touring areas you hope to cover, and what you will be doing to help market the record in every city and state your acts will be playing live.

The next section of your plan should include a few objectives, which are spelled out with more specific information:

For Example:

* Objective: Introduce our first CD release by singer/songwriter Susan Westerfield called "Remember Me Now" in the fall of 2008, using the FourFront Marketing System to get her music marketed properly.

* Objective: Market the first CD release slowly and consistently expanding region by region for at least 3 straight months, or until Susan's CD and awareness of her sales, radio promotion ideas, publicity strategies, and live touring results have been coordinated so that income goals have been reached allowing us to expand our marketing of the label's first release into other areas of the country.

* Objective: Design both a web site for our label AND Susan Westerfield. Use Image-consistent designed pages done by a professional graphic artist who understands the purpose and goals that Caustic Records stands for, This includes having the graphic artist create Logos for both the label and Susan that reflect the style of music the label releases and Susan's genre of music. All graphic images for such marketing tools as stationary letterheads, envelopes, business cards, etc. for the label and each signed artist we have contracted with will meet these high levels of Image consistency.

* Objective: Research and hire an independent radio promotion representative who specializes in the singer/songwriter genre and who has demonstrated the ability to get singer/songwriter music added to all relevant types of radio broadcasters, from commercial radio to public and college radio stations, as well as the satellite radio stations and any important Internet broadcasters.

* Remember: Think up 2 or 3 more specific objectives, like the examples above. Make these specific objectives simple, accountable to you, innovative and achievable. (Always remember to check your financials to be certain you have the money to implement each of your specific objectives.) and, of course, go back once again and think if you have forgotten any of the Four Fronts and start trying to involve one or more of the Fronts, so you can demonstrate your understanding of how working with several Fronts together, you are truly activating the principle of how the different Fronts are interdependent on one another.

The Details of Your Music Marketing Plan

This part of your FourFront Music Marketing Plan is where you get down to details even more than you already have earlier. Think of this section as the part where the 'grunt-work' involved in carrying out every objective you have chosen is spelled out in great detail.

If you have done a good job using an Excel spreadsheet to put in realistic financial information into it for ALL the possible expenses and revenue sources you can think of for your goals and objectives then, you have proven to yourself and anyone that wants to see your marketing plan that you have the money to implement your plan. The ideas you have chosen to work on will be able to be implemented because your "business modeling" was accurate and realistic.

By the way, have you ever noticed that a lot of the language used in a music marketing plan resembles the intricate details that are written out for a battle plan in some war? Really, we have: objectives, plans, targets, fronts etc. Well, marketers use those kinds of words, because competing at this time in history by starting you own label and releasing your music IS like a war. Your competition, over 75,000 new CD releases coming out every year have to be dealt with. All those other labels, and artists or bands are YOUR ENEMY, in a sense. And your mission (should you decide to accept it) is not fun and games. There is real money at hand and a real competition to get your share of that money, so you need to 'attack' the competition and defeat them. This means you don't want other singer/songwriter artists to get their music on the radio, in stores online and in the brick-and-mortar music retailers.

You don't want your competition to get that CD review or concert review written about in various print and online publications. You don't want some other artist to get that valuable club date or festival gig. You want all that and more! So you have no other choice but to get 'down in the trenches' like any real warrior must do, and WORK like you never have before for your cause.

THAT IS WHAT WRITING A GOOD, HONEST, WELL-FUNDED MUSIC MARKETING PLAN IS ALL ABOUT!

Your key task now is to take each objective and lay out the steps you intend to take to reach your goals and objectives. As an example, let's take the first marketing objective mentioned earlier (Objective: Introduce our first CD release by singer/songwriter Susan Westerfield called Remember Me Now in the fall of 2008.)

Describe in greater detail - how you will make this happen?

1. It is now January of 2008 and in order for our first CD to come out in the fall of 2008, we will first look for the right Producer for Susan. This means researching some similar sounding CDs in the singer/songwriter genre that were recorded by Producers in the Seattle or Northwest area, contacting them and asking to listen to some of their work. We will do this until we find the 'right' Producer for her. (By 'right' we mean the Producer has demonstrated in recording other singer/songwriters that he/she knows what kind of sound is needed to promote her music properly to radio.)

2. After finding the right Producer for Susan, we will ask the Producer for suggestions on what studios might work best for her sound, or where they like to work. Our budget for the recording will factor greatly in making our choice for recording her record.

3. Next, we will contact those recommended studios and get price quotes from each of them, and then meet with the selected Producer and Susan to pick an affordable studio, that fits our financial needs as well as a proper ambience needed for the Producer and Susan to work in.

4. Once the studio has been selected and a financial arrangement has been reached, we will look at the calendar and pick an available time to book the studio and get started with the recording.

5. We predict that it will take at least 2 months to record, mix and deliver to our chosen Mastering Engineer what has been recorded. In order to find a proper Mastering Engineer, we will talk to our Producer and other contacts we have made around town to find the perfect fit for Susan's record to be mastered.

6. We need to find a graphic designer who has had experience working with labels and artists and get the CD and any other promotional materials created and approved as soon as possible in order to move on to the next stage of product development.

7. We expect to have the mastered CD ready for duplication by late April of '08. which means we will have to get any mechanical license and sampling releases taken care of ASAP.

8. Lastly, to prepare for meeting our Fall deadline to have Susan's CD in the stores, both online and in brick and mortar music stores, and research and choose a distributor, if possible, to help us with this task. If a distributor cannot be found, since we are a new label, we will have time to work on our own plan to get the CD ready for sale on our chosen Street Date of September 10th, 2008.

Hopefully, you get the idea now of how to detail an Objective. The example I have given you really is a VERY detailed description of just your First Objective.

Leave no stone unturned in this section of your FourFront Music Marketing Plan.

Now it's your turn. You should have several objectives you have come up with. If your first objective is not as detailed as the one I gave you go back an re-write it, then move on to your next objective and go through each one describing in detail what needs to be done for it to be accomplished.

For each objective repeat IN DETAIL what steps you need to take to achieve each objective.

Be sure to consult the various sections of this book if you need to remind yourself of what must be done to create a balanced FourFront Marketing Plan. Believe me I haven't covered ALL the things that need to be done in my earlier example of just one objective.

A reminder: At some point, once you get a feel for the value of what a music marketing plan is, you may want to get our a calendar and set deadlines for any and all objectives you need to work on, that way you can see "how fast time flies" as the saying goes, and when you meet your deadlines, I can assure you that a feeling of great satisfaction will come over you. You must take all concrete ideas you wish to implement and get use to planning out a timeline for everything that must be done for each step of your plan.

Also, doing this the first time will be a real challenge for you to "think out" all the things that must be done to get your record out and ready for customers to buy. After getting through writing your first FourFront Marketing Plan, the next one you do, and the ones after that will become a professional habit. Writing a good, accurate marketing plan will keep you focused as you go to work each day implementing your plan.

You might, at this point, be thinking to yourself, "What if my plan fails? Or what if other opportunities come up to take advantage of that you didn't have in your written plan?" Don't worry about it...go with the flow! One of the greatest pleasures of being in the music business is the opportunity to 'improvise'. If you get a business opportunity you didn't think of...just dive into that opportunity and work with it as best you can, and if at some point things don't work out for whatever reason, Guess what? You still have your written marketing plan with all its good ideas to return to, and THAT is another great reason to write your plan. You have something to fall back on!

I want to return to the topic of creating timelines and meeting deadlines for a moment.

A good yardstick to use in developing your 'timeline' of what needs to be done when, is this: Most successful labels mark out a 12 week period for their marketing plan, beginning the timeline when the master recording is delivered to a duplicator, and describes over the 12 weeks, what the label must do so that the record is at retailers by the target 'street release date'.

Budgets: Never Forget What Things Cost

When we had to find a title for this book, Music Is Your Business: A
Musician's FourFront Strategy For Success, the 3rd Edition, Bartley F. Day and I felt that whatever title we chose for the book, and whatever issue we had to write about, we had to convey to you the inescapable fact that being a professional musician at this time in history is accepting the responsibility that you can only be successful if you take the business and legal aspects that independent artists and bands must confront, seriously.

So, when writing your FourFront Music Marketing Plan, be as honest and accurate as possible when projecting the costs for operating your own label and the costs for marketing your music releases. Don't try to cheat your way out of a difficult situation by changing the costs of things, or trying to take shortcuts. If you do that, you will only have yourself to blame, when things don't work out.
Face the financial realities that all record labels have to deal with. No matter what you need to get to run your business, or to market your releases....keep it real.

When it comes to creating your budget remember this tip. In most 'generic' marketing plan outlines that I have seen over the years, there is a section in the plan to 'guesstimate' what the real costs of implementing your plan will be, whether it be a short-term marketing plan that looks only at the first year of your business, or projects further into the future, perhaps two or three years into the future, make it simple.

I will now 'guesstimate' a budget section that takes into account the money needed for a simple independent record label to operate for one year:

Your budget section might look like this:

First Year Total Operating Costs - $24,700.

OK, this example may disappoint you, but being a rather 'basic' example of what to expect in your first year of operations as a new label with a new artist who is also a new act with no previous recordings or real proven success, this sample of money expenditures and what to expect isn't too far off the track.

The Small Business Association, an off-shoot of the U.S. government has released information about start-up business for many decades, and all their reports pretty much conclude that ANY new business probably will not make its first profit until after the third year of operations. Well, my thought on that is:

The Music Business is very different than most other small businesses. Our book has done its best to prepare you for all the challenges a new label or artist faces.

The truth is this: most record labels fail to recoup the money they have invested in their music ventures because it is a very challenging business, fraught with many traps and challenges to overcome...so, MAYBE, you should go back to that Excel spreadsheet and look beyond one year, and project your expenditures and potential profits for 3 to even 4 years into the future. By that time, with great music, unrelenting determination, and a bit of luck thrown in for good measure, your dreams of making it in this business will be successful.

I hope that by presenting this FourFront Music Marketing example that you take it seriously, and really study your situation, and what you want to accomplish.

Here now are a few last thoughts about creating your marketing plan.
Keep Track Of Every Aspect Of Your Activities! In marketing lingo, the practice of doing just that is called:

Controls: How To Keep Tabs On Things

Working everyday toward your long term goal of being a successful business man or woman in the music industry requires you take a constant 'pulse' of your ideas and your objectives.

Do this:

* Have regular meetings with your partners, or employees and interns. Make communication within your company and your dealings with all the business people you encounter on a daily basis clear, concise, and honest. Don't keep secrets about important business decisions from your business team.

* Make sure you stay on budget and meet all deadlines.

* Don't get into debt... ever! (Have other sources of income to support you while your label grows), don't expect to take money out of any revenue that may come in from the sales of your music and use it for your personal needs. Reinvest that money into your label, so it can have the funds available to sign other artists, release more records, and slowly create a 'catalog'. THAT is what the goal for any serious record label should be.

* Be patient! It takes a good while for a professional record label to growand prosper.

* Keep up on what is going on in this ever changing business...every day!

* Don't let stubbornness, or your unwillingness to adapt to changing technologies get the best of you and most of all...

* Celebrate the little things that you accomplish along the way. As corny as it may sound the people who have said over the years that the journey is what finding happiness is all about, were right. It IS the journey you are taking through the world of the music industry that this music marketing stuff is all about. In fact, it is your only possible ticket to any success. So get to it!

On behalf of myself, Christopher Knab, and my co-author Bartley F. Day, we hope our book and this marketing plan serve you well.

Keep in touch if you like, we always like to hear your success stories.

Cheers!