The music space is pretty large, and having a successful music career means having a specific niche that sets you apart from others. More so, in order to be successful in your music business and navigate music as an artist, you need to understand that you’re not singing for everyone. That is, there is a particular set of people that will appreciate your music, known as your “target market.”
This article is a guide to help you understand what niche marketing entails and how to carve out your music type to start getting paid like other top musicians.
Music niche marketing, in simple terms, means you are marketing the genre of music you major in. It is a strategy that helps you focus all your strategies on the kind of music you produce. Furthermore, you direct your marketing toward a particular audience that listens to that kind of song.
With great music marketing, you can get more from your marketing campaigns, and you don’t have to spend as much to reach potential fans. Narrowing down has a greater rate of conversion, unlike when you target a larger audience without a genre. It is also easy to promote your music when you pick and stick to a particular song type and tone.
Before we talk about music niche marketing, let’s talk about what it means to narrow down music to reach the right audience. Let’s say you’re interested in the fashion business; you have to choose a focus – say lingerie. It’s possible to streamline the lingerie for a particular demographic further, say older people or plus-size women.
Likewise, in the music industry, there are many genres to focus on, and each genre has its own audience. As a music artist, you want to choose an audience that vibes and listens to your own style of music. To find success in your music career, you must choose a specific genre to focus all your talent, time, and resources on.
Niching down in the music industry helps a musician focus on the type of music they want to make. It ensures you’re not trying to market to everyone, which would be baseless, especially since the world is full of interesting things. By choosing a music type, you can choose a music career path and keep to it, avoiding distractions. Not having a specification means you have to try too many things at once and progress in none, resulting in low ROI.
Don’t just focus on music composition, sell your music, or make a list of ways to reach people; build your brand by building a strong relationship with your audience. Therefore, focusing your energy, time, and money on the group that is receptive to your music is ideal. You want fans who constantly engage with your music, support you, and are willing to spend on you.
The saturated nature of the music industry makes it such that every music musician must be different if they want to be successful. Apart from consistently dishing out melodious music, you want your listeners to fall in love with you. Choosing a niche sets you apart from others and it reduces the competition significantly.
Thus, here are effective steps to find your target audience and identify your niche in the music industry.
If you want to succeed, there must be passion; passion is one of the major things that will get you to the top. You don’t just want to make music you think people will like. Choose your style of music, and then find the right niche audience for it.
Not only are you doing what you love and getting paid for it, but you can also explore and create content outside of music. This essentially makes music niche marketing easier for you as you can consistently provide music that will evoke emotional responses from your fans.
If you’re not sure what niche to venture into, looking into what your fans love might help. One way to know the type of music your fans love is by asking them what they think makes you interesting.
Now, you may not find all their responses useful, but be open-minded; you’ll find some of the responses surprising. They might have good ideas you can try or reinforce what you already know. Your fanbase already likes you; what you want to find out is what it is they find intriguing about you.
Understand that your music doesn’t have to be defined by just music; many things can inspire it. Look into the characteristics that define your choice, such as your outfits or costumes, unique language, or your visible appearance.
What ultimately defines your personality doesn’t really have to be solely genre-related; it can be what makes you unique. Therefore, discover what makes your brand stand out and select a niche that suits it perfectly. It is better to be known for something when building a fan base. That way, when people think within a niche, you come to their mind as a leader or part of the community.
There is nothing wrong with finding a way to make money in music production; it just shouldn’t be your main drive. Therefore, feel free to go for a niche that has been proven time and again to be more lucrative than others. Discover an existing type that people listen to the most, and then put a unique spin on it.
For example, if you’re going for rock, you know there are already many musicians and rock bands out there putting in the effort and money into offering a quality music scene and music festival. You want first to do your homework on the different subgenres available, choose one that’s profitable, and put a spin on it.
Last but not least, and a very important one, choose a niche that is marketable. While you want an area that makes you unique, you also don’t want one that has no market. Understandably, less market means less competition and exclusive niche communities, but it is only worth the effort when there is enough of a following.
Your niche should extend part of your style or personality, flowing seamlessly into your music. However, be willing to go out of your comfort zone or music sounds and try new things, provided there’s a lot of public interest around it.
Once you’ve chosen your niche already, the next thing to do is music niche marketing to grow your fanbase, which can be tricky. The most effective tool to get for music niche marketing is digital marketing; grow your digital presence to market your niche. Here are effective marketing strategies to identify your target audience and grow your fan base and digital presence in the music industry:
First, narrow down your ideal fans; they are your target audience and the people you are creating music for. One of the valuable secrets every musician must have for a lucrative niche is identifying and understanding the needs of your target audience.
You can find your target audience with competitive analysis; look for artists in the same niche and check their following and the type of marketing strategy they are engaging. The goal is to find different things but pay closer attention to their demographics (age, sex, race, income, etc.) and psychographics (lifestyle, attitudes, personalities, values, passions and interests, and opinions).
Now that you know your audience, locate them not by placing a foot in the door of their homes. Instead, go to platforms on which they spend most of their time. Some popular platforms include Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, especially if your audience consists of people between 18 and 25.
Meanwhile, finding these platforms is not difficult as they have made their user statistics easy and free to access. On these platforms, you can get people to relate with and engage with others who are open to understanding your niche.
Once you’ve located the platforms, create an account and ensure you keep it active, consistently dishing out quality music and content that your target market wants. A sustainable way to market your music on social media and your website is by keeping a detailed media presence. Furthermore, identify features on the platforms that you can use as an effective marketing tool.
Have a strategy with which you will promote and sell your music effectively while growing your online presence. Give regular updates to tell your audience that your career is active, and your content doesn’t even have to be a music release. Apart from releasing music, you can create content where you’re talking about the process of writing your song.
View your digital presence as a way of interacting with your fans and sharing your music journey. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to always be on every platform simultaneously or be readily available for endless conversations. Taking time out to engage with your fans helps you build a strong bond with them.
With this guide, you understand how important it is to carve a niche as a music artist. Now, you know it’s not just about making music; to succeed as a music artist, you need to produce music people actually want.
The music world is vast; trying to be a jack of all genres can result in you being a master in none. Moreover, considering that there are already many artists out there, choosing a niche helps you stand out in your uniqueness.
First, define your niche and do your homework on your potential audience to note their interests, among other things – to save yourself time. Furthermore, note the patterns in their interests as well as their demographics and behaviors to decipher why they are drawn to your music.
The social media platform you use for niche marketing in music depends on the type of fans you have. For example, if you’re targeting a younger demographic, you might want to focus on TikTok and Instagram rather than Facebook ads.
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