Making the music is one thing.
Getting people to notice it is another.
I work with independent artists on the stuff
that happens around the music.
What does a music marketer actually do?
A bit of everything, really.
I can help you work out what you’re releasing, when you’re releasing it and what needs to happen around it.
That might mean planning a waterfall release, coming up with campaign ideas, working with your radio or TV plugger, figuring out what content you need or simply spotting the things that have been overlooked.
The important bit is that I’m not looking at the marketing separately from the music or the film.
It all needs to work together.
RELEASE PLANNING
The bit before you press the big red button.
There’s usually more to releasing a song than uploading it and hoping for the best.
I can help map out the release, work out what comes when, and make sure the music, content, press, radio and everything else are pulling in the same direction.
CAMPAIGNS
Give people a reason to care.
A release needs more than a date. I help artists come up with ideas and activity that give the music somewhere to go and something for people to talk about.
Sometimes it’s a big campaign. Sometimes it’s one really good idea. Usually, it’s somewhere in between.
CONTENT
And then we have to make the stuff.
This is where the marketing and film sides of MONOKI really come together.
I can work out what content you need, make it, and think about how it’s going to look across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and wherever else your audience happens to be hiding.
Because there’s not much point having a brilliant campaign if you then realise you forgot to make anything for it.
BUDGET
You don't need a massive pocket. You just need to know where to spend what you have.
I work with some artists who don’t have a huge pot of money to throw at marketing. In those cases, I can work alongside them rather than doing everything for them.
We catch up regularly, look at what’s happened, check we're hitting the targets we’ve set and work out what needs to happen next. They do the work. I steer the ship.
It’s a more affordable way of getting some experience and direction behind the campaign, without paying someone to do every little job.
Sometimes you don’t need another pair of hands. You just need someone who knows where you’re going.
A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE
When the plan and the content are made together, things tend to work better.
For Nate James's campaign for his album 'The Man I Am' I was involved from the early planning right through to the finished product.
We worked out the release schedule, thought about the campaign and made decisions about what needed to happen around the music.
Then I made the content to support it. Music videos, live footage, interviews, social clips, the website and mailing list all became part of the same plan, rather than a collection of separate jobs.
That 360 approach is important to me. I’m not sitting in one corner planning the marketing while someone else is figuring out what to film.
The plan informs the content, and the content helps shape the plan.