Spring is in the air, and so are music festivals.
Though living in South Florida it feels like it is spring and summer season most of the time, it becomes official once the spring breakers and music festivals start flooding in. Annual music festivals such as Winter Music Conference in Miami have been growing ridiculously large while new ones are popping up all the time.
Music - Natural Inbound Marketing Strategy
Music festivals have not only been a way for performers and music lovers to unite but also a time for brands to promote themselves in every way possible. One true fact is that once an attendee is within the premises of a festival, the only options they have are the brands and sponsors within the festival walls.
These particular businesses now have a great advantage to expose their brand but cannot forget that there is also competition with other similar types of products.
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Google Analytics Can Help You Track These Attendees
Digital marketing allows you to sense the presence of mobile phones within these types of events. That's a perfect use case for delivering targeted offers as part of today's Inbound Marketing Strategies.
CRM Examples
These types of events have concocted brand awareness of products and services through creating an experience for the consumer. They rely on both creativity and Customer Relationship Management Systems that allow them to establish and manage the customer - brand relationship throughout the brand experience.
Search Engine Optimization
Your organization can create that content to provide it to your prospective music festival visitors (or really, any kind of offline event) at the right place and at the right time through Search Engine Optimization, blogging, and social media marketing.
Search Engines Are Audio Aware
Since we're talking about music festivals in particular, one exciting advancement in Search Engine Technology is the ability 'listen' to audio.
What Song is the Band Playing?
While applications like Shazam allow you to point your device at a band and determine what the name of the song is they're playing, what you can do with this information is limited only by your imagination.
Ebook of Band Members
Traditional Inbound Marketing usually involves creating a free Ebook and placing it behind a form on a landing page, which ask people to provide an email in order to receive their free copy of the book. But smart band marketers know that people are unlikely to go back to their house and look for the band's catalog.
Band Fan Catalog
With the right technical infrastructure, including the creation of mobile responsive landing pages, you can have your Smart Phone, either iPhone or Android, 'hear' a song, and offer up a fanbook about the band they are listening to. Best not to gate it, but you can. Since the user typically has their contact information on their phone, the smart inbound marketer knows to offer to send a copy of the interactive fanbook about the band to their email.
Build Brand Loyalty
The Inbound Marketing Methodology definitely can help you build brand loyalty. You may not think about it much, but many music fans are experiencing points, specifically, boredom. When you provide them marketing material in the form of music, you are helping to relieve those pain points.
Build Your Email List
By doing this, you can quickly build your email list, all of whom have expressed a deep interest in the band. Email lists also just happen to be a great way to offer tickets to your next concert, and you can, of course, sweeten the deal with discounts.
Identifying Your Buyer Persona
While it might seem to be impossible to figure out who your audience is, otherwise known as 'buyer personas', when it comes to music, it is actually very easy. There may be people who enjoy different genres of music (well, there are probably lots of those people), most people definitely have expressed musical preferences.
Inbound Marketing Process and Target Audience
The Inbound Marketing Methodology starts by identifying your target audience, then developing picture of who your ideal buyer looks like, known as developing your buyer persona. That then, can be further refined into a target audience, often with very granular characteristics, right down to someone who recently attended a particular concert, say in South Florida.
Cross-Sell and Upsell
Once you have gotten your email list built of raving fans of the band, you open the possibility of both Cross-Selling and Upselling. Of course, you need a platform, like Hubspot+Shopify to make all this happen, but it is standard capability these days.
Advanced Email Marketing
An email marketing list of raving fans can be a gold mine, if managed properly. Professional Inbound Marketers know that it takes far more than just sending out offers. Email marketing is advanced skill that when combined with the rest of the tools in the Inbound Marketing tool chest, such as Website Optimization, Content Creation, Search Engine Optimization SEO, Lead Generation and Social Media Marketing, can keep fans engaged and purchasing for a lifetime. Ever hear of a dead head?
Combine Live Chat with Ticket Sales
One of the most frustrating aspects of concert goers is struggling with buying a ticket. Sometimes, it is poor web page design, other times, it is system performance issues. Adding live chat to your ticketing page can and does boost sales.
Well Designed Sales Funnel
While most members of a band probably don't give the design of their sales funnel much thought, they should. While ticket sales are a key aspect of your sales funnel, there are probably many sales funnel process steps that happen before a fan buys a ticket.
Marketing Funnel to Sales Funnel
When viewed from the beginning to the end, you see that people who buy tickets to attend a band's performance go through many potential steps before making that critical decision to spend money on a particular band. After all, they have many entertainment choices.
Content Marketing
That's why savy Inbound Marketers concentrate on designing a content strategy that supports a fan through every stage of their ticket buying experience. Ultimately, they want to support them by providing relevant content during the performance and after the performance. They hope to continue the interaction between the band and the fan long after the performance.
Best Part - Fans Want the Experience to Continue
There's a reason every car in America has a radio, often a very expensive one. It's because people love to listen to music, and they often listen to their favorite music, over and over again. This, of course, generates royalty revenue for the band and many other players.
No Limit to How Long a Fan Will Remain a Fan
Music and Movies, go together like peanut butter and jelly. Music gets imprinted in the subconscious and when someone hears a song they may not have heard for years, it can both stir strong emotions and make them want to hear more. This provides an excellent opportunity to connect with your fans and provide an even better user band brand experience.
Social Media Posts
If your fans are enjoying your music, they will often want to share the experience by posting on social media about a song they just listened to. Of course, there are many applications out there that encourage music listeners to rate a song, on their application. This, in turn, tells the application which other songs to play.
Reviews Are a Key Growth Tool
Those reviews left by fans are like honey to a bear for those platforms. Sometimes, a song might take off for no apparent reason, because it reach some sort of critical mass, and the algo just decided to push it. Re: Back'in Up.
New Bands Should Monitor and Interact with Fans
For new bands, a great marketing tactic is to monitor social media channels and interact with their fans. For gigantic bands, this is probably not possible, but for a band just starting out, this is definitely possible. Your fans will be thrilled.
Getting the Brand Experience Right
These brand experiences will extend the brand marketing from the consumer through social media sites and word-of-mouth. Instead of the standard marketing tactic of handing out free samples and collecting emails, here are some good examples of how brands creatively drew festival-goers to their booths and tents at past music festivals:
- At a music festival known as Bonnaroo in Tennessee, people are known to camp out for days. Garnier Fructis, a hair product brand, offered free hair washing and styling for those wanting to freshen up.
- At the same festival, Philips held a “silent disco” where guests can listen to DJs through their new headphone product line.
- Whole Foods set up an organic food market at one of the festivals giving festival-goers healthier food options while listening to their favorite bands.
However, these types of events are usually sponsored and available to bigger businesses and those with larger financial capabilities. However, many smaller businesses can leverage the tactics used at these music festivals. Here are four music festival marketing methodology examples a business can take from the marketing at music festivals:
- Lure consumers in with an experience
Getting consumers to actually interact with a product or service first-hand is the ultimate way to market oneself especially during a unique event, time of year, or during circumstances where things are in high demand or hard to access. This can range from providing a place to warm-up for those out in the cold or creating a cell-phone charging station for those with dying cell phones at a festival. - Put on your own production
On a grander scale, as part of your overall Inbound Marketing Efforts, set up a local event with your brand name and get other businesses to get involved too. A place where people can gather for music, food, and a good cause will surely draw attention to any brand especially if it is locally driven. - Give your product a “show and tell”
A good way for a business to promote themselves is to actually show the consumer how they can use a product, when they can use it, and why they should use it. A good way to establish this is through a business website, email, social media, and blogs. For example, many fashion brands will put together outfits from their clothing line on their website and will show a consumer how they can wear their clothing to a music festival, a summer wedding or for a job interview. - Encourage the social media buzz
Social media marketing is still royalty in the marketing world. Consumers are more than willing to share their experiences through Facebook and Instagram, and businesses need to start giving them more reasons to share. One way this can be done through setting up a stage with props or funny display where people can take pictures of themselves.
There are many fantastic marketing methodologies a business can use to promote their product or business, and many of these methods are shown at their best when it comes to large events such as music festivals and other types of events, which many other businesses can learn from.
You Need Marketing Automation
All of these marketing strategies and tactics, even including outbound marketing activities, can quickly become overwhelming. That's why successful marketing teams rely on Inbound Marketing Platforms, like Hubspot's Marketing and Sales Hub.
Multiply Inbound Marketing Efforts
Just like a musician equipped with sophisticated electronic mixers can amplify his skills, an Inbound Strategy can be greatly amplified with marketing automation.
Hubspot Platform Supports the Inbound Methodology
With the marketing automation platform provided by Hubspot, you have a completely integrated suite of Inbound Marketing tools. You can create fully responsive mobile landing pages, provide live chat, close sales, and deliver marketing content.
Vast Number of Integrated Applications
While Hubspot's Marketing and Sales Hub provide end-to-end Inbound Marketing and Sales capabilities, many, if not mot businesses, need more functionality. For that, there are a huge number integrated applications available within the Hubspot Marketplace.
Need More Web Marketing Hacks?
For more ideas to get your business into its marketing groove, check out the blog 5 Web Marketing Hacks: A Cheat Sheet For Small Businesses.
Until Next Time…
