A long time ago I published an article on this site where I spoke about some of the detriments that I believed AI and artificially intelligent music production would have had on the music industry. Now that this technology has developed significantly (and also now that I am much less of a materialist than I was when I wrote the other article), I feel very differently and much more optimistic about the benefits that this new technology can have for creators.
Music is a universal language that can connect with people from all walks of life. But how do you market your music to reach both broad and niche audiences? How do you balance appealing to the masses and catering to your core fans? How do you stand out from the crowd and find your unique voice?
In this article, we will share some tips and strategies on how to market music to both broad and niche audiences. We will also show you how to use online platforms and tools to optimize your music marketing and grow your career.
In the world of music marketing, targeting and segmenting consumers based on their needs, preferences, and behaviors is critical for success. Broad and niche markets are two different ways of doing this. A broad market consists of a large and diverse group of consumers who may have a general interest in music. A niche market, on the other hand, is a small and specific group of consumers who have a unique interest in a particular genre or artist.
Marketing to these two different market types requires different strategies and approaches. For broad markets, it’s essential to create a message that appeals to a wide range of people. This message should highlight the universal qualities of the music and appeal to the commonalities shared by the audience. Conversely, marketing to a niche market requires a tailored message that appeals to their unique interests and preferences.
To reach both broad and niche markets, ad platforms can be highly effective. One such platform is YouTube, which provides tools and features that enable music marketers to create, distribute, and measure their ads across various channels and formats. YouTube has a massive reach, which can help marketers reach millions of people with relevant music content. Additionally, YouTube has diverse content and a range of ad solutions that can help marketers showcase their music and brand in the best possible way. For example, music marketers can connect with specific audiences based on particular genres or moods by utilizing YouTube’s music lineups.
A great example of this is how Billie Eilish’s music has been marketed on YouTube. She has a broad market appeal with her unique style and relatable lyrics. However, her music also appeals to niche markets, such as the alternative and indie music scenes. YouTube has helped Billie Eilish reach both broad and niche markets by promoting her music on various channels and music lineups. As a result, she has become one of the biggest stars in the music industry, with a massive and loyal fan base.
Billie Eilish Performing Live
Define Your Music and Your Audience
The most important step in identifying your niche audience is finding a concrete and concise definition of what your music is. Yes, of course you’re unique, but so is everyone else in this industry. Sit down, critically listen to your music, and see what adjectives come to mind.
Are you a pop singer with a soulful twist? A rock band with a punk attitude? A hip-hop artist with a social message? A jazz musician with a fusion flair? A classical composer with a modern touch?
Once you have a clear idea of what your music is, you can start researching who your potential audience is. Who are the people who would enjoy your music? What are their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, preferences, and pain points? Where do they hang out online and offline? What are their musical tastes and influences?
One solid way to uncover your sound and tap into your niche audience is to identify artists who sound like you. Not only can you observe the tactics these artists used to connect with their own fanbases, but you can also introduce yourself – and your music – to those scenes.
For example, if you are a pop singer with a soulful twist, you can look at artists like Adele, Sam Smith, or John Legend. You can study their music videos, social media posts, interviews, playlists, collaborations, and live performances. You can also join their fan communities, interact with their followers, share your music, and ask for feedback.
By doing this, you can learn from their successes and mistakes, find out what works and what doesn’t, and discover new opportunities and trends. You can also build relationships with potential fans who already have an affinity for your style of music.
Self Reflecting Monkey
Create and Distribute Your Music Content
Once you have defined your music and your audience, you can start creating and distributing your music content. Music content is any form of content that showcases your music, such as songs, albums, EPs, singles, remixes, covers, videos, podcasts, blogs, newsletters, etc.
The key to creating effective music content is to make it interactive, diverse, consistent, authentic, and valuable. You want to create content that engages your audience, showcases your personality and skills, tells your story and message, provides value and entertainment, and encourages action.
For example, you can create interactive content by hosting live streams or Q&A sessions on YouTube or Instagram. You can create diverse content by producing different types of videos or podcasts for different platforms or purposes. You can create consistent content by releasing new songs or albums on a regular schedule or following a theme or concept. You can create authentic content by being yourself and expressing your opinions or emotions. You can create valuable content by offering exclusive access or rewards to your fans or sharing useful tips or insights.
The next step is to distribute your music content across as many platforms as you can. You want to reach as many people as possible with your music content while also targeting specific segments of your audience.
For example, you can use YouTube as your main platform for uploading your music videos or live streams. YouTube is the world’s largest and most comprehensive music platform, with more than 2 billion people coming each month to experience music. You can also use Spotify for Artists to upload your songs or albums on Spotify, the most popular streaming service in the world. You can also use TikTok to create short videos or challenges with your songs or covers, tapping into the viral potential of the platform.
By distributing your music content across different platforms, you can increase your exposure and reach new audiences. You can also optimize your performance on each platform by using their specific features or built in paid advertising.
Find and Join a Discord Community
Discord servers and communities are such amazing ways to reach those niche markets in music marketing! It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, but once you find that group of people who are super fond and close-knit, it’s game over! These communities bring people together who share a deep love and appreciation for a particular genre, artist, or music scene, and that fondness and closeness among community members is pure gold for musicians and music marketers. It allows for a more intimate and meaningful connection with the audience, leading to more loyal and dedicated fans. Plus, these communities offer music marketers the opportunity to get insights straight from the source, gathering feedback that can further refine their marketing strategies.
One of the most powerful ways to market your music to both broad and niche audiences is to advertise your music on YouTube. YouTube offers various ad solutions that can help you reach your marketing goals, such as increasing awareness, driving traffic, generating leads, or boosting conversions.
One of the ad solutions that you can use is YouTube audio ads, which are designed to serve brand awareness and reach goals with audio content on the video platform. YouTube audio ads are similar to radio ads, but with a visual component that displays on the screen when played.
YouTube audio ads are ideal for reaching music and podcast listeners who use YouTube as an auditory medium. You can create interactive and engaging audio ads with a voiceover, music, sound effects, and a simple image or animation. You can also measure the impact of your audio ads with Brand Lift surveys.
Another ad solution that you can use is YouTube video ads, which are designed to capture attention and drive action with video content on the video platform. YouTube video ads are suitable for reaching viewers who watch a variety of content on YouTube, such as music videos, live streams, tutorials, reviews, etc.
You can create compelling and creative video ads with high-quality visuals, sound, and storytelling. You can also choose from different video ad formats, such as skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads, discovery ads, or outstream ads.
A third ad solution that you can use is YouTube music lineups, which are designed to connect your brand with people based on particular genres or moods. YouTube music lineups are pre-built segments that help you reach your audience using the most relevant content.
You can select from different types of music lineups in Google Ads, such as dynamic lineups, YouTube Select Music Lineup, or Top 100. Dynamic lineups are locally relevant by country and can include seasonal events, travel, sports, media and entertainment, beauty and fashion, video games, and more. YouTube Select Music Lineup consists of the top 5% of premium music content across YouTube globally, such as official music videos. Top 100 is powered by YouTube Charts and aligns your brand with the most popular artists and songs across your key markets.
By advertising your music on YouTube, you can leverage the platform’s massive reach and rich data to target your ideal audience and optimize your campaign performance. You can also benefit from the platform’s diverse content and range of ad solutions to showcase your music and brand in the best possible way.
Conclusion
Marketing music to both broad and niche audiences is not an easy task. It requires a clear understanding of your music and your audience, a creative and consistent production and distribution of your music content, and a strategic and effective advertising of your music on YouTube.
However, if you follow the tips and strategies we shared in this article, you can achieve your marketing goals and grow your career as a musician. You can also use online platforms and tools like Soundcharts to track the performance of your marketing campaigns and get actionable insights to improve your strategy.
Remember that marketing music is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. You need to constantly monitor your results, test new ideas, learn from feedback, and adapt to changing trends and preferences. By doing so, you can market your music to both broad and niche audiences successfully.
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Gibson Brands is an American music manufacturing company. They primarily manufacture guitars but are not limited to this, as their other products include other instruments and a wide range of audio equipment. The following will focus on the supply chain and operations of the average guitar from Gibson.
Competitive Strategy
Gibson follows a differentiation competitive strategy. This is evident by their approach to pricing. Most of their guitars are high end and unique. Even their cheapest options are far more expensive than an average retail guitar. This increase in cost is due to the increase in quality and uniqueness of each design, which makes differentiation of the Gibson guitar brand from other guitar brands, a prime selling point. This is especially true in cases where famous musicians play these guitars and the make and model of the guitar becomes associated with the artist, thus differentiating it further while simultaneously increasing awareness of the product.
Competitive Priorities
The competitive priorities of Gibson Brands are ranked (in order of highest to lowest) as:
Quality
Flexibility
Cost or Price
Quality is the most important competitive priority for Gibson Brands and cost/price is the least important because Gibson sacrifices low costs and prices for high quality products and flexibility. Flexibility is their second priority. This is evident because of their customizability when it comes to certain consumers and public figures.
Order Winners and Qualifiers
Order Winners for a Guitar Manufacturer
Order Qualifiers for a Guitar Manufacturer
– High-end product design – Design creativity and uniqueness – Customizability – Brand recognition and brand loyalty – Design recognition and design loyalty (For example, the Les Paul model is favored by many guitarists) – Digital applications such as MIDI compatibility (which is a strategy that Gibson uses to differentiate itself from another popular guitar company called Fender)
– Ability to manufacture guitars – Ability to transport and supply guitars to retailers/consumers – Playable and good quality sound – The look and feel of the guitar fitting the consumer’s taste
Supply Chain and Company Strategy Alignment
A Gibson factory operates at a capacity that utilizes 500 workers making 2500 guitars per week by hand. There are 3 factories in the united states, each of which manufacture a different type of guitar. Solid body electric guitars are made in Nashville, Tennessee. Semi-acoustic guitars are made in Memphis, Tennessee. Full acoustic guitars are made in Bozeman, Montana. They are able to ship internationally as their products are non-perishable, and shipping costs are less relevant to them because of the differentiation competitive strategy that they utilize. They transport finished goods by truck to retailers that are not overseas, and ship by boat (rather than air) when necessary due to the high volume of exported weight per shipment of guitars.
Gibson guitars are made to stock, meaning that a set amount of them are produced based on a set of criteria (the criteria primarily being supply and demand based on long term forecasting). However, they do offer an assemble to order option for musicians who are particular about the guitars they play. Customers can pick and choose between a multitude of different components for their guitars. The forecasting method that Gibson uses is a seasonal naïve approach. They stock materials and finished goods based on the average demand for the time period they are in. For example, shoppers are more engaged in the month of December leading up to gift giving holidays, and therefore the likelihood of selling guitars increases. Difficulty arises for Gibson when a certain style/make/model of guitar becomes popular unexpectedly (via its endorsement from a famous musician, or other random factors).
Because of the diversity in materials configurable for each guitar, and the amount of materials used on a daily basis, Gibson stockpiles its raw materials and resources. It is crucial that Gibson does not run out of these supplies, and that they have them at their disposal whenever they are demanded for a guitar.
When it comes to quality and lean, this is very important for Gibson products. All products are inspected multiple times during production. A strict quality standard must be met for Gibson guitars before they are finalized because quality is the most important focus of Gibson’s competitive strategy.
Since the company primarily relies on making their products to stock, but still gives customers the option to customize, it falls in between the center and far left on the X axis of the Product/Process Matrix. Since they also create a huge amount of different products and these products are fairly complex with lots of steps and assembly involved, it is almost at the top of the Y axis of the Product/Process Matrix (not all the way at the top because there are other companies that one could argue have more complex processes than Gibson). This is only for a handful of specific custom guitars though. Most of their product line is done systematically in a batch process, which brings the company’s position on the Product/Process Matrix further up on the X axis and further down on the Y axis.
More on Gibson’s material use/sourcing/procurement: Sourcing suppliers is important because they demand high quality materials to uphold the standards of their differention competitive strategies. When it comes to quantities of said materials, Gibson directly procures and then purchases its materials before they are needed, in order to take a lead approach and always have the materials in stock.
A list of the materials needed for a Gibson guitar follows:
Wood, such as maple or mahogany (type is variable and for certain models more than one can be utilized)
Water is used to maintain humidity within facilities to keep the wood fresh
Various machines and tools for manufacturing (such as sawmills, glue wheels, etc)
Glue, vinyl, and cloth strips for binding
Mother-of-pearl, abalone, or acrylic for fingerboards
Fret wire
Paint and lacquer for the exterior
Pearl or silkscreen for logos
Nuts and screws
Pickups
Internal Wiring
Steal for strings and tuning pegs
This list is not exhaustive as there is a multitude of models that Gibson makes that require less frequently procured miscellaneous materials.
Gibson has a different supplier for each of these materials (excluding pickups which they mould themselves). They often attempt to source materials that are made in the United States; however, they sometimes must make exceptions when these such materials are not available in the country (for example Rosewood). For this reason, most of Gibson’s suppliers ship to them by truck, but when it comes to importing materials from overseas, they must be delivered first by boat, and then by truck.
Most of these materials are purchased from strategic alliances from regular suppliers that Gibson trusts to supply high quality materials consistently (except for the manufacturing equipment which is done via a request for proposal from suppliers as needed because these materials depreciate slower and are bought less frequently). However, sometimes spot purchases are needed in situations where it is more optimal to buy a certain material elsewhere. An example of this is rare occasions when a better quality of material can be purchased for cheaper.
Overall, the company’s production process aligns with its competitive strategy, but their strategy has not been working out very well recently due to inability to cut costs. Reasons for the high cost are:
The need for their products to be high quality. This means that premium materials must be purchased on a regular basis. This includes high quality expensive woods, top notch/complex electronics, and more.
Gibson’s employees are skilled craftsmen and most of the labour is done manually. Their salaries are more than the average factory worker, and thus must be accounted for in the price of the guitars. For this reason, Gibson can be considered as operating over capacity, which is not ideal for the company.
There are laws that protect the specific materials that Gibson would otherwise be able to purchase at a cheaper price. An example of this is rosewood, which Gibson uses but must import from India because it is scarce in the United States and therefore is protected under natural resource laws.
As a result of Gibson’s inability to cut costs and their necessity to maintain a high-end differentiation strategy, the company has accumulated over $500 million in debt as of this year.
More on Gibson’s financial troubles and its capacity; Gibson has attempted to adopt a lead capacity strategy since the beginning of the 2010s, meaning that they hoped on maximizing profits by exceeding capacity. This was done by merging with and acquiring various other audio companies in an attempt to become “the largest music and sound technology company in the world,” quoted from their CEO at the time. Gibson was trying to branch out its line of products and increase its overall capacity in service of the strategy. Evidently, they took on more than they could handle as the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018. The company is still recovering from this setback.
Risks
Gibson’s two biggest risks that it has had to deal with are changes in market demand and geopolitical/environmental risks.
Changes in market demand is a known-unknown risk and Gibson experiences this due to the fact that electric guitars are simply not as popular as they were when the company was founded. The company’s competitive strategy responds poorly to this because while it was once sustainable to put all the work and effort into the production of high quality guitars due to the demand being high, there is now a question of ‘is it really worth it now that they do not sell as well?’.
Geopolitical/environmental risks fall into the unknown-unknown category of risks and were mentioned in the example used earlier in this paper: the environmental regulations involving rosewood. All this means for Gibson is that costs are increased, which does not really have a negative effect on their competitive strategy (cost being lower in favor when compared to quality). However, increased costs are not to be ignored given the company’s troubling financial situation.
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Drozdowski, T. (n.d.). The Making of a Gibson USA Guitar. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from http://legacy.gibson.com/news-lifestyle/features/en-us/309-gibson-usa.aspx
Gakmusicblog. (2019, November 20). Gibson: MADE 2 MEASURE. Retrieved September 28, 2020, from https://www.gak.co.uk/blog/gibson-made-2-measure/
Jay. (2018, February 07). What The Electric Guitar’s Decline In Popularity Tells Us About The Current State Of Music. Retrieved November 24, 2020, from https://blog.reverbnation.com/2018/02/06/electric-guitars-decline-in-popularity/
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music. The most basic characterization of what Dubstep is, is heavy bass reliant synthesis with build ups and drops, all centered around a 2-step drum pattern of hard-hitting kicks and powerful snares. All of this happens at a tempo of 130-150 beats per minute (in most cases).
Some sub genres of Dubstep include Drumstep, Chillstep, Deathstep, Riddim, and more. In some cases, all it takes is a change of tempo and drum pattern for songs with relatively similar sound design styles to be considered entirely different genres. For example, changing a Dubstep track’s BPM to 128 and giving it a 4-to-the-floor drum pattern, would classify it as Electro House and/or Bass House instead of any Dubstep subgenres (even though it is safe to assume that derivatives like this all originate from Dubstep). All of this classifies as Modern Dubstep (or what some may refer to as Brostep).
Modern Dubstep and Classic Dubstep are very different from one another. Modern Dubstep is much more aggressive and intense, and in most cases, it can be argued that the main purpose of these tracks is for producers to show off their sound design skills. Classic Dubstep is much more laid back with emphasis on the sub bass to set the mood, and more closely resembles traditional UK EDM genres of the prior era (primarily 2-step Garage music). One can explore further back past Classic Dubstep to the genres that initially lead to all forms of Dubstep.
Starting with Garage music, which was a variation of older House music that became popular in the 1990s. The difference between Garage and House was that Garage producers aimed to create House styled music without the generic 4-to-the-floor drum patterns and broke away from other rhythmic stereotypes. But even before this, Dub emerged in the 1960s. This was an electronic subgenre of reggae. The remixing style of Dub had a lot of influence on the UK culture that originally pioneered Garage music.
Above is An Example of Dub Music
Above is An Example of Garage Music
Eventually, producers began experimenting with making the bassline the core focus of their Garage. The combination of 2-step drum patterns and the first dark/grimy bass progressions, wobbles, and wubs, led to the earliest form of Classic Dubstep.
Above is An Example of Early Classic Dubstep
In the 2010s, Dubstep began to adopt more aggressive tones. Mixing elements of Classic Dubstep with elements of Punk and Metal. Lead basslines were designed in ways that resembled a distorted electric guitar. This was around the time that the term ‘Brostep’ and other subgenre titles became prevalent in order to classify this new style of Dubstep, because it was becoming very different from its roots. However, today the term ‘Classic Dubstep’ can be re-applied to the tracks of this time, as Modern Dubstep has evolved even further past this point.
Above is An Example of 2010 Dubstep
Skrillex is often miscredited as the inventor of Dubstep. He is surely one of the most popular and innovative Dubstep artists. He is largely responsible for the genre’s breakout into mainstream media.
The early 2010s were the highest point of popularity in Dubstep’s lifespan. However, shortly after its peak, it began to decline. This did not stop it from evolving though. As production quality improved and the importance of experimentation with sound design stayed relevant (which it always will), Dubstep today (at the time of this article’s publication), while still resembling its roots, sounds pretty different than it did almost ten years ago. Hear for yourself:
Soundation is a web-based, digital audio workstation. It was created in 2009 for the purposes of giving anyone with an internet connection the ability to make music online. Over the years, it has amassed almost 4 million registered accounts and a thriving community. It is surprisingly powerful for a web-based DAW and is the reason a lot of people have gotten into music production, including many signed Cryptic Coast artists (artists that have released with the label, artists scheduled for release, and artists that are supported by Cryptic Coast in general) and followers.
Soundation’s tools, instruments/synthesizers, and effects are relatively good quality. Some being better than others, these appliances provide a music maker with all the necessary ingredients to put a decent sounding track together. Most of the tools serve as the basic building blocks for production (most DAWs would include similar instruments and effects as stock plugins to provide the user with the bare necessities), such as a standard GM-2, essential effects (reverb, compression, delay, etc) and a synthesizer that is literally named ‘Simple Synth’ with four oscillators and standard attack/decay/sustain/release variability.
However, the studio has spawned some notable features that are very powerful, especially for a web-based DAW. One of which is the Parametric EQ, which is an 8-band equalizer that is available to premium users. It works incredibly well and sports 4 analyzer modes of the frequency spectrum.
Parametric EQ
Another amazing feature of the Soundation studio is the ‘Wub Machine’. This is an LFO focused synthesizer that is primarily used for creating filthy/grimy wubs found in dubstep and other bass genres. This instrument is iconic to Soundation and is easily one of the most fun to use, and one of the most recognizable within the community.
The Wub Machine
Despite the studio’s overall positive attributes, it is not immune to certain criticisms. For example, there are many features that Soundation would benefit from implementing that would increase the professionalism and creative capabilities of the software. Things like a sampler, real sidechaining capabilities (as opposed to the mock sidechaining tool known as the ‘fakie’), higher resolution exporting abilities, and much more. These features are things that the Soundation community has been wanting for years, but the developers have yet to deliver. The overall gripe that is holding Soundation back is the overall difficulty that persists when one is trying to create a professional sounding finished product. Not to say that it cannot be done, as is evident by multiple Cryptic Coast releases, but it is definitely more difficult to do in comparison to other DAWs. This is the reason why many talented artists within the community eventually move on from Soundation to more “mature” DAWs like FL studio and Abelton. In many cases, Soundation is considered a learning tool by its experienced users and can be described with the analogy of riding a bike with training wheels. Soundation’s team has embraced this analogy by offering premium packages to schools and learning programs related to music production.
Over the years Soundation has become increasingly more professional and powerful as a DAW, but what would really drive the nail into its legitimacy as a music production tool would be third-party plugin support. Soundation is nearly flawless and would be completely flawless if users could use it as a vessel for tools obtained from elsewhere. It is not fair to judge a DAWs capability solely based on its stock plugins. However, Soundation being a web-based DAW means that third-party plugin support would be very hard to implement. The best Soundation can do is hard code third party plugins into the software, which is not ideal because it takes a long time to fully implement and also eliminates some element of choice for producers (narrowing the endless amounts of plugins out there to use, to a select few), but it is definitely a step up from not having any third-party support whatsoever. This process of hard-coding has already begun with the ‘Europa’ synth.
Europa is a wavetable synthesizer created by Reason Studios and is now available for use as a Soundation instrument. It is a very good quality synthesizer and definitely earns the title as one of Soundation’s best features.
Europa
Much of Soundation’s success as a platform can be attributed to its thriving community. The community is easily one of the best things about the platform as a whole. Built into the website is a community tab that functions as a smaller scale version of Soundcloud. Many users have made a name for themselves as artists by using this medium and more engagement/activity is sparked every day by the trending system (top tracks based on community member likes), as well as the feature system (hand-picked favorites by the Soundation team, based on submissions to various groups within the community). It is safe to say that many producers would not be where they are today without the support they have gained from the Soundation community.
Here is a statement from overdoze (also known as Jérémy Giroux), a long-time Soundation user, and a Cryptic Coast artist (with releases like The Third One with SLOCM3Z, and paracosm):
“I knew nothing about music production when I created my account on Soundation. All I wanted to do was to create music. Three years after my first track, I got a feature on the website. I was self-taught. I learned everything from either messing around in the studio or collaborating with artists such as Oozie454, MONOXIDE and Dutchy. Now, I own FL Studio and I am learning Ableton. Without Soundation, I would never have gotten into music production. As a DAW (sorry Kal), Soundation is shit. But its on a web browser, the limitations are expected. I forgive it for this reason. My goal is to push its limits and go beyond.”
Another Cryptic Coast artist with several releases, known as mondaze, also has something to say about his experience with Soundation:
“Soundation is a great platform to target new musicians who want to learn a simplistic DAW without the hassle of technical learning curves, and also without having to download any software. It can be seen as a gateway to electronic music production as a whole. It’s the whole reason why I, as an electronic musician, have the experience that I do. I’m very glad Soundation existed when I first came around the scene. It helped me shape who I am as an artist.”
Discerning good music from bad can be a hassle. Especially if one does not know what to listen for or does know what to listen for and the discernment seems arbitrary to them. There are two overall ways to determine the value of a piece of music. Those methods are subjective reasoning and objective reasoning.
A musical instrument is an object or material that is manipulated or adapted to make sounds in the form of rhythmic patterns, musical effects, and/or musical frequencies. This definition allows for the encompassment of a wide range of tools into the category of what is considered a musical instrument. Everything from rocks and sticks being used percussively, to more methodical instruments seen throughout history (those of which have gradually increased in sophistication, especially in modern times). There is a correlation that can be observed from the study of music in different societies and time periods. This correlation is between the music itself, and the technological parameters that influence it. The focus of this article will primarily be on that of digital and analogue synthesis throughout the twentieth century, and how it serves as a prime example of how music is affected by technological innovation.
