eBusiness Weekly
Leslie Mupeti
“I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.” This is a Jay Z line from the song “Diamonds” from Sierra Leone. This lyric is reflective of today’s music industry where the most successful artists are those who treat their craft like a business.
If you want to build a successful career in music you have to treat your craft like a business. There are no two ways about it. Doing this means that you have to learn how to promote yourself as an artiste including carrying out proven marketing and promotional methods for your songs, building connections within the industry, learning how to sell, building a consistent branding strategy and planning on how you can execute on your plans.
Let’s talk about branding. Branding is the first thing a record label does when they sign an artist. The clothing changes, the music changes, the videos change and the promotional material changes. Why is branding important? In any successful business, branding is a central theme which allows a business to build relationships with its audience. This in turn will turn the audience into loyal customers ready to defend the brand at any cost.
For an artiste, your music isn’t always going to be the first introduction to your fans. What does this mean? Someone may just come across your album cover art on their Instagram feed and then decide to go check out your music on YouTube or SoundCloud. Imagine if your cover art was poorly designed or not truly representative of the music you make.
Ask yourself this question if you’re an artiste. Would someone be compelled to go and look for my music if they saw my cover art in their feed? If the answer is no, you need to start taking your branding seriously. If the answer was yes, then you’re on the right track. However, branding is a process that goes beyond putting together a cute album cover. So how do you brand yourself as an artist?
Four steps to take in building your brand
1. Find your target market
According to Meredith Hill, when you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. Everyone is not your customer. You need to define your ideal listener avatar. This is an imaginary representation of the person who you think will be interested in listening to the music you’re going to be making. This is the kind of listener that you’ll be happy making music for, the ones you love and who’ll love you back. You need to have more of these listeners, who don’t complain about your stuff and love it as it is.
In order to have more of these people you need to first articulate what they have in common. Essentially, you need to know your ideal listeners demographic details like their age, gender, income, occupation, etc. You also need to know their geographic details like the city they’re from, province or country.
You also need to know their psychographic attitudes like their interests, beliefs, organisations, affiliations or even political and religious views. You also need to know their dreams, aspirations, their goals, pains, frustrations and fears. The better you know the above information, the easier it will be to make music which resonates with your core audience.
For example, the average Zimdancehall listener is a male teenager who lives in the ghetto who is unemployed and in some cases dropped out of school. They dream of a better life for themselves and their families outside the ghetto.
The average Zimdancehall artiste has a huge following in the ghetto and multitudes show up for their cheap live shows. Imagine if the average Zimdancehall artiste hosted a live show in the upmarket suburbs of Harare or if they charged US$50 for a ticket. They would be lucky to get a handful of people showing up.
2. Select your archetype
Now that you have built your ideal listener avatar it’s time to select the personality that fits your target audience. Brand archetypes are a framework of 12 personalities that represent all human personalities. Basically, everyone you know fits into one of the 12 different archetypes. I have written articles about the 12 different archetypes and you can find them on the internet. Think of your archetype like Peter Parker’s Spiderman suit that you wear for your audience.
In the original “Spiderman,” Peter Parker is just a normal high school kid who lives a boring life but when he wears his Spiderman suit he becomes a superhero.
Archetypes are so effective because one can build a custom personality that his core audience identifies with. For example Zimbabwean superstar Gemma Griffith’s archetype is “The Explorer”. This explains why her music and social media content are about travel, hiking, exploring, independence and back-packing. She makes it a point to emphasise the locations she travels to in her music videos such as “Ndinewe” or “Maita basa baba” which was shot in Mbare.
Another example is the rapper Rick Ross. He graduated from college and he once worked as a correctional officer.
This is not the best image for a rapper because most rappers have a rebellious image of anti-police, they dropped out of school and they are drug dealers. The branding team at Def Jam decided to spice him up and they branded him as a drug king-pin (The Boss) though he never sold any drugs in his life. This worked though there were times when videos or pictures of his past life went viral on the internet and his “realness” was put into question.
3. Choose your core messaging
Now that you have a core audience and a personality, it’s time to choose your core message. What is the message that your core audience wants to hear? What is the message that you want to tell the world? What do you want to be remembered for as a musician? Incorporating your own beliefs as a person might help when it comes to crafting your message.
For example, Thomas Mapfumo’s music in the 70s was about the Chimurenga war and rallying support for the guerillas. Thomas Mapfumo was the voice of the Chimurenga generation whose music defined the liberation struggle movement.
Zimbabwean rapper, Holy Ten’s message is mostly centred around supporting the girl child and social commentary.
4. Get your visual identity right
Usually, your visuals are your first impression as an artiste to your fans. First impressions are key to music discovery by potential fans. Your visual identity consists of your logo, colours, fonts, posters, promotional videos, music videos and dressing. It is very important as an artist to have a consistent visual identity which resonates with your target audience. Having visual elements which resonates with your target audience helps drive traffic to your actual product which is your music.
Let’s look at some of the elements of your visual identity.
a) Colours and fonts
Different colours represent different moods and attributes. For example Gemma Griffiths uses a lot of browns in her branding and cover art. Brown is the colour associated with soil, nature, earth, growth, Africa and African art.
The colour is perfect for her brand because her archetype is that of an explorer who travels around the continent of Africa as seen in most of her music videos and social media.
Another example is that of Canadian superstar, The Weeknd who uses a lot of black in his branding. Black represents darkness, night and disparity. This colour goes well with his brand and musical content which is about depression, escapism and melancholia.
b) Dressing
As an artiste you need to dress in a way which resonates with your core audience. There is a reason why rappers dress in expensive clothing and why they wear a lot of expensive jewellery. They rap about success, wealth and escaping poverty so they have to represent that physically through their dressing. Imagine if an American rapper rapped about owning expensive chains without actually owning any. It wouldn’t be believable and eventually people would find out and dump the rapper’s music.
An example is The Weeknd, who wears a lot of black clothing because he sings about dark stuff.
As an artiste you want to have a signature dressing style so that fans and potential fans can easily identify you. Travis Scott almost always dresses in a pair of Jordan One kicks, jeans and a t-shirt and I have never seen singer Billie Eillish wearing anything outside of baggy clothing. Pick your dressing style and be consistent with it.
In conclusion, becoming a superstar musician isn’t just about being talented and producing good music. Actually, being a successful artist is 80 percent branding and 20 percent music. Know your core audience, what they want and deliver the message packaged in your branding.
Leslie Mupeti is a graphic designer and brand strategy expert. He can be contacted on +263 785 324 230 and [email protected] for feedback.
