Is Your Band Missing These Five Opportunities To Strengthen Your Brand?
Your band is your business—are you treating it like one? An important aspect of running your business is having a strong brand identity. No, it doesn’t make you a sellout or seem inauthentic. Branding is the process of creating a distinct identity that will guide the marketing and promotion of your band.
Artist branding is made up of all the materials AND communications you use to connect with your audience. Your band’s website, logo, press kit, social profiles, merch design, copywriting, graphic design, and photography make up a large part of this. However, a brand is MUCH MORE than just artwork assets. It even extends into how you interact with fans, your style onstage, and the subjects, values, and principles you embrace through interviews. The goal of solid branding for musicians is to create a consistent aesthetic across all channels, which in turn establishes audience loyalty.
Why You Should Care About Branding
It helps you cut through the noise and reach your audience. When you stand out from the crowd, it makes it easier for people to discover your music and become fans. With a distinct identity, your band will stick in people’s minds as memorable, which increases your reach.
People like to see consistency. They naturally trust businesses who have a consistent image from one channel to the next. By building trust, you create a stronger relationship with your listeners.
Branding is a way to tell your story. It makes up the cohesive narrative of your inception and how that drives your mission as an artist.
It’s not just who you are, but the way people feel when they think about you, and what qualities they associate with your art.
Your brand identity is directly connected to your income. Increased recognition means increased value. Brand expectations strengthen your marketing effort, which then increases your reach, leading to more revenue. More revenue, more consistently, will allow you to better carve out the space, time, and mental bandwidth necessary to continue making meaningful music that evolves authentically as you grow.
Now that you know the why, let’s dive into the how. Here are five major opportunities your band is missing to strengthen your brand.
#1: Define Your Message
Ask yourself: what makes your music distinctly YOU? Why should anyone listen to your music? How does your personality translate into the music you produce? How are your fans able to interact with your music? This is your value proposition, and it is a powerful tool to attract listeners. Identify your core values, your tone, and voice.
Be true to yourself with your branding and avoid copying someone else. Ideally, your message, sound, and visual aesthetics will all complement each other to create a memorable and lasting impression on your audience.
#2: Establish Your Visual Identity
Visual identity encompasses every aspect of your band’s image—your website, album covers, show flyers, merch, photos, even the aesthetics of how you dress and style yourself. Visuals drive engagement and get fans excited about your music. Sometimes, it will be their first impression before they even listen to a song.
Remember your audience, genre, and subculture when creating your identity. A folk artist is going to present a very different image from a metal band (duh). But, you can also use those visual expectations from each genre to create pattern-interrupting assets that will stand out in the brains of first-time viewers. Disrupting existing visual patterns in your target audience puts you top of mind and creates an infectious curiosity.
Consider working with graphic designers (if you’re not artistically inclined) to create unique visual elements. Go beyond slapping your logo on a t-shirt. How can you create something that represents what your music sounds like or feels like to listen to? Having a stockpile of professional photos for your website and social media is also a good idea. Make sure they work in tandem with your current campaign or overall concept.
#3: Be Consistent
Keep branding consistent across all channels. You should be projecting the same image from your website and social media to when you show up onstage or for interviews. As we mentioned earlier, consistency equals trust. It leads to greater brand recognition, a broader audience reach, and higher engagement. People naturally gravitate to the familiar, and the more recognizable you are, the more willing they are to interact with you. With clear brand guidelines, you also get a clear instruction manual so anyone can uphold your messaging: agents, producers, designers, marketers, and press.
#4: Set SMART Goals
In case this is the first you’re hearing of it, let’s review. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely. These should be the parameters for every goal you set for yourself as a musician. For example, booking and playing ten shows by the end of the year, or reaching 1,000 subscribers on your Patreon this month. Setting goals that are realistic, tangible, and SMART makes it more likely that you’ll achieve them.
The real secret outcome of SMART goals are the systems they naturally help you build. Systems and workflows are tools that help artists arrange goals into habitual schedules, increasing the effectiveness of your actions over time.
#5: Embrace Your Community
Your brand is meaningless without the support of your fans, other artists, and the entire music community. Connect with press and local businesses to see if they can help promote an upcoming show or album release. Be an active voice on social media and befriend those in your local scene. Collaborate with other artists, and share the work of those you admire. A few mentions on social media or YouTube can drive similar audiences to your channels. The music industry has always been about networking with the ‘right’ people and creating genuine connections with both your fans and other bands. It doesn’t always have to be a cutthroat competition, but a space to uplift each other.
This can work in both positive and negative ways when it comes to your brand. Beware of the company you keep and the values (or lack thereof) others might represent. This means the bands you tour with, or even the managers, agents, or labels working on your behalf. Do your research and ask around before signing any deals or agreeing to get involved with anyone in a public facing endeavor.
Remember, your branding is everywhere, whether you’re performing live onstage or creating an ad campaign. It should stay top of mind with whatever you’re doing. As you grow your music career, your brand will evolve to reflect the experiences you encounter along the way.
If you found this helpful, you can find more music promotion and career growth tips here. Looking for one-on-one advice? Schedule a call with me.