Gospel Industry Tip Of The Week 7/12/10
Your Product Is Your Brand
If you’ve been reading music industry trade magazines or listening to business and entertainment news over the past few years, more than likely you’ve heard reports that the CD is dead. In fact music industry sales figures do show a steep decline in CD sales—-some estimate a more than 50% loss in CD sales over the past decade. If that’s true, what product should indie and aspiring artists be trying to create?
Simply put, for anyone pursuing a creative career in today’s music industry, your product is your brand.
You may recall the following definition from a previous entry in this blog: The American Marketing Association defines brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers…” For our purposes, I prefer to think of a brand as a set of elements that identifies your artistry and demonstrates the reasons you are unique in the marketplace.
The most successful indies and aspiring artists in today’s gospel music marketplace will be those who are willing to move beyond thinking of themselves only in terms of the music and to consider the substance of their artistry and ministry.
For those of us in gospel, this should not be a new concept. Our music has always been about the messages in the songs. It’s the primary defining element of our genre. More than style of instrumentation or vocal signatures, what makes a song a gospel song is the content of the lyrics.
What’s different in today’s music world is the notion that the message now exceeds the boundaries of the songs themselves. In the age of social media, developing your artistry includes identifying and connecting with your audience—-also known as consumers or followers—-by sharing your ideas, images, thoughts and expressions. In an overcrowded marketplace, more and more the deciding factor in whether a person listens to your music and ultimately purchases it will be the content of those ideas, images, thoughts and expressions.
If you’re wondering whether this concept is in keeping with proper Christianity, I would like to offer this for your consideration: Jesus was entirely holy in his approach to ministry and entirely practical in his approach to people.
Two of the most distinctive elements of Christ’s ministry were (1) his insistence on teaching in parables——the truths of the Kingdom of God expressed entirely in the language of the common people—-and (2) his insistence on reaching out to the ungodly, unchurched masses with messages of love and acts of compassion (what we call miracles).
He chose those expressions of ministry despite the fact that He was capable of teaching wisely and powerfully from the scrolls and the prophets from the time he was a pre-teen. It is no wonder that His ministry changed the world in only 3 years…without the benefit of postal systems, telephones, radio, television, or the Internet.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a closer look at the elements of branding and some practical, godly ways to apply this concept to your artistry. The CD may be dying, but the brand it very much alive and the brand is your product.
Published: July 12, 2010 | 0 Comments
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