Written By: Virgina Cooper
You’re new to the entertainment business, and you’re growing your business from scratch - right now, you just don’t have the funds to hire other employees or outsource projects to agencies. But you can build your own marketing department by mastering the basics of advertising and promotion. Down the line, you can turn to an agency like Creative Executive Lens to enhance your strategy! Here are a few principles that everyone new to marketing needs to understand.
Nail Down Your Brand
In the entertainment business, having a clearly defined brand is key. Whether you’re an artist, or you represent other artists, you need to convey a consistent, exciting brand. Influencer Marketing Hub states that your brand encompasses your logo, color scheme, mottos, design choices, and even customer experiences. Think about the values you hold, and how you can share them through your branding strategy.
Emphasize the Right Channels
Today, there are so many ways to get the word out about your business - but which methods suit your company best? Understanding the benefits of different marketing channels can help you decide. In the world of marketing, “channels” are platforms and forms of communication that you can utilize to reach customers. For example, social media, a company blog, billboards, direct mail marketing, and email marketing are all marketing channels. Email marketing can be particularly effective - by using subject lines that reflect your customers’ concerns and catch their interest, you can boost sales.
In the modern marketing landscape, you might be tempted to solely rely on digital promotion, but print marketing can also help you drive new business! You might want to ask local cafes and coffee shops if you can put up flyers at their locations, or consider placing ads in local publications that have a wide regional circulation.
Refine Your Messaging
Marketing is all about messaging. What do you want to say to your customers? And how do you want to say it? As you develop your messaging strategy, you should think about the “tone of voice” and language that suits your brand. It’s also important not to share the exact same messaging across platforms. When crafting your messaging, consider which customer segments are most likely to see it, and how you can tweak your messaging to appeal to them.
Messaging is a concept that you’ll return to with every new marketing initiative and task, from writing up captions for social media posts to creating copy for email newsletter campaigns. Even if you don’t feel confident in your ability to develop effective messaging at first, this is a skill that you’ll get a lot of practice with!
Set and Assess Your Goals
Your marketing goals will depend on your strategic objectives. If you’re focusing on revenue and shareholder-driven marketing, you’ll need to deliver financial values for your shareholders’ investments through your marketing initiatives. But if you’re prioritizing customer-driven marketing, you’ll want to hone in on your customers’ pain points so that you can personalize your materials and speak to their needs.
Your marketing goals might involve hitting certain sales benchmarks, growing your following, or generating a specific number of leads. To assess your efforts, SugarCRM recommends looking at your strategy’s contributions to revenue, conversion rates, cost per lead, and pipeline growth.
If you don’t have much experience with marketing, you might worry that you’re in over your head. But the basics of marketing are within your grasp. As long as you’re willing to learn and test new tactics, you’ll be able to establish your marketing department with ease.
Ready to step up marketing efforts for your entertainment business? Creative Executive Lens can help you expand your reach! Book your first consulting session through our website today.