It’s all marketing

One of the great unintended consequences of the massive success of iTunes is the way it has irrefutably demonstrated that people simply do not align with one genre of music. Take a look at a random iTunes playlist sometime, and you’ll find Jay Z sitting alongside Janis Joplin and, even, Scott Joplin. What is going on here? Didn’t radio, record stores, and even labels long ago conclude that people could be marketed to most effectively by determining what genre of music they liked, and then deliver it to them? This is certainly the philosophy of radio formats. You have, for instance, formats like “country,” “oldies,” “classic rock,” “urban,” and even formats like “Triple A,” which is sort of a not-too-folksy singer-songwriter format*. Of course, the most recent and profound example of this attempted categorization of customers is found on Amazon.com. As soon as you hit the site, you’re bombarded with products “Recommended for you.” How are these recommendations picked? Well, it’s a process of algorithms based on things you’ve bought in the past, and things other people have bought that you’ve also purchased. These so-called “preference engines” represent sort of the Holy Grail for Internet retailers and marketers. They’re at the heart of many new music related web applications, such as Pandora [insert link], Last.fm [insert link], LaLa [insert link] and many others. The thinking goes, if these marketers can get inside your head and tell you what you like, it represents a sale for them.

An argument against Algorithms

While this approach is transparently mercenary, and can be a bit distasteful, there is something to be learned from it apropos of musician’s strategy. The first thing to know—and you’ve likely seen this for yourself—is that these “preference engines” are flawed. Either they recommend something that is totally off base, or—more often—they recommend something that is “shallow.” That is, something that you either already have, or something that you are aware of and have chosen not to purchase. In other words, they’re not really exposing you to anything new. This is because, with the power of the Internet, our own “preference engines” are already pretty sophisticated. We easily jump from subject to subject, item to item, and don’t really benefit from someone attempting to do this for us via an algorithm. The problem gets exponentially worse when you’re passionate about a subject. It’s one thing if you’re new to a particular genre of music; then Amazon’s preference engines may very well introduce you to something (of course, a blog writer who does not have an economic imperative, but is instead motivated by a maven-esque desire to share her knowledge for no other reason than because she derives pleasure from doing so is a more trusted source, and more likely to really educate and inform you). However, once you have gotten below the surface on a particular subject, these preference engines largely become worthless. As stated, you already either have the items being recommended or have ruled them out because you’re not interested. Therefore, the preference engine marketing strategy shows us that genres are largely irrelevant. People are too complex to be easily put into categories with titles like “demographic,” and “geographic.”

Psychographics

Therefore, the goal for the musician or the marketer of music is to, first, realize these complexities, and, second, move away from genre-specific models. Instead, the savvy marketer will look to psychographics. Thinking in terms of psychographics is relatively new, but it is emerging as a uniquely effective way to target marketing. As an example of finding psychographics, I’ll describe myself and my niece Ellie. I really like the movie Napoleon Dynamite. I’m in my thirties, live in Massachusetts, and have a moderate income. Ellie also really likes the movie Napoleon Dynamite. She’s nine and lives with her parents in Utah. Ellie and I really couldn’t be more different, but we have this one thing in common that is independent of our demographics and geography; it’s a shared psychographic.

Now, this one, shared element between us is not enough to situate us easily into a clear target market. We have too many distinct psychographic qualifiers (she likes dolls, I like scotch). But if you can find a number of shared psychographic qualifiers among a group of people, you can quickly start viewing them as a target market.

For a more concrete explanation, have a look, for example, at del.icio.us. [insert link] This site allows you to explore subjects that are interesting to you by connecting you to others who have similar interests. For example, if I bookmark (add) a Web site on economic theory into my del.icio.us account, I can see other del.icio.us members who have bookmarked this same Web site. I can then see which other sites they’ve bookmarked (not only sites they’ve bookmarked on economic theory, but also every bookmarked site they’ve included on del.icio.us, irrespective of subject. After a while, you begin to see that other people are hunting for subject matter similar to yours, and you can then focus your search based on the group’s collective exploration and filtering. Importantly, because there is no commercial driver here, you are dealing with a “trusted source” for your information (like a blog). No one is trying to up-sell you on an item (as Amazon.com must do to survive), and therefore, the information you receive is unfettered from bias. It is purely a mechanism for connecting people with similar psychographics. Using del.icio.us, you have no idea of the other member’s age, gender, or any other demographic or geographic information—all you have is pure psychographics.

Using psychographics to get your music heard

You note, that this moves us away from genre—think back to the iTunes example; people’s playlists are rarely very genre specific. So, when you are considering how to market your music, you should spend the lion’s share of your time thinking about psychographics. The quickest way to do this is to look at yourself. What are your habits? Think about not only the music you listen to, but also the books, magazines, and blogs you read, the movies you see, the places you eat—anything really that you can discern as a trend. Then, begin looking for others who overlap a significant number of your trends. These people are your target market. It sounds obvious, and yet, very few musicians and marketers think this way; instead, they rely solely on thinking about the genre, or demographic to whom their music might appeal. As you’ve hopefully seen, this is way too broad a way of thinking. You can’t effectively target anyone with this thinking, because you necessarily assume that your market is vast. Unless you’re a major label, you don’t have the resources to market to vast audiences (and, I’d argue, that major labels are in the sorry state they’re in, because they consistently have to try to market to the masses). Instead, focus, focus, and focus. Identify very specific customers, determine where they are, and then find a way to put your music in front of them. If you’re concerned that this somehow will limit your potential target base, don’t be. On the contrary, it will allow you to establish a firm base of passionate customers who will evangelize on your behalf, because you axiomatically have targeted people who are likely to have an emotional connection with your music, and they’re going to want to tell others. It ain’t about genres, it ain’t about geography or demographics; today’s marketing is all about looking for powerful, shared interests, irrespective of age and location…psychographics.