Music Industry Execs Embrace Content Marketing To The Tune of $3 Million Annually
This week Venture Harbour released a Midem-sponsored report on a survey of 64 music industry executives and their take on content marketing. A related analysis of "over 15,000 pieces of content produced by music companies" is included as is supporting material on such topics as influencers. Given that the music industry is said to have spent over $3 million on content marketing in the past year, it's a topic with which we should all be familiar.
In a press release for Venture Harbour's report, "Content Marketing in the Music Industry," content marketing is defined as:
"an emerging trend involving the creation and sharing of content, such as how-to guides, videos, and eBooks in order to acquire customers online. Content marketing is focused not on selling, but on delivering consistent, on-going valuable information, to build loyalty and awareness amongst potential customers."
This is a nice clean definition of content marketing that emphasizes its power in building a brand by sharing "valuable information" on an on-going basis.
When you see the byline of a CEO of a music tech company writing about issues of the day at Hypebot, that's content marketing.
When a music marketer posts great tips about how musicians can be building their social media presence, that's content marketing.
When Midem sponsors a report and posts about it on their site, that's content marketing.
As Midem Director Bruno Crolot points out in the announcement, the report itself is an example of Midem's ongoing approach to content marketing:
"By providing the most relevant content at the right moment to an audience, content marketing represents a powerful tool for artists & labels to reach further and create a meaningful relationship with fans."
"So powerful that, at Midem, we have developed a structured content marketing approach, which aims at proposing added-value content to professionals from the whole music ecosystem all year round. As part of this strategy, we are very pleased to share today this exclusive report about content marketing in the music industry developed by Venture Harbour."
You can download the report, authored by Venture Harbour founder Marcus Taylor, via a link on Midem's blog where a lot of their ongoing content marketing occurs. In fact, blogs have played a big role in content marketing and often exist primarily for that purpose.
Note that content marketing can also be viewed much more broadly, from posting photos on Instagram to releasing free apps as part of an album marketing campaign.
An even trendier development, native advertising, mucks things up even further by turning content marketing into a paid form of advertising.
But the focus of "Content Marketing in the Music Industry" is content marketing in the purest sense. And in that sense, I was somewhat amazed to find that music businesses spent at least $3 million on such efforts in the last year.
Additional findings include:
Which topics generate the most buzz?
"For content to be highly shareable, it must provoke a strong emotional reaction.
In the music industry, we found that content relating to artists being exploited, piracy, and
low royalty payments typically generated the most online buzz."
What types of content are most effective?
"In the music industry, infographics, case studies, and how-to blog posts are the most effective types
of content for driving online interaction. On the other hand, industry news, video blog posts, and
interviews are the least effective."
Which social networks are most important?
"We found that Facebook was overall the most important social network for content
marketing within the music industry, with 62% of all shares, and
55% of all social traffic being referred from Facebook.com
Despite this, we found that on average, tweets had a higher rate of traffic referred
per share than any other social network."
You can find out more by downloading the free report.
Bonus: I make a brief appearance at the end of the report, along with Billboard's Juliana Koranteng, responding to the question "What makes a great piece of content?"
“Great content connects concrete details to the bigger picture. That's why case studies can be a particularly strong form of content marketing. Case studies allow for a satisfying level of detail presented in a larger business context. They can showcase solutions but are most valuable to the reader when the takeaway goes beyond 'buy our product.'"
If you're interested in seeing more on this topic at Hypebot, please let us know. Content marketing offers a great way to move beyond push marketing and towards "building the pull."
More:
- 5 Tips For Musicians From Music Industry Entrepreneurs
- Content Marketing For DIY Artists & Musicians
- Odd Future Manager Christian Clancy On Chaos, Authenticity and Building The Pull
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
