Marketing in the Music Industry

Tuition: $399.00-Class begins on the 1st & 15th of every month

Marketing in the Music & Media Industry is the one of your four required courses for the Music & Entertainment Media Management Certificate

Course Details

Musicians are absolutely passionate about their music. In fact, they are so passionate about their music that they frequently forget one thing: No matter how great your music is, if no one hears it, it might as well not exist! Music is meant to be shared, or as we say in the business world, marketed. Some bands are pretty good about figuring out how to get bookings with their local clubs and venues. And that's fine, as far as it goes... However, if you want to take that big leap forward into regional, national and even international success, you're going to need a lot more knowledge.

Old-school music promotions followed a standard path, you'd promote your record with radio stations and DJs, and wait for the retail sales that would follow if your song got played. Today you have to use many more tools such as street teams, lifestyle promotions - like the CDs that Starbucks sells or new media and online promotions, viral promotions and so on. There are two kinds of good news that go along with all these developments: First, most of these tools are cheap and available to any artist who learns how to use them. And second, they're more ways than ever to make money with your music!

Students in this course will differentiate between traditional product marketing and current music industry marketing strategies. Such topics to be covered include, but are not limited to, radio promotion, internet marketing, live performances, distribution and CD manufacturing. During the course the student will develop a working marketing plan and marketing budgets.

Student Learning Oucomes: Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. Explain marketing as it pertains to the music industry.
2. Illustrate the ways that the music industry differentiates itself from traditional product marketing.
3. Demonstrate how record labels are structured to effectively market their music releases.
4. Describe each department within a record label and its contributions to the overall marketing of their product.
5. Explain the various forms of marketing including traditional and current digital marketing tools.

For more information on topics covered, be sure to view the course outline.