Mind Your Music Business: Establishing a Brand for Your Music Career

During the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the live music industry suffered dreadfully. While all of the music scene was locked away to fiddle on their guitars and stuck in their home studios, the Gable Music Ventures crew thought it a great opportunity to create a vlog series educating artists on some of the basics of conducting good music business. Now that the venues are booking and bands are back to releasing music, we decided to hit replay on the channel to help our musician readers along their musical journeys. 

For some musicians, words like ‘marketing’ and ‘branding’ can take the spirit and soul out of being an artist. The reality of the music industry is that a little can go a long way, and looking at it from a business perspective can really make a difference in how potential fans can relate and get hooked on you. Here are some ideas to keep in mind when working on your branding.

Disclaimer: We are not supported by, endorsed by, or otherwise paid by any of the brands, companies, or websites we link or refer to. 

Logo/Font

A logo or specific font can be the basis of all your branding. It’s the first step to get people used to your presence. Bands typically use graphics-based or text-based logos. 

Logos create the possibility for merchandising and encourages fans to feel like they are a part of something. Think about bands like The Grateful Dead, Black Flag, Dave Matthews Band, Weezer, Dead Kennedy and METALLICA. You don’t have to be a die hard fan to remember what their logos look like.

This also presents a cool way to collaborate with local artists. Collaborating is a great way to bring attention to you by utilizing someone else's fanbase. You can look for artists in the area through social media and word of mouth. You can also use freelancer websites like fivver, freelancer.com, upwork.com, linkedin, or craigslist.

Make sure you are licensing out what you use properly. Commercial-use licensing is the go-to if you plan on putting it on merch or anything you might sell. There are some open-front-license choices out there that are fine for this, there just aren’t many. 

Color Schemes 

Color schemes are another way to really hone in on a mood or a feeling for your brand.  A good rule of thumb is to have maybe 3-5 go-to colors in your palette that help identify your look so your fans can recognize your work faster!

If you’re having a difficult time choosing a color try putting your music on and playing  around with some colors to see what really fits or feels authentic. If you’re drawing a blank and that doesn’t work ask yourself what are your favorite sports teams colors, your favorite color?

Once you find a color you're going to want to find the hex code for it. Hex codes are a technological term that basically organizes colors into a numbering system that computers can recognize. This means that the specific shade of red or blue you like is going to be the same throughout.

Quick tip
There are websites online that you can upload an image and it gives you the pallet and the hex codes for it https://imagecolorpicker.com/en/

Grammar /Voice

This part is fun because it’s specifically you. Unless you have a team of people working for you and doing your social media pages then you're the one speaking to your audience. Take advantage of that by using the slang you use in your day to day or the inside jokes you and your friends have. Lean into the things that make you, you, when you’re typing out posts

People will associate that with you especially if they are words and phrases that you use in your music. This tightens that net and brings your fans closer to you. A perfect example of this comes from everybody’s favorite uncle Snoop Dogg. He’s a master marketing and branding guru. He’s coined terms like ‘fo shizzle my nizzle’ and ‘off the heezy my neezy’. Surely he and his inner circle had been using this language for some time but once he started incorporating it into his music and dialogue he made it accessible to everyone. By using his language, everyone felt closer to him.

Consistency 

Consistency is key. Unless you're about to pull a Madonna or David Bowie and do a personality change to promote a new album, keep things the same throughout so fans can get accustomed to you and what you make. 

People like things they are familiar with so grabbing their attention can be challenging but if you keep your branding consistent then you’ll be well on the way to making some coin and freeing up your time and life for what’s important….and that’s making more music!