‍Now more than ever, effective music marketing requires a consistent content release strategy.

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Here’s a hard truth: as an artist, there really isn’t much you can control when it comes to the momentum that drives your career. Success in the music industry is unpredictable. Sometimes you put everything you have into a project and ultimately, it falls flat. Other times you track something in one afternoon and it winds up defining your entire career. It’s important to control what you can control and with that - to always be intentional with how you invest your limited time and resources. 

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Now more than ever, effective music marketing requires a consistent content release strategy. I’ll go so far as to say, almost every decision you make this year should revolve around this one simple fact. Because planning - and more importantly executing - a thoughtful content release strategy each and every month is a massive undertaking. It will test your abilities and will require staying top of mind nearly every waking moment you put towards your career. 

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But as an artist, this is one thing you can control that will drive forward progress in every aspect of your career. It’s worth organizing and investing in your approach.

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Learning from the best

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All of the top music artists in the world today are content-generating machines. These artists and their teams understand the rules of the game we’re playing today, and have restructured their approach to ensure an always-on marketing strategy. 

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Last year was a wash for most of us. Yet all the top acts managed to stay on top by consistently staying top of mind with their respective audiences. Here’s a look at the top artists of 2020, along with a breakdown of all their hero content releases (see below for more on that idea) from last year. 

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Once something breaks through (ref. Billie Eilish) sometimes you get to break the rules and be patient while your success permeates every corner of the earth. It’s best to be practical though and not base your plan on the outlier. It doesn’t matter if your advertising budget is $100 or $100,000 - the consistency of your content release cycle can be what ultimately determines the success or failure of your entire campaign.

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Two types of content

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Maybe you’ve been bored at home for the past ten months and already have a head start on your content needs. Or maybe you’ve been sitting on a bunch of new material for the past year just waiting for normal life again. It doesn’t matter where you are right now - what is important is to first get ahead of yourself and map out a plan that allows you to slowly and consistently build a relationship with the people that matter. 

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When thinking about your content strategy, don’t get overwhelmed thinking you need to build some overly complex interweaving map of diverse and groundbreaking content. You can start with the basics. 

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At Venture, we usually define content in one of two ways: your hero content & what will support it. 

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Hero Content

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Hero Content is the heart and centerpiece of your digital marketing plan. For artists, hero content is your music (a single, remix, collaboration, EP, LP) and also your official videos (music videos, lyric videos, live and studio sessions). We always start any new marketing campaign by sketching out our hero content releases over the next three months. 

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Our ideal scenario is to release some sort of hero content every two weeks. In most cases we like to stagger single and video release dates - this allows us to stretch the life of your hero content.

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Supporting Content

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We consider supporting content to be literally any other piece of audio, photo, or video content you can use to make a meaningful connection with your audience. For the most part, the purpose of supporting content is to lead people back to your hero content. And sometimes hero content will be repurposed into supporting content.

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Supporting content will be mostly used on social media but can fill all sorts of other needs. If you’re releasing hero content every two weeks, then you’re ideally posting or releasing some sort of supporting content three days a week. Your goal is to horde supporting content. Which is why any time you have an opportunity to record or film something with a friend or acquaintance -- you say yes.

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Brian’s blog from back in October: “Social Media Content Creation - From the Safety of Your Bubble” is a great way to reframe how you think about the daunting task of creating supporting content right now. 

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Learning to move quickly

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“Most decisions should be made with 70% of the information you wish you had” 

- Jeff Bezos, Invent and Wander

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After working with hundreds of different artists over the past 12 years - there’s one constant struggle I’ve seen standing in the way of most artists and their dreams. It’s the desire to chase perfection that stands in the way of forward progress. 

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If you’re a developing artist and want to stay current, releasing one album every two or three years is no longer going to cut it. With attention spans growing shorter by the day, and new content being presented at an unbelievable pace, we’re now playing by a new set of rules. 

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It’s a fair argument to say that you can’t force art and creativity into a timeline. But to me this isn’t about forcing creativity - it’s about getting comfortable with letting your fans see behind the curtain. Don’t hoard 14 new songs until they’re ready to be packaged into the double vinyl concept album of your dreams. Share things as they’re ready, or maybe even before you feel like they are. Learn to look at your art as a conversation with your fans and not just a one way channel of you presenting a perfect, complete picture for them to take as gospel. Keep them engaged, let them see your growth track by track. Get used to feeling vulnerable. This is the modern intersection of art and commerce. 

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Your baseline should always remain firm: you have to put in the effort and be genuine with everything you do. Your audience is unbelievably good at sniffing out bullshit these days. They’re being hit with upwards of 5,000 ads every day and they know when you’re just looking out for yourself and when you’re actually trying to make a meaningful impact on their day.

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Planning your content release cycle

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“I think it’s important - if you’re a creative person or aspire to be - that you don’t spend too much time aspiring or asking advice. Just get going and address what’s roaring inside you.”

- Henry Rollins

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We know how easy it is to get overwhelmed by the thought of everything you need to do while still maintaining your integrity as an artist. Start by creating a routine for yourself that allows you to control the chaos. And stay motivated by knowing this is how you will control your own destiny in the digital age. You don’t just need a wish and a prayer to build a community of supporters. There are thousands of artists just like you already using these same ideas to create and build communities of fans all over the world.

Content creation - whether it be recording songs or filming TikToks - is no different than any other skill set. The more you force yourself to practice, and to overcome the uneasiness that comes with improvement, the better you’ll get at making smarter, quicker decisions.