In truth, you don’t create your brand. Weird right? Your brand is those conversations your fans have about you, their gut feeling about what you’ve done and their personal opinion of you. Of course, you can influence that opinion by making sure that every point of contact with you is a fine-polished product that you are truely proud of.
It will take time and effort to develop a brand, but it is worth it in the long run, as it makes it easier for your audience to relate to you, while you become more memorable.
So how do you make sure that your fans are experiencing the best you that you can offer? There are a number of quick checks you can do, along with some longer-term projects, which when chipped away at, slowly come together and quietly end up as product you:
Summary:
- Find out what you represent
- Find out where you fit into the music industry
- Find out every point of contact with your fans
- Put what you represent about where you fit in the music industry as one message through every point of contact.
1. Who are you?
Sit down and have a think about what you deliver. What does it mean to be you and what about life do you associate with. Find your individualism in the things that have influenced you throughout your life. Don’t try so hard to be completely original. You aren’t. No one is. Instead, life influences you therefore nothing you do is truely ‘original’ but if you cast your life experiences net wide, you can become more creative by bringing them together in a way no one else ever has.
2. Where do you live?
No, I’m not talking about your geographical location, what I mean is how do you appeal to other people, what do they associate with and what types of people do you associate best with? This will be the hardest question to answer early on because you won’t have established your core identity and you won’t have data to work with about your audience, their spending habits or their preferences. But try to find your community; easiest through finding your genre, some of the current blogs, news, magazines, venues or promoters relating to your genre – this is where you will be best received, so its worth getting to know it quickly and see what other similar-sounding artists have done and why.
3. Where do you meet?
List every point of contact you have with the outside world. Now ask if they all match your identity and if they represent your community? Would one set of people who know you through one area describe you in a completely different way to another set from a different place? Aim to bring all of these expectations into line with a unified message to all – the better you communicate your values and intentions, the easier it is for promoters, A&R, and other industry professionals to see where you can get into the market, making it more likely you will land a job!
4. Polish the delivery
By now you know what you stand for, you know who needs to hear your message, you know where they come across it and so its time to make the impressions!
your colour scheme triggers a subtle and subliminal mood reaction in viewers and different colours bring different reactions:
Next gig, be there, gonna be wicked!
verses
We would like to extend to you a polite invitation of attendance at our annual variety performance
(don’t confuse your audience!)
The way you deal with absolutely every single person will affect your brand. With branding there is no down-time – but this shouldn’t be a problem if you have found who you represent properly, it is just a level of responsibility to deliver it as you begin to represent something greater than yourself when you develop fans, industry contacts, and people like your team or entourage who rely on you.
Your logo is a key part of identifying you quickly for fans, but it is not branding on its own. True visual design branding means you can cover up the logo and artist name and still know exactly who they are – think apple products, and the typography-obsessed late Steve Jobs. Spend the time to find a graphic designer to develop you logo – make sure you are truely proud of it. The test is that you are willing to show it to the head of universal music and confident they would be impressed with your individuality then you are there as long as you are also proud of it!
Your lyrical content, your biographies, you album intentions and your press interviews or public relations all contribute to your branding and to have it clearly established who you are and what you represent will mean that you are much more confident in what you do.
Theo Smith
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