Music Marketing Using Guerilla Strategies

Music marketing is a crucial component for any music artist trying to make a place for themselves in the increasingly competitive music industry. Among many digital and physical music promotion strategies, guerilla music marketing strategies may come off as conventional and outdated, but they still guarantee results. 

In this article, we will answer these questions of yours:

1. What is Guerilla Music Marketing?
   
   
2. What are its advantages?
   
   
3. What are its disadvantages?
   
   
4. Seven Guerilla Music Marketing Strategies
   
   
5. What is our final say?

What is Guerilla Music Marketing?

Your social media marketing, promotional tactics that involve paid ads and sponsorship, and other prominently digital strategies are common. On the contrary, guerilla marketing is something that is completely new, out of the box, and experimental. It is more unconventional and that’s maybe why many artists term it as ‘risky.’ The element of surprise, and marketing strategies that are ‘unexpected,’ are its defining points. 

Pssst…come here: Guerilla music marketing today has a bigger space for creativity, given the internet and its endless possibilities. Earlier, these tactics were more or less physical promotional strategies, but there are guerilla marketing tactics that could be incorporated with your digital marketing plan for your music. 

Advantages of Guerilla Music Marketing

The very foundation of this strategy is to do something unexpected and unpredictable. That could work wonders for your music marketing as well. 

Budget Friendly 

One of the major components of any guerilla marketing strategy is that it is low cost. Unlike thousands of dollars you’d spend every year on marketing and music PR, guerilla marketing tactics shouldn’t and will not require such heavy investments. So there is zero financial loss. The strategy will show that whatever you are trying to sell has cost you way less and you should aim for a reaction close to ‘that’s not cheap, that’s just smart.’ 

Creative autonomy 

This strategy allows you to basically do anything, try anything, and be as experimental as possible. This doesn’t restrict you to certain set rules that marketing strategies generally have. It removes all limitations on the possibilities of doing something absolutely quirky and interesting. 

Pssst…come here: More often than not, artists tend to see what other people are trying to do with guerilla music marketing but keep in mind that it may not work the same way for you. A guerilla strategy that has worked wonders for a pop artist may not work well for an indie artist. While you have all the creative control you need, consider the genre of the music you make before you dive into something that has been tried and tested. 

Viral in a second 

The selling point for guerilla marketing is that if you hit it right, you are set! The strategy has the potential to go viral and completely change the numbers on your reach given you do it right and you do it at the right time. Once you go viral on one platform, let’s say on YouTube, music media, and people do the rest of the job - you will end up going viral on other platforms in less than a week. 

Closer engagement 

Guerilla marketing strategy has more room to utilize fan interactions, social channels, and other such mediums that will engage two parties, so a strategy that is usually one-sided communication - a banner or poster informing the fans that you have a show this weekend, becomes two way with guerilla marketing; it is no longer a marketing product, but a conversation between two entities - you and your followers/potential listeners. With guerilla music marketing, you get a chance to not just inform and communicate, but to interact which adds to your music brand. 

Disadvantages of Guerilla Music Marketing

Since it has to be very unpredictable, the results could be unexpected and backfire too. Here’s why you should think about all the possibilities. 

Risky 

We don’t mean your usual, every strategy is a hit or miss kind of risk. This is not risky in terms of financial returns, by risky, we mean that whatever you would be trying to sell, be it show tickets,  new releases, merchandise, or anything else, will directly affect your music brand. Suppose you want to host a flash mob for your new track. The colors of the costume are predominantly the colors of a rainbow. It wouldn’t be surprising that many would assume you have a social agenda - supporting the LGBTQ community even if you didn’t intend to. This could be received positively by the crowd or could be spun around your artist persona as well - the crowd’s perspective can change everything. 

You could come off as offensive 

This means that your messaging could be misinterpreted, or misjudged, and could make your product, whatever it may be at the moment, come off as rude and offensive. This has one strong repercussion - it could alienate a certain crowd completely from your target audience, even from your future advertising purposes. Some people may file cases, and get the authorities involved too, so your efforts may not only lead to a social issue but also a legal one. 

Pssst…come here: We recommend understanding the laws, rules, and regulations before employing a guerilla marketing strategy. A flash mob event in a mall would have totally different rules and such an occurrence in a restaurant will have different regulations. Always make sure that your strategy, especially if it involves public venues, does not have legal repercussions and is well within the set guidelines of the venue.

Lack of measurement 

Apart from the possibility of growing visibly prominent numbers, there is no way to measure the guerilla marketing results in a way we could otherwise do. The components that make up to one guerilla music marketing strategy may function as a whole sometimes, and sometimes as separate elements. So if it doesn’t work, you cannot pinpoint what exactly went wrong and where it went wrong. There are no parameters to understand the results of the strategy. If you are someone who likes to put things into math equations and figure stuff out, well, this would be a major problem. 

7 Guerilla Music Marketing Strategies

While the substance in every guerilla music marketing strategy is surprise and innovation - making each stand out on its own, we present 5 tactics you could start off with and build on - something to experiment with.

Flashmobs 

These aren’t new, especially with motion pictures that revolve around the idea of flash mobs. But getting a bunch of dancers who could dance for your brand new release or a spontaneous live performance at unexpected events such as weddings (something Maroon 5 did for the music video of Sugar), hospitals, colleges, and so on, can not only come off as surprising but also wholesome. You could definitely add your own twist to it, make it more you, but flashmobs have worked time and again, it depends on how you do it uniquely. 

Bumper Stickers

This is highly recommended for those of you who make rock and metal music because you can make brand images and album art covers that are more graphic and out there - easily leaving an imprint that could last. Bumper stickers wouldn’t cost much either.  Imagine lining up a bunch of cars in the signal that collectively read ‘I wanna be your vacuum cleaner’ - it instantly makes anyone behind the car go, ‘What?’ but the cars are playing the song, I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys out loud! The signal will allow enough time for the chorus to play too, so if you have to worry about anything, it is to line up your cars carefully and drive away once it’s green - you wouldn’t want to cause traffic. 

Reaction videos

No, we don’t mean making reaction videos on YouTube! If you have watched TikTok videos of some musicians, you may know where we are getting at. The idea is to sing the chorus or first verse of the brand-new track you will release the next day, to a close friend, someone from the family, or maybe even an ardent follower who has been trying to get in touch with you or interact with you, and capture their live reaction. It is wholesome, and there is an element of surprise, if it is genuinely good, that TikTok video can go viral and be reposted on other social media platforms by your own followers. The driving point here is to sing the first verse (works great for artists who make emo and R&B music), and a CTA (call to action) for the listeners to pre-save your song release on Spotify.

Fishbowl

The idea is to collaborate with a few local venue owners, preferably those who have previously worked with you on setting up your local scene, and arrange a bowl that would contain business cards of anyone who has sponsored or worked with those owners previously - could be corporate companies, other artists, and so on. You drop in your own business card and any customer who gets your card in the fishbowl is given a couple of free tickets to your next gig or would be selected to get a one-on-one fan meet with you. It would not only get you closer to your ardent followers but also bring in new listeners to your music as they would discover you through your business card. 

Pssst…come here: You are a musician, so make sure your business card isn’t like any other company card, and we don’t mean this by the physical appearance of the card, we mean by what is written on it. Something quirky, interesting, and bizarre will keep the customer interested in learning more than just shoving it away in the darkest corners of their purses or wallets. 

Street Art

Well, this is a tricky subject because you could get legally involved and charged for vandalizing property. So make sure you leave your music’s imprint in a place that won’t attract the attention of the local authorities. We don’t mean graffiti. But you could collaborate with an emerging artist or painter, and get a mural painted on the side of a venue or building that has permission to get a mural done or has supported your local gigs before. It could be your album name, your tagline, your band name, your album art, or anything that will stand out for those who walk or drive by. You could even combine this with other guerilla music marketing strategies and let it play out simultaneously for a bigger impact. 

Surprise backstage tours

Select a bunch of people from your audience of a live show, and offer them a backstage tour - it will be completely unexpected, totally unpaid for, and guess what - the ones who are selected do the rest of the job - capture videos and post it on their social media. You could do this periodically too - something that will add to your music brand image; ‘oh that’s so Adele.’ This will also give you a chance to showcase yourself as a person, apart from your music persona - making your fans and followers more relatable and closer to you.

Low Budget Party 

A great venue, your music blasting, food, and drinks are all it takes. We recommend you make the party extremely secretive and anonymous - that is, the people who get invited are carefully selected, fans, contemporaries, and sponsorers, and they do not know whose party is it, until you show up (late, obviously), and do the big reveal with your music. This works great for those artists who make pop, afro beats, and dance music. You could decide what the theme of the party is and even make rules on color schemes and costumes - coordinate everything that will make perfect sense when you make the big announcement - be it a brand new album release, the launch of a new merch, and so on. The secrecy and the element of surprise is the defining point of this guerilla music marketing strategy. 

What is our final say?

It is definitely a hit or miss, guerilla music marketing may not work all the time for all the artists out there. But there is no harm in trying but on smaller scales. The risk will be minimized and you will be better able to analyze what seemed to work and what you shouldn’t continue to do. You wouldn’t fully know if you didn’t try :)

We at GreaseRelease, have a bunch of curators on our network who are looking for new & exciting music to push on their massive playlists. If you make music and want to reach a wider audience, check out our submission platform and get a chance to reach millions of listeners! Submit your tracks now! 

 

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