5 WAYS TO IMPROVE EVERY MARKETING MESSAGE YOU SEND

Marketing can be a mysterious thing for musicians, but the secret to it is simple: nearly every professional marketing message follows the same

formula. And it's one you can use for your own music to help boost your marketing efforts.

There are four components to the formula, and you can remember them

easily with the AIDA acronym. This stands for: ATTENTION, INTEREST, DECISION, and ACTION. We'll go through all four of these below and what they mean, and there's one extra thing you need to do at the start. Here's

how to implement AIDA in your own marketing:

1. Choose an action that you want them to take.

Marketing messages always an action you're trying to get the audience to take so you need to be clear about what you want them to do while you're putting together the message. For example, you might want your fans to buy your merch, come to a show, or sign up on your mailing list. Decide what you want them to do before

following the next steps of the AIDA sequence.

2. GET THEIR ATTENTION.

You can't get the attention of your music's target audience until you

know who and where they are. Only then can you put your message

in front of them and gets them to notice. If you're not sure about

who makes up your audience

USE SELF-IDENTIFIERS

Try starting your marketing messages with the words that your target audience uses to identify themselves. Are they

Metalheads? Ravers? Wrestling fans? Their eyes will snag on any message that includes words that are part of their identity.

This works well with social media. Of course, the most direct self-identifier is a person's own name, but you can only do that in mass mailings and newsletters.

• Use eye-popping colors, fonts, and graphics.

Words aren't the only thing that grab people's attention. Use all of the dimensions of a visual message to get noticed.

• Make the message stand out.

Find ways to make the actual content of the message stand out compared to other messages that the audience usually sees.

For example, try placing messages at sites and areas where that kind of communication is not normally found. To get some ideas on how to do this,

• TEASE THEM.

A tease compels people to want to read on to find out more.

For example, blog entries with titles like "5 Ways To Improve every Marketing Message You Send" causes readers to want

to find out what those 5 ways are and satisfy their curiosity.

3. CATCH THEIR INTEREST.

Getting someone's attention is one thing, but if they don't read on

your marketing won't be effective. Use these techniques to maintain

their interest:

• Make targeted messages.

The more the message is aimed at the person reading it, the

better chance you have of holding their interest. Choose the

smallest, most niche audience for each marketing message.

4. GET THEM TO MAKE A DECISION.

Your message must make it easy for them to decide that they should take the action you determined I'm in step 1. Decisions can be

made easier by doing the following:

• Make the decision simple and singular.

The decision needs to be simple, otherwise, if they have to

think about it, you'll confuse and lose them. For example, a

straightforward decision is to: click a link, enter their email, or buy your song. Also, the decision should be for just one action.

If you give them options, it increases the chances that they will get confused, and won't do any of them. Don't make them think!

• Make the decision reversible.

People are afraid of commitment. Because of this, most every web-based service starts with a free trial where they ask for

your credit card where you can cancel within the trial period.

Use this technique and try to find ways to tell them that they can always change their mind. For example, tell them they can always unsubscribe from your email list if they want to. With music encourage them to listen to a sample at a music store

and then make sure the store includes an easy-to-click buy button to capture that impulse buy.

• Make the decision compelling.

Limited time, limited quantity, or limited opportunities make the decision far more likely. Also, try to give the message a value. For example, adding a link where they can get a discount for "only a limited time" means that the message also might be more attention-grabbing and interesting and they

lose something if they ignore it. This also helps all the other AIDA parts of your marketing message.

5. CALL TO ACTION

Do the following to increase the likelihood they'll take action to make all of this come together:

• Make the actions achievable.

If you try to get someone to buy something and they are on their mobile devices where they are in a bad position to whip out their credit card, your marketing message won't be effective. There's too much friction that prevents the purchase.

For example, a physical poster is not a great place to put a link

because there's another step of taking out phones or devices and typing it in. You should generally assume that every messages online is being seen on a mobile device.

• TELL THEM WHAT TO DO.

Don't assume that your audience knows how to do what's necessary The action message needs to direct them: "click this link", "become a patron", "subscribe to my channel", etc. Be direct and clear with your instructions

• MAKE THE ACTION STEP STAND OUT

Don't bury the action step under a lot of text or extraneous information While the other parts of AIDA require text, if you don't highlight the action, they might miss what they need to do.

This is where visual elements come in to help it stand out.

For example, graphics artists may use advancing colors

underneath buttons to attract people's eyes to the buttons that they need to push.

One way to improve at your marketing is to be aware of the marketing armed at you. Now that you're aware of this, notice the components of AIDA in the marketing messages you see. Determine what messages work on you and why. Then borrow these and apply them to your own messages.