Content Generation: How Music Brands Can Overcome a Content Shortage

Keeping your content pipeline full.

Am I guessing this right? You’re a Director of Marketing at a music brand and your challenge is to create a content/social strategy for your brand. Sounds simple enough but, at the same time, you’re probably dealing with artist relations, meeting with media outlets or your PR/creative agencies, trying to manage your internal creative team and setting up for the next major trade show. At this point the thought of stepping into a content program feels pretty overwhelming. Sound about right?

Fear not, you can sustain an ongoing content strategy with a few simple steps and some help from the people around you.

Assemble a Team

Fueling your content program is a full-time gig. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The good news is you don’t have to do it yourself. Odds are pretty good that there’s a pretty deep well of content ideas within your organization. Your marketing team is the first step, but have you considered adding the following members to your team?

• Technicians/R&D/Builders: These folks know the nuts and bolts of your products from the good to the bad and probably have a few ideas about the kinds of questions your audience might need answers to.
• Sales Team: These guys interact with dealers every day, and if anyone knows the kinds of questions or content your audience is looking for, it’s your resellers. Have your sales team reach out to their contacts and ask what kinds of content dealers they think they could use to help improve sell-through of your product.
• Ambassadors: Your endorsed players, like your technicians, know the ins and outs of your product. Tap into their knowledge and talent for some truly engaging and credible content.
• Your Audience: Why not ask the source? A passionate audience follows music brands on social spaces. If you ask them what kind of content would be helpful to them, you may fill up your idea bucket pretty quickly.

Map Your Content

Once you’ve assembled your team, you’ll need to understand what questions your audience is trying to answer. A good way to go about this is following the sales funnel. Chart a path from the awareness phase all the way to advocacy, and try to address the needs from your audience at every level. Identify what problem they are trying to solve at each stage, and find a way to address those problems.

Brainstorm

To keep ideas in the queue, it will help to bring your team together on a regular basis to brainstorm on content ideas. Remember to keep it brief, though. Thirty-minute sessions should be enough to generate a few solid ideas without losing interest or making it feel like a chore.

While there’s no magic bullet in the quest for perfect content, following these simple steps will help kick-start and keep your content bucket full of ideas to experiment with.