Music retail is a highly competitive industry.
Each music store owner must compete with other in-person stores and the many online outlets that offer musical instruments and accessories. In order to gain customers and find success in this landscape, you need to strategically market your music store.
Putting effort into marketing a music store leads to higher sales, improved customer retention, and overall growth. But with so many channels to choose from, it can be difficult to know how to market a music store.
In this blog, we’ll share seven steps to begin marketing your store, so you can increase brand awareness and draw in new customers.
Step 1: Define Your Target Audience
When deciding how to market your music store, the first step is to understand who your customers are. Knowing what demographics are most likely to come into your store and make purchases allows you to choose the right marketing channels to reach them.
For example, if you sell musical instruments that are traditionally part of school bands, like trumpets and clarinets, you’ll likely encounter many middle and high school students who are interested in renting or purchasing these instruments. To increase awareness among this audience, consider how to reach the students as well as their parents, who are likely the final decision makers and the ones to make the purchase.
Your customer base can be segmented in various ways, including:
- Age
- Musical instrument preference
- Price range
- Skill level
Conducting marketing research helps you determine the most effective methods of advertising to each of these segments.
Step 2: Develop a Strong Brand Identity
A unique and memorable brand identity helps with brand recognition. A well-designed logo, appealing color scheme, and unified brand aesthetic draw customers to your business and keeps them coming back.
Every aspect of your business contributes to your brand, including the interior and exterior of your store, as well as your website. Choose uniform colors and styles for these avenues to keep a consistent experience.
The quality of your products and customer service also contributes to your brand. Offering high-quality musical instruments and accessories, and being reliable in addressing customer concerns when they arise, helps you build brand trust and generate positive word-of-mouth in your community.
Related Read: Retail Customer Experience Best Practices for Music Store Owners
Step 3: Optimize Your Online Presence
You need to create a website for your business so customers can find you. The best websites are visually appealing and easy to navigate. Your website should clearly state your store’s hours of operation and address, and may even house an online store where your products can be purchased.
To boost your website’s effectiveness, utilize search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the practice of researching highly searched terms on search engines like Google, and incorporating these terms in your site to increase its searchability. As you use this strategy, focus on terms that relate to your store and that can be naturally incorporated into your website.
Offering online sales greatly expands your customer base, especially if you’re able to ship products to customers who live far away. Music Shop 360’s all-in-one point of sale (POS) platform includes e-commerce tools to help you set up your online store and fulfill customers’ orders. The more accessible your products are to your customers, the more marketable your business is.
Related Read: Building a Strong E-Commerce Presence for Music Stores: A Comprehensive Guide
Step 4: Leverage Social Media Marketing
Social media continues to increase in popularity, especially with younger shoppers. Establishing a presence on social media platforms helps you increase awareness of your music store and connect with customers. What platforms you choose should depend on the audience you’re trying to reach.
When you’ve determined which demographics you’re targeting, do research on the most popular social media platforms to see where they can be found. For younger audiences, TikTok and Instagram are useful platforms. For an older audience, you can utilize Facebook and LinkedIn.
To keep users interested, create engaging content to post on your social media channels. Fill your channels with visuals of your store, the musical instruments and accessories you sell, and other recognizable brand imagery. You could create behind-the-scenes videos, customer testimonials, or tutorials for how to use and maintain various musical instruments.
Posting interesting content keeps your customer engaged and helps new customers stumble upon your page. To gain even more visibility for your brand, consider investing in advertising on social media. Offering promotions and special deals in advertisements can help catch users’ eyes and create greater interest.
Related Read: Selling on Social Media for Your Small Business
Step 5: Create Email Marketing Campaigns
Utilizing email marketing can help you keep customers engaged with your brand, and creating and adding to an email list helps you expand your reach. Begin compiling an email list by capturing emails at checkout, and then grow the list by offering a loyalty program associated with customer emails.
As you craft email messages, remember to create content that provides value to your customers. Send them special offers and discounts, news about the music industry, and tips for how to care for instruments. You may even try personalizing emails — you might send a customer a coupon after a purchase or a special deal on their birthday. This makes customers more likely to engage with the emails.
Step 6: Host Events and Workshops
In-person events draw people into your music store that may not have visited it otherwise, allowing potential customers to browse your inventory. Quality events require careful planning. Host music lessons and workshops at your store, or invite local musicians and bands for performances.
In-person events help you build community and increase customer loyalty. They present an opportunity to introduce yourself to potential customers, tell your brand story, and build relationships. To maximize attendance to these events, make sure to publicize them on a variety of marketing channels, including social media and your website. You can also post paper flyers on community boards around your store.
Related Read: Teaching Music Lessons at Music Shop Retail Stores: Bringing in Extra Income
Step 7: Measure and Adjust Your Marketing Strategies
A great marketing strategy isn’t set in stone. Your strategy should adapt and change over time based on your music store’s performance. Don’t be afraid to try a variety of marketing strategies, but pay close attention to which strategies generate the most success, and which ones deliver lesser results.
Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) helps you measure the success of your marketing efforts. These could include sales, profit, social media engagement, and website traffic. Keeping an eye on these numbers helps you to know which strategies are working for your store so you can continue using them.
A good point of sale system keeps track of these numbers for you. Music Shop 360’s all-in-one POS platform records sales data, website traffic, and other KPIs, and provides you with detailed reports to inform your marketing strategy. As you analyze your reports, you can find the customized marketing strategy that works the best for your store.
How To Market a Music Store: Next Steps
Developing your music store’s marketing strategy begins with defining who your target market is and building a unique brand to serve them. Once you’ve made these key decisions, create a consistent experience and utilize a variety of channels to deliver it to your audience, such as your website, social media, and email campaigns.
A multi-faceted marketing approach allows you to expand your reach and determine which strategies are most effective for your music store. Tailor your strategy to your business’ strengths and the characteristics of your customer base. As you begin to implement the strategies you find to be the most effective, you’ll see more customer engagement and growth in revenue.
Music Shop 360 offers a robust selection of marketing tools. In addition to cutting-edge point of sale functionality, the system can help you with your website, e-commerce, email campaigns, data analytics and reporting, and more. Schedule a demo today to see how Music Shop 360 can grow your business.