Branding Yourself as a Musician: 10 practical tips

Branding is the process of creating an identity for yourself as a music artist. It serves the purpose of making you stand out from the rest via a unique look, sound and style. It becomes easy for people to identify or recognize you on stage or in public when your branding is stellar!

With a strong and consistent brand, you can effectively show people who you are in a way that commands their attention

The most reasonable way to do this is by using visuals and words to express who you are as an artist and what makes your music special. 

You can use these tools to build up an audience who will love your music long after they stop listening!

From conceiving your visual identity to defining your brand values and voice, here’s my guide to your Personal branding as a musician.

What is Branding?

Branding is a marketing strategy that aims to create a unique identity for your business. It’s about creating a consistent image for yourself and building trust with your audience.
Branding is about telling your story, explaining who you are and why people should hire or buy from you.

Your brand is your identity.

• Your brand is who you are. 
• It is what people think of when they see your name in print and hear it on the radio or television. 
• It is how other people perceive events and products associated with you. It is the overall impression they get from knowing anything about who you are.
• Your brand should be able to stand alone without any additional information
• It should be self-sustaining,
• It should provide value for its audience by fulfilling a need in their lives.

7 Reasons Why Branding yourself is so important

There is no coca cola without its red logo in script text. The red colour in its branding elicits confidence in he who drinks it. while the script typeface “Coca-Cola” text expresses the enjoyment you get while drinking coke. Coke’s objective is to sell experience not a product hence the inclusion of happiness in its overall branding.

Anybody would recognise a bottle of coke from distance away thanks to its branding!

That’s why branding matters: it offers you an opportunity to make your work more memorable. In this article, I will show you how branding can help you be more successful at whatever you are doing. Let’s dive right in!

Branding helps you be more successful at whatever you are doing.

Brand identity is a way for companies to show their customers who they are and what they stand for. It’s a powerful tool that helps build loyalty, trust and recognition from potential customers. And when done well, branding can also make you more memorable—which means that people will remember your brand even if they don’t buy anything from you directly!

Branding tells people what to expect from you.

Your brand is a promise you make to your audience. It communicates what they should expect from you. It confuses people if you randomly change aspects of it. This is why consistency is important for brand recognition and trust.

Branding gives clarity to your goals and purpose.

Branding helps you stay focused on your goals because it gives you a clear purpose. It is only a brand if you know what it stands for and how you want others to see it

Brand clarity also helps with communication because it allows people to understand what type of company or individual they are dealing with. 

Branding shows you how to differentiate yourself from others.

Branding is about differentiation. Differentiation is attained through the process of making your work unique and memorable. Being unique allows you to stand out from the crowd. 

Branding creates a sense of credibility for your customers by showing them that you are different (even if it’s subtle).

Differentiation helps you become more credible. After all, your customers know that they can trust you with their information because you’ve earned their trust over time through quality service or products—or both!

Branding helps you understand your target audience.

Branding will force you to know what your potential customers like, who they are and how they feel about certain things. This is to enable you to serve them better.

Branding will help you market yourself better

In a crowded marketplace, branding helps you stand out.

When you have a well-branded company, customers can tell that they’re getting more than just an average product or service. They know that they are getting something better, and this creates value for them as well as other customers who may be considering your brand.

It’s important to distinguish yourself from competitors by developing an identity that differentiates what makes your business unique from other businesses in the same industry.

You need to find the “why” behind why people should choose your business over others.

Branding establishes credibility

Branding is about communicating your values, being consistent with what you say and do, and building trust. It helps people remember you.

Brand loyalty is one of the most powerful forms of marketing in today’s world because it leads to repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals that help drive sales at a much faster rate than any other form of advertising or marketing promotion.

10 Steps to Branding Yourself as a Musician or Music Artist

As you’ve probably already noticed, branding is a process. It’s about consistency, authenticity and uniqueness—and standing out from the crowd.

To brand yourself as a musician, you have to stay true to yourself while also being original enough that people will know who they’re listening to when they hear your music or see your name on social media. That means being consistent in what makes up your overall brand (your message).

Below are 10 practical steps to help you build your music brand..

Create your name

Decide on what you want to be called as an artist. When it comes to branding yourself, your name is the first and most important thing. 

From booking shows to designing merch to establishing yourself in your local scene; your name goes with you everywhere. 

Some people prefer to use a variant of their real names and that’s also a good approach. Whatever you decide to be called, make sure it reflects your music persona and has a memorable factor. There are no rules so choose wisely!

Research your name on google

After deciding on an artist name for your music brand, it is important to research your name on google to find out if it’s already taken. 

Using a name that already exists will make it difficult for you to succeed in creating an ideal music brand for yourself. Your name will always be mixed up with that of the other guy!

Imagine googling your name only to find another artist’s music popping up in the SERP! That’s bad for anybody’s business

Design a logo 

When it comes to branding, one of the most important aspects is picking an eye-catching avatar and logo that conveys your sound. Your Artist logo could be a unique way to write your name or a special stylistic type format to help people remember you. It should be used across all your promotional assets

We highly recommend hiring the services of a skilled graphic designer to ensure your logo truly represents you.

Find a unique look(dressing code, hairstyle, onstage and offstage look)

Finding a unique look could be hard. This particular aspect could get expensive very quickly. A practical approach is the only way that could keep expenses to a minimum here. It is also advisable to break this into simple stages that accommodate artist growth.

A look that communicates the core values of the artist and persona is vital! such a look could always be expatiated upon as you climb up the ladder to success.

Simply put:

 Find a unique look that matches your music and makes you stand out. That can mean dressing differently onstage and offstage, wearing an outfit with lots of bright colours, wearing your clothing designs, having a signature hairstyle, etc. What matters is that you find a look that makes your brand recognizable 

Hire a stylist

There are only two ways to get anything done: Either doing it yourself or paying one else with the skillset to do it for you. Hiring a stylist to figure out a unique look for you would yield wonderful results and save you time.

Stylists are working experts in the business of “seeking attention” and you won’t be their first rodeo.

Find Your Signature Sound

It should be every artist’s dream to have a signature sound. A signature sound is a factor that makes people perceive your music as different. It pays very little when you make yourself a copycat musician!

 By thinking about what makes your music unique from the rest, you’ll be able to improve on what’s making it stick out so much. 

Lyrics, choice of melody, and fusing of different sonic palates all contribute to having a unique sound. To accomplish this takes time and years of practice. My advice is to be patient while working towards attaining this goal. Here is a detailed post on how to find your signature sound 

Establish an Internet presence

It is crucial for any artist, especially those looking to build a more lasting career, to establish an internet presence and create their own personal brand.

An artist’s website can help you build a befitting internet presence.

For any music artist, a website provides a unique way to showcase their music, merchandise and tour dates and your electronic press kit (check out my post on how to craft a stunning electronic presskit that makes a good first impression). 

It is recommended that your site be unique and not just another WordPress site with stock images from google. It is easy for the world to find you through your website with a proper SEO strategy implemented.

 It is also recommended that you get started by giving your website at least one-year exclusivity before going out of your way to building your presence on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook. After all, what’s the point of building your social media channels while your website suffers

Establish a social media presence

Social media channels can be used to advertise your music, and share cool performances and other content that you release, and it allows you a platform for sharing messages directly with your fans.  

A social media presence is also important because it can help you to create a brand identity for yourself. 

Promoting yourself through the channels of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., along with professional-looking photography which catches attention and reflects the quality of your work can help you build followers and get booked for shows more quickly. In short: establish yourself on social media by crafting a specific look that complements your style as an artist.

Establish a video presence

Youtube is your friend here and can help you build a decent search engine presence for your artist brand. People go to youtube because they want visual entertainment and every artist should take advantage of such a need.

Also considering google owns a massive chunk of the internet space and is also the owner of youtube. Focusing a portion of your attention on video content surrounding your music can bring you great benefits.

Video also gives a chance for people to know your music more, how good of a performer you are etc.

Find influencers to work with 

Find out which celebrities you might like on social media. Your goal is not necessarily to get more followers from the celebrity’s followers!

Instead, find people who will be interested in the content you provide. Music is universal and influencers can help amplify your message without turning off their fan base. Of course, that would only be possible if your music is likeable!

Conclusion

I hope this guide has helped you to understand the importance of branding yourself as a musician. It’s not just about getting people to know who you are, but also about creating an identity that will look good on television and in magazines. Regularly posting on your website and your social media channels can go a long way to helping you build a community around your music