The Business Language Every Composer Should Know Before Posting Another Reel

The one thing nobody talks about being a composer is that to be a composer is to be a small business. The creating music part is talked about constantly, but the business part is often neglected and ignored with the hope that we will get successful enough for someone else to worry about that on our behalf one day. It is not just important that we create the art, but we also have to market it, sell it, and attract interest in what we do. And so a lot of incredibly talented composers end up invisible, not because their work isn't good enough, but because they never learned how to get it in front of the right people. Marketing, advertising, PR: these words get used interchangeably, but they mean very different things, and confusing them leads to a lot of wasted effort. So let's sort them out.

Marketing is a Strategy

Marketing is essentially deciding what to say, who to say it to, and how to make people want what you’re offering. This can be a whole range of things from posting on social media to hosting large scale events or other in person activations. Marketing is the overall strategy of what you are putting out and why.

There are various specialized subsets of marketing focusing on a specific aspect of a marketing strategy. Many small businesses and start ups focus on just one or two of these channels until they can hire people to take care of additional ones. These include: social media/content marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing, inbound marketing, and more.

For most composers starting out, I'd argue content marketing (video, social, written) is the highest-leverage place to focus first. It compounds over time, it costs nothing but effort, and it lets your personality and process do the selling for you. But the honest answer is that the right channel depends on who you're trying to reach. Scoring for film means you need directors to find you credible. Being a songwriter means you want to appeal to the masses. The strategy should follow the relationship you're trying to build - not the other way around.

Advertising vs marketing

So with that all being said you may be asking, “what is the difference between advertising and marketing? Aren’t they the same thing then?”

To which I’d respond kind of… but not really! To make an analogy, marketing is rectangles and advertising is squares. All squares by definition are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. That is to say that when we engage in advertising, a specific sub-type of marketing, we are still marketing. But not all marketing is advertising.

Advertising is the PAID promotion of your product, service, or business. Think a commercial, a billboard, a full page in a magazine, or even sponsorships in your content (a great revenue source for artists by the way!). Marketing is the overall strategy. Advertising is one tool you use inside of the strategy in order to get your message in front of people. Since you are paying for this space, you get full control of the message.

This leaves us with our last of the three: PR, or public relations

Public Relations

PR is incredibly powerful for every artist, brand, and business. PR focuses on reputation, authority, and credibility while also taking advantage of relationships with the media, communities, and the public. A term we often use to describe PR is “earned media”, this is because you can not pay for it. Earned media has to be, well, earned! This is usually in the form of a story being written about you, someone wanting to interview you on a podcast or add you to their panel. Press coverage is an incredibly powerful needle mover, especially for artists, because you are no longer talking to your usual audience but instead borrowing someone else’s authority and credibility and talking to theirs!

What’s awesome about PR is you not only are able to do it TODAY but totally possible to do without a large firm or agency behind you - though those firms have pre-existing relationships that help them get their stories out there - you are more than capable of getting press coverage yourself with a little elbow grease and hard work.

PR is something I'm actively building into my own career right now: pitching articles, pursuing panel spots at festivals, looking for podcasts where the audience overlaps with the directors and brand owners I want to reach. I'll be sharing what works and what doesn't here, but the point is you don't need a publicist or a firm to start. You need a clear sense of what you do, a compelling angle, and the willingness to reach out. That's more than most composers are doing which means the bar to stand out is lower than you think.

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