5 Marketing Lessons I Learned from Band

This is a guest post by Corey Freeman from Writer7- a new blog she started, that focuses on writing tips. If you wish to guest post just use the contact page.

For those of you that don’t know me, I am a trumpet player. Actually, I happen to be first chair, best at my school which has the best band program in the district. Pretty awesome, huh? However, I do more than just play groovy tunes – I also learn about marketing. I try to learn everything I can from personal experiences, and band has been a big one. Here are some marketing lessons that I’ve learned from my band program:

Get Involved or Nobody Will Notice You

There are some kids in band who will go in, play for four years, and graduate knowing they’ve done nothing to move up from the position they’re in, and that’s alright. However, I’m the kind of girl that wants first chair in all bands, an executive officer position, and the trust of the band director to get something done. And guess what position I’m in right now?

To get people to notice you, you have to be ambitious in your campaigns. Don’t simply go from blog to blog, commenting randomly. Become a top commentator, a member of the month, or a well-known digg + stumble user. Pick your poison and drink it all down – involvement leads to perks you can’t even imagine.

Know Your Resources

When planning fundraisers for band, we have to think about our target market. If we want a lot of volunteers for a big project, we go to the marching band for help. If we want to rep our band program and raise school spirit, we go to the jazz band or the drumline.

Knowing who to go to when you want something done is extremely important. The same goes for marketing. Who will you go to for an amazing sales page, or a one-in-a-million design? How will your personal branding and promotion affect your overall program?

Sell Something People Want

In the band program, we once sold “band boxers.” Even though 80% of our buyers were girls in the band, our schwag sold well. Why? Because we gave the people what they wanted, and they wanted band boxers.

When it comes down to marketing, you want to meet your customers’ wants and needs. What problems are they facing and how do you solve them? Marketing is all about getting the right product to the right person, be it medicine to the sick, or boxers with flutes on them to people who don’t have boxers with flutes on them.

Present Yourself Well – Focus on Personal Branding

In band, if someone insults you, you say “thank you, we work very hard.” If someone calls your mother a bleepin’ bleeping bleep, you say “thank you, we work very hard.” Imagine the kind of image that gains us, as opposed to the image we would have if we said, say, “fork you!”

Your personal brand is a huge part of marketing, because you want people to trust you. When you’re the marketer who handles himself professionally, gets things done, and doesn’t let bad days sway him, people will work with you, and your image will grow itself.

It’s Not About Beating the Competition

Even though we have the best band program in our district, a quick bus ride to Fort Mill is all it takes to put us in our place. Do we rock? Of course. Are we the best in the country? Heck no. As long as we grow every year, who cares?

If someone is better than you, there’s not much you can do about it. This was a guest post by Corey Freeman from Kiwidia. Corey manages blogs such as blogging bear – more than the bear minimum in blogging tips.

The only person you can truly beat out is yourself. Setting and breaking your own goals will take you to new heights. As long as your profits and customer base grows, who cares if Google is bigger than you?

It’s a great thing to learn skills from your life experiences. What marketing lessons have you learned from your life?

No related posts.

Tagged as: Band Director, Campaigns, Commentator, Drumline, Executive Officer, Freeman, Fundraisers, Groovy Tunes, Jazz Band, Kind Of Girl, Marching Band, Officer Position, One In A Million, Personal Experiences, Poison, School Spirit, Schwag, Target Market, Trumpet Player, Writing Tips