Millenium Music Marketing Consultants

Memo

To: Mr. I. Glauer Bruce, President

From: Allison Gough, Director of Marketing

Date: 04/25/2001

Re: Marketing strategies for the Blues Music genre

As the director of marketing, I have been extensively researching the blues buying habits of consumers and devising ideas on how to increase the sales. Here are some of my ideas below, please look them over and get back with me on what you think.

Product Definition: What is “The Blues”? Blues musicians sing about their life, hardships and their hopes. The blues genre is not just a form of entertainment. Rather it is an emotional state, and thus it is aptly named Blues. Songs are predominantly filled with despair, reflecting the lives of those who first sang them. Yet the blues does not deepen the despair, it serves as a release, healing both the singer and the listener.

Target Market: The current target market for blues music is predominantly males’ from the ages of 25-44. 61% of active male music consumers say they “like” or “strongly like” the blues. But, last year only 14% of the active music consumers purchased a blues record, while only 7% attended a blues show.

Environment: We live in a very dynamic environment, and the music consumer is constantly picking up and listening to new styles of music. The music industry is changing, how people listen to music is changing, how people purchase music is changing. And, understandably, how people promote and market music and the artists that create music is changing.

Problem: One BIG problem with the blues music genre’s size is the target market, its too small. In order to increase the sales of blues music, we need to increase the size of the target market. Another problem with the ‘Blues’ is not enough exposure, advertising, or promotion. But, once we have reached out and targeted a new, larger market, then we can concentrate on making the blues CD’s, video’s, and concerts more available to its listeners. With new music consumers listening to the ‘Blues’, we will raise more revenue for promotion and advertising.

Innovation #1: With increasing the target market, I was looking at targeting a younger age group. The Blues originated from African Americans. If we can try and convince the educators, this may work!!! Music is very influential in the lives of children and teens. With studying the blues, it can give students a deeper understanding of the rural and urban African American culture. We could develop a program to help teachers educate students during Black History Month. Students would learn and understand the evolution of the musical structure of the blues. They would also learn how blues music expressed individual emotions, which in turn, would help and encourage students in expressing their own emotions. Music reflects the feelings of the times. Through the blues, student listeners can feel what happened in those times and also can apply it to the world today. This would have a large impact on the sale of ‘Blues’ because we will have created a new, larger target market…..youngsters and teens.

Promotion: We could promote this idea through meetings with the Board of Educators. Schools could pay for this program through PTA money available at every school for the enrichment of the school and its students.

Innovation #2: An increasing trend in music today is the merging of two different types and styles of singers, getting together and writing a song. This trend is exposing a lot of unknown or not very popular artists with well-known, very popular artists. We can merge ‘Blues’ with Rap/HipHop. The Blues originated in the African American culture as well as Rap/HipHop. Rap/HipHop music sales have risen in sales 2.1 million dollars from 1999 to 2000. This style of music is a rising interest among music consumers. We can find a well-known, popular rapper and a blues singer, get them to compose a song together, and we’ve got a hit on the top 40 in no time. This could lead to more exposure of the blues music on radio stations with a whole new target market. When the music consumers hear a new song, and like the rhythm, beat, and soul in the new music artist with the popular rapper, then they may want to purchase the whole CD of the newly, exposed artist, the blues artist that is.

Promotion: When the famous Rap artist goes on tour, the blues musician could attend and they could perform their song together during the shows. At the concerts, fans would receive a free copy of a CD with various blues artists. This advertising and promotion of blues would lead to increased exposure of the blues and increase the number of listeners, which in turn, will soon turn into fans.

Our goal is to better understand who the blues music fan is along with increasing the number of fans. By targeting different age groups, and not just focusing on the current market, we can increase the sale of the blues music. Armed with this new market of blues music consumers, we can begin to offer new and current members better ways in which to maximize their resources of “The Blues”.