 For most musicians it's easy to get inspired to write a song, but when it comes to figure out how to write a marketing plan, musicians seem to hope it will fall down from the skies and all will work out. Most people are never taught how to get inspired, but there's deliberate actions that you can take to get great ideas so you can do good by the great songs you're trying to help spread as far as you can. In this video I'm going to describe how I get inspired to write a marketing plan so that the songs I work on go as far as they can. Hi, I'm Jesse Kennan and this is Muse Formation. It's easy to lose sight on what you should be considering when you are thinking about marketing your music. Oftentimes you are too close to it and it's hard to imagine what would even be good marketing for it. Even more common is people don't understand that getting inspired is a conscious practice. After writing a book on creativity, I came to understand that getting inspired matters for everything, not just art, and the practice is nearly the same no matter what you're working on. But whether you're trying to develop a music video, podcast, contest, or whatever you can think of, this method works every time. So whatever we're trying to think about marketing anything, we're asking ourselves one question. What will get my fans telling someone else about my music? Now there's a few caveats with this thought. The reason we care the most about what fans will tell someone else about is that that is the most powerful endorsement. While many people think blogs or social media coverage is super important, what's way more important is what gets people talking because they won't just text it to a friend, they will also post about it on social media and forums and that's where music discovery actually happens in 2020. And remember, if fans are talking, blogs and other press people will start talking. The second idea to remember is while marketing ideas can be multifaceted, when they involve hearing your song, they are way more effective. Of course with Canon's law caveat that it is obvious the song needs to be good. So anytime you can think of marketing where people actually hear your song, that marketing is superior to nearly all other marketing ideas since otherwise the methods don't stick and create fans who last. So now that we know the parameters of what we are trying to think about, how do you get ideas for marketing? Step one. So the first thing I like to do is look through a list of my favorite musicians. In a previous video I talked about writing down what you appreciate about your favorite musicians and this list can be super helpful for this and that video is linked below if you want to watch it. Sometimes I look through my Spotify library or playlist of every record I like and then write down the musicians who do cool things in marketing and think about what I've seen them do before that's excited me and then I make a list of all those cool marketing ideas I've seen them do. I then add to that list as I think of things but I continually ask myself two questions while I look at these artist's names. What have they done that I've told my friends about? What was exciting that they did that maybe you want to tell other people about it? And what do I enjoy about this artist? Let's always remember marketing is even controversial statements made in interviews, using a new instrument live, doing something striking and new in a video. It can be so many different things that get people talking about you so look at your favorite artist and get inspired and consider what made you excited and how you can inspire that excitement and others. If you want to get inspired by this, the users of my forum have a huge list of the best marketing ideas they have seen. If you need ideas for what you can do, it's linked in the description. Step two, look at your SWOT analysis. In a previous video, we talked about doing a SWOT analysis so that you could be reminded of what you should focus on for your marketing. Since we want to play up your strengths and diminish your weaknesses, it's important while you're doing this brainstorm to think of what is going to do best for your music while considering your SWOT analysis. Step three, get in the mindset. There's this book on marketing called Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday that I have an audiobook copy of that is under three hours. I put this on while I look at the lists I've made for inspiration, as well as the SWOT analysis. What I like about this book is its fast and simple explanation of the ideas you should be considering for marketing. I've probably listened to it 20 times because it puts me in an idea generating mindset since in order to perspire or put a creation of the world, we need to get inspired. I find this book super inspiring. His other book on PR, Trust Me I'm Lying, is another great one. Step four, go for a walk. So this goes against every fiber of my being seeing as I'm a real indoorsy type, but it's scientifically proven that going outside helps inspire ideas. Since I live in New York City, I go for a walk either with that audiobook on or some music. I keep thinking about the marketing ideas that have inspired me in the past. I also like this type of inspiration because you can turn your phone on and have unobstructed thoughts and really focus for a while. Since changing your modality is so important, we need the internet to get inspired, but sometimes it helps to be in private. So much of getting inspired for this stuff can be looking things up on the internet, but having unobstructed thinking time to what Cal Newport calls deep work is crucial since it's a different type of thinking. Step five, brainstorm it. In a previous video, we talked about the hub and spoke method. But in short, what you have been doing here is working in your spoke alone, and now is the time to take ideas you have to bounce off your friends, your team, bandmates, family, or whoever. See what they say and then tweak your ideas considering their feedback and brainstorming with them. Step six, refine and refine. The thing I tell everybody about in this stage that gets the most pushback is this part, because you're all a bunch of lazy musicians. Once you have some great ideas, it's now time to write 20. Yes, I said 20 variations on how you can do this great idea. This method comes from Alex Osborn, the inventor of brainstorming. He talked about that having 20 different variations will make sure that you've vetted everything and make sure your execution is flawless. Since we've all been a part of things that we thought would go well, and then they go bad, this vetting will help you get to the best ideas possible and be exhaustive in your thoughts. That's it. I hope this gets you inspired. I'd love to hear about what's made you inspired and how you get inspired to write marketing in the comments. Thanks. That's it. Am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you. Since I want to answer them, so leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video, and if you did, please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos. Since I'm going to be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything. Playlist or con artists, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you want to learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts, or anything else I do, head to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing. If you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music, and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.