BA (Hons) Music Marketing

Music is creative; it’s a sector of performance, talent and entertainment. But it’s also a money-making industry, powered by everyone from huge international companies to up-and-coming entrepreneurs. To truly thrive in any music business career, you need to know how the industry operates. In this module, you’ll learn about its core structures and functions while exploring how the main industry sectors – recorded music, live music and publishing – work. You’ll discover the different kinds of music business organisations and examine how they work together, leading to a solid holistic understanding of the music business to help you find and follow your path.

• Music industry fundamentals
• Exploring the recorded, live and publishing music sectors
• The role of music copyright and collection societies
• Plan your music business career path

This comprehensive introduction to marketing covers everything you need to know about the purpose of marketing, including best practice techniques for attracting your target audience, tips on managing your reputation, how to work with influencers, and the best way to analyse your online performance using data. You’ll also learn how to apply this knowledge to a digital context, using product, service, pricing, distribution and promotion strategies to attract attention and drive action. 

• The fundamentals of digital marketing
• Where to find your target audience
• How to build and retain customer relationships
• The power of market research and customer insights
• How to implement digital marketing strategies

Your online presence and the content you create are intertwined. Creating and posting shows you’re active in the digital world and helps you connect with your audience. In this module, you’ll learn how to create content assets that fit your goals and suit your audiences. You’ll discover why a compelling online presence is essential in marketing plan development for all businesses and explore the various social and digital platforms, learning how to tailor content to each. You’ll also learn about the technical side of social media, including management tools, analytics, social listening, outreach and more.

• Learn to design tailored digital content
• Understand platform-specific needs
• Social tools and analytics
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and targeted advertising
• Social media governance and reputation management
• Learn creative ways to stand out online

These days, the modern music industry is run by entrepreneurs. This module equips you with the key skills to join this evolving tribe and step off the beaten path to create something of your own. You’ll explore what it means to be a music entrepreneur, considering how new ideas are formed, the process of turning those ideas into reality, and learning what makes some people better entrepreneurs than others.

• Music entrepreneurship essentials
• The traits of successful entrepreneurs
• The role of entrepreneurs across organisations
• Entrepreneurship challenges
• How to manage risks and finance and think creatively

The best marketing plans are rooted in thorough and thoughtful research. With the right insights, you’ll know where to find your audience and what to say to them. You’ll know which customers are worth pursuing and what they think about your brand, product or service. Without these insights, your content risks failure. In this module, you’ll learn the steps involved in market research, as you explore problem formulation, research design, data collection instruments, data analysis methods and the presentation of research findings. At the end of the module, you’ll turn your collected insights into the foundations of your very own marketing plan, with data informing your strategy.

• The importance of market research
• Typical market research steps
• Quantitative and qualitative research design
• Data collection and analysis techniques

Making music is one thing, but successfully releasing and marketing that music is a whole other challenge. This hands-on module will help you get your releases right, providing practical knowledge of music marketing, release strategies and digital distribution. An immersive and highly innovative module, you’ll watch as your classroom is turned into a record label microcosm. Partnering with The Orchard, all sessions will replicate a label services organisation with a label manager (tutor) and graphic designer (teaching assistant) running label management meetings, A&R sessions and briefings.

• Hands-on music release experience
• Collaborative sessions with The Orchard
• Role play in label meetings and A&R sessions
• Guest lectures by industry professionals

How can you find and nurture the very best talent? If you’re keen to set up a talent management business of your own, where do you begin? In this module, you’ll explore the legal, commercial and practical sides of talent management, gaining a foundational understanding of how it all works. Then you’ll learn about the process of discovery, assessment and development, focusing on the diverse range of management roles and the skills you’ll need to succeed in the industry.

• Create artist development plans and proposals
• How to set up a music management business or agency
• Protecting talent–manager interests
• How to build the best artist team

Attracting the attention of your audience is only the first step. Once your customer is looking in your direction, you need to send the right message, in the right way – and that means carefully planned marketing communications. A brand’s marketing communications can include advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations, guerrilla promotion and more, all of which take place online. In this module, you’ll explore all aspects of marketing communications and learn how and when to use them.

• The importance of marketing objectives
• How to convert leads to sales
• Changing brand perceptions
• Maintaining customer relationships
• The components of a marketing plan

With media-rich websites increasingly using video content, this highly practical module gives you the skills you need in digital production, including how to plan, shoot and edit video content, and how to create and polish audio. You’ll deep dive into the technical aspects of industry-standard video and audio editing software, and see how historical, cultural, political and artistic developments influence editing techniques and practices. You’ll get to grips with a variety of editing concepts – such as montage and dialectical approaches – and touch on theories like Walter Murch’s ‘Rule of six’ key components that make a cut. It all leads to the production of highly practical content, ready to showcase across your growing portfolio.

• Digital production skills for video and audio
• Get hands-on with industry-standard editing software
• Audio and video podcasting
• Produce content for your portfolio

In this module, you’ll explore the tools needed to successfully market your own events and festivals. You’ll examine audience patterns and attendance as you evaluate case studies and analyse industry data. You’ll discuss tactics to grow and retain your customer base, like the motivation and beliefs of audiences. When investigating factors that impact audience attendance, you’ll look at different promotion and engagement methodologies, contemplating how individuals and organisations can best use the tools available to them. Interaction with ICMP’s music industry marketing partners is especially encouraged in this module, so you’ll learn first-hand the promotional practices of ticketing companies, in-house marketing teams and events marketing agencies.

• Event and festival marketing techniques
• Audience retention tactics
• How to grow your customer base
• Gain first-hand industry insights
• ICMP marketing partner collaboration

This module is a culmination of the tools and principles you’ve learned to date and allows you to concentrate on the bigger picture – your marketing strategy. Within this, you’ll bring together every single communication, message and piece of content to achieve your topline strategic objectives. You’ll explore how to build a successful strategy, touching on value proposition development, customer acquisition and conversion. You’ll then learn how to engage your audience, looking at segmentation, targeting and brand positioning, and how to use this information to plan an effective campaign. Finally, you’ll explore how to build and convert your audience for a competitive advantage. 

• Holistic marketing strategies and campaigns
• Value propositions and strategies
• Customer acquisition techniques
• Segmentation and targeting

In this module, you’ll develop a thorough understanding of contract law, intellectual property law, and how they apply to the music and entertainment industries.

You’ll learn about copyright and intellectual property (IP) rights, and explore the issues surrounding protection of artistic works, image rights, moral rights, data protection, advertising, music sampling, and restraint of trade. With this comprehensive understanding at your fingertips, you’ll be better able to understand and negotiate contracts and deals, whether that’s a music recording, publishing, or artist management agreement or deals for sponsorship, endorsement, merchandising, multiple rights, and film and television synchronisation.

• Music Rights and Revenues
• Intellectual property law
• Regulation
• Data Protection
• Privacy
• Image Rights
• Competition and Markets Authority

Embark on a multifaceted exploration of international music marketing in this comprehensive module. From dissecting the influence of legacy markets to identifying burgeoning trends, this course delves into global music economies and the art of timing an artist’s debut outside their home market. You’ll explore the complexities of adapting marketing strategies to cultural nuances and changing media landscapes, and will be introduced to the indispensable roles that form your global A-team, such as agents and sub-publishers. Whether it’s decoding the impact of Brexit on UK exports or examining K-Pop and Afrobeat case studies, this module offers a comprehensive approach to building sustainable international success. 

• Global music trends
• International artist release timing
• Cultural and media shifts
• International music marketing roles
• Data analytics of export markets

When crafting marketing strategy or planning content, you need to understand the consumer: how they think, what motivates them, what they buy and more. That means getting to know your target audience – because only then can you decide how to reach them. While you’ll have touched on target audiences in other modules, here you’ll delve much deeper, learning about consumer demographics, consumer psychographics, perception, consumer learning and consumer culture. You’ll then use this understanding to inform your digital marketing and brand positioning, learning to present an organisation, product or personal brand in a way that connects with the right people.

• Consumer thinking and motivation
• Target audience analysis
• Demographics and psychographics
• Consumer culture
• Consumer insights

With the widespread adoption of mobile devices, it’s easier than ever to create and share images, audio and video. Participatory culture has also impacted how stories are told and films are made. In this module, you’ll gain a broader understanding of digital storytelling, to see how stories and meaning are shaped across web platforms.

You’ll see how professionals use technology to share content, grow audiences and create fan communities through a range of formats across both established platforms and evolving channels. You’ll also look at media narrative methods, branching out into citizen journalism and social media-based storytelling. And using a critical eye, you’ll examine case studies within the digital storytelling arena, gaining insights into what’s effective and what you could tap into as a content creator.

After three years of music marketing study, your final project brings together everything you’ve learned to date. It’s an opportunity to research and solve real-life marketing problems in their entirety, starting with research design and data analysis, and culminating in the full-scale implementation of your strategy. You’ll design quantitative and qualitative research, including sampling techniques, surveys, interviews and focus groups, before outlining the steps to succeed with a go-to-market strategy (or GTM) in a new market. You’ll immerse yourself in the interconnected disciplines of marketing as you prepare to launch your career as a music marketing professional.

• Tackle real-world marketing challenges
• Explore your marketing passions
• Develop a go-to-market strategy
• Create a robust marketing portfolio
• Launch your music marketing career

A brand is so much more than just a logo. It’s the public manifestation of an organisation, product, service or individual, and covers everything from name and language tone of voice, to visual identity and behaviours. In this optional module, you’ll learn how to build and manage a brand in the creative industries and explore what makes up a brand’s architecture, including the name, visual identity, messaging, positioning, values and more. Finally, you’ll discuss personal branding and the importance of considering how a brand is perceived by others.

• Building and launching a brand
• The evolution of brands
• How to create native ads
• Closed-network content
• Understanding regulatory impacts on a brand
• International brand strategies

Enhance your academic learning with work experience in the music and creative industries as part of this optional module. You’ll gain a host of practical skills working within a professional environment linked to your area of interest, as you develop your employability and transferable skills through the hands-on application of theoretical knowledge. Prior to the placement, you’ll receive resume, interview and careers support from ICMP’s The Hub when researching and preparing your work placement application, which you’ll identify, apply for, secure and evaluate independently.

• Gain hands-on industry experience
• Apply theoretical music marketing knowledge
• Access tailored careers support from ICMP's Music Careers & Industry Hub