The document provides a market analysis for a proposed music marketing service company. It discusses the NAICS code for the music marketing industry sector and describes how music marketing helps promote artists and connect them with fans. The target market for the company is identified as individuals aged 18-34 in Atlanta, with a focus on college students, musicians, and social media users. Key competitors include Indie Music Academy, which helps artists gain Spotify streams, and Spotify itself, the large streaming platform.

1. Situation Analysis 1
Situation Analysis
Diamond Turner
Full Sail University
November 6, 2022

2. Situation Analysis 2
Market Analysis
Market Summary
The music business hat will be discussed is a music marketing service. The North
American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the industry sector is 541910 which
includes” gathering, recording, tabulating, and presenting marketing and public opinion data”
(North American Industry Classification System - NAICS 2022). This industry sector focuses on
marketing analysis, research analysis, opinion research services, broadcast media rating services,
and statistical sampling services to implement a marketing strategy.
Music marketing services help promote an artist, products, and releases. Music marketing
helps the artist connect their music and their brand to their fan base. Marketing helps keep them
up to date with the artists career and their latest and upcoming work. It is incredibly important to
choose how an artist will be marketed. The cost for music marketing will vary depending on
exactly what platforms the artist would like to utilize this can begin at 10% net revenue.
However, the price can be based on internet marketing, social media marketing, or direct to fan
marketing. The price can range for a fee based on consultation, or a range from $200- $500+ per
month based on the specific market need. “Consumers who search for information about
products and brands in order to evaluate them thoroughly are engaging in high involvement
decision making” (Rolston et al., Record label marketing, 3rd Edition 2022). Since marketing is
how an artist communicates and showcases themselves to their fans it would be considered a

3. Situation Analysis 3
high involvement decision. “The level of involvement in the purchase depends on the economic
and social risk of making the wrong decision” (Rolston et al., Record label marketing, 3rd
Edition 2022). With the rise of social media, the way that an artist presents themselves is more
noticeable than ever. Since the stakes are high and the consequences of making or showing the
wrong decision, artists who work with marketing companies have high involvement behavior.
The artist has to build trust for someone to market their image and their music. High involvement
decisions results in decisions being made cognitively, “the thinking and feeling occur before the
action in high-involvement situations” (Rolston et al., Record label marketing, 3rd
Edition 2022). With high involvement decisions the cognitive stage and effective stage can form
first. “Since music by its very nature evokes emotional responses, exposure to the product is
known to increase purchase rate” (Rolston et al., Record label marketing, 3rd Edition 2022).
With marketing and artist choosing who they will work to make them can be both emotionally
and cognitively. The artists vision and how they want to present themselves involves a lot of
trust with their image and rely on the company to bring forth their message to their fan base and
help them expand.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs he states, “Maslow arranges these needs into five
categories of physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization” (Rolston et al., Record
label marketing, 3rd Edition 2022). For marketing in music, the categories that are aimed
towards the artists would be esteem and self-actualization. The esteem comes from within
creating an image and sound and want the validation from fans and growing a fan base,
generating, and growing streams, and reaching sales goals. For an artist’s self-actualization it
comes from a fulfilled goal for the artist. In marketing this comes from helping them reach their

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goals and grow their fan base, streams, sales and create the image that they desire. It us up to the
company to create and help the artist build their image and brand through the hierarchy of needs.
Market Trends
Digital marketing has become extremely popular recently. Some positive trends
impacting the music marketing is technology. “Nevertheless, live videos are changing the way
brands interact with their target audiences. They help you promote your brand in ways that are
authentic and that no other formats can” (Mody, 2022). Technology has made it easier to
promote cheaper to market an artist and their music. Artists find it easier to have their music on
social media, music sharing platforms, and streaming websites. With high quality content it
creates a way to maintain and grow fan engagement.
A negative trend impacting music marketing is “converting potential customers who are
browsing the merchandise into actual purchasers” (Rolston et al., Record label marketing, 3rd
Edition 2022). Something else that will be affecting digital marketing is third party cookies to
track online activity and metrics to help them understand the target market. By the end of 2022
this will be coming to an end and will have a huge impact “ 41 % of marketers believe that
the inability to track the correct data is going to be a huge challenge for them” (Mody, 2022).
This can cause a struggle for new and upcoming artist to try and understand their market.
Target Market
The target market for my music marketing service will consist of, 18-24 year old’s (Gen
Z), and 25-34 year old’s (Millennials). This target market will include 56 % male 44% female.
The geographic location will be in Atlanta Georgia. The psychographics will consist of, college

5. Situation Analysis 5
students, musicians, and middle aged adults that use social media platforms such as, TikTok and
Instagram. People in this target market will be very well educated and recent graduates with
well-paying jobs. The personality for these age groups will consist of complex, reflective,
upbeat, and rhythmic. Millennials and Gen Z are close in age and primarily use social media than
any other group. Millennials are people who were born after the 1980’s . This group is
“relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by
debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry and optimistic about the future.” (Rolston et
al., Record label marketing, 3rd Edition 2022). Most millennials face financial obstacle’s and
have a lot of student debt. Millennials can take in a large amount of information at a time.
“Social media is a big part of that self-expression, with millennial around the world trying to
stand out or prove themselves” (Edwards & Herman, 2020). They are a peer oriented generation,
and they tend to be very accepting of others and new trends. Millennials have families of their
own, “They like a good sale and will most likely compare prices in order to get the most bang for
their buck” (Edwards & Herman, 2020).
Gen Z is a generation that are considered self-reliant, goal oriented and innovative. Gen Z
were born after the late 1990’s. Gen Z is highly educated due to the numerous of resources and
they are just as social media driven than millennials. Get Z actually prefer using Instagram and
TikTok Tok rather than Facebook. “They have very little patience for things that do not grab
their attention immediately” (Edwards & Herman, 2020). By marketing through multiple
platforms, it will grab their attention. Gen Z loves to multitask so seeing something a lot of times
in various way will be the most beneficial method of marketing to them. It is important that your
information is linked to a social media account or Gen Z may not ever see or be interested in

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your content. That is why digital marketing is becoming so much more popular with this
generation. “The most important thing to know for marketing to Gen Z is to stay current on
social media platforms and trends” (Edwards & Herman, 2020). It is important that a brand or
artist shows that they are involved with impactful events going on within the world it can say a
lot where an artist or brands focus is. Gen Z typically enjoys pop culture and entertainment. They
spend about 2-3 hours daily on social media while millennial spend around 2 and 1/2 hours on
social media. The average household income for millennials start $69,000 and for Gen Z is starts
at $32,500.
Customer persona
Brenda is a 25 year old pop artist from Atlanta, Georgia. She went to school at Kennesaw
State University and got a degree in music performance. She wrote a few Pop and R&B songs
and published them on YouTube, but she never gained many fans. She performs at her church,
and she enjoys spending time with friends and making covers of songs that she posts on her

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Instagram and TikTok. Brenda wants to gain a bigger fan base and help her voice reach others.
She is looking for a marketing company that will give her voice a chance and help her reach her
goals and gain a bigger fan base and help her voice become heard.
Competition
A direct competitor for my company would be Indie Music Academy. Indie music
academy focuses on marketing artists and helping them get streams specifically, through Spotify.
They help artist train artists become noticed by record labels. The company’s goal is to “give you
the insights and strategies to build a completely independent and 100% sustainable music career”
(Video training for online musicians 2022).
An indirect competitor would be Spotify. Spotify is one of the top streaming services.
They currently have over 456 million monthly listeners and up to 195 million premium
subscribers. Spotify has music you can access from all types of creators from all over the world.
The company’s goal is to give “ creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of
fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it” (About Spotify 2022).
Strengths
Indie Music Academy is a well-established company, and they can guarantee the artist
will get active streams. The Indie Music Academy promises that “ if you don’t reach the number
of streams you paid for, you’ll be refunded the difference” (Anderson, 2022). The founder Ryan
Waczek is an Emmy Award musician. They work directly with Spotify and hire individuals with
an audience to back the artists song with their support.

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Some strengths that Spotify has is that they are one of the top online music streaming
companies in the music business. Spotify also has AI technology that they are able to use to help
recommend artists, songs by the preferences and taste of each individual user. They help newer
artists get discovered “artists can see critical information, such as how many fans are currently
listening to their music and get insights about the last seven days of listener activity” (Fruci,
2020). Spotify also shows the artists their geographic information from their fan bases and the
gender and age. “With Spotify’s data, an artist can develop targeted promotion campaigns and
optimize how they deploy their own resources” (Fruci, 2020). This helps the artist create better
decisions on how to advertise to gain more fans and brand themselves. Spotify currently has 8.7
million followers on their verified Instagram and the social platforms are very creative,
engaging, professional, and captures a lot of attention from consumers.
Weaknesses
Some weaknesses that Indie Music Academy has it that it is costly, not guaranteed that
for the price the user will be specific number of streams that they do want. They only use a
specific platform which is Spotify. An artist may just get someone that only streams the song 1
time and not necessarily grow their fan base. This company’s just primary focus is just on one
platform, it is not the best effective option for marketing. For this company to keep fans
interested it is important to be effective through multiple platforms. With partnering with
Spotify, they are not able to help users through other platforms such as, Apple music and
YouTube, this hinders the artist and what they can do with their marketing strategies. The artist
can get a refund if they don’t reach their goals but ultimately, they have wasted their time and

9. Situation Analysis 9
have not reached their goal. If goals are not met, the artist will have to find another way to grow
their fan base which is more leg work for the artist. Indie Music Academy currently only has
7,433 followers on Instagram which is low. Their website is hard to navigate and talks about the
founder instead of the company itself.
Some weaknesses that Spotify has is that with the numerous choices of songs and artist a
consumer can listen to without the premium subscription it lacks certain quality within the
service. Spotify does not let consumers choose to listen to the song of their own choice. The
consumer has to listen to shuffled playlists and if the consumer wants the option to choose you
would need to upgrade and pay for a premium subscription. If a consumer finds an artist and the
song that they find interesting, the playlist will go to the next song and the user is not able to
switch back and find out more about the artist. New artist can get streams but easily get passed
by from this feature. For artists that use their services they offer a very low payout per stream.
“Spotify claims they pay out between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream but some indie artists have
said they made less than that” (Wright, 2017).
Market Positioning
To new and upcoming passionate Pop and R&B artists in Atlanta, GA in need of
launching their career and market their music and brand themselves to grow their fan base. Nu
Musique is a music marketing company that looks at metrics, and monthly detailed reports that
will help with growth in sales and capture the attention of Millennials and Gen Z to share not
only their story but their songs.

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References
About Spotify. Spotify. (2022, October 25). Retrieved November 6, 2022, from
https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/
Anderson, J. (2022, May 26). Indie Music Academy Review: Legit spotify promo? (2022). Two
Story Melody. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://twostorymelody.com/indie-
music-academy-review/
Edwards, M., & Herman, E. (2020, November 5). The 5 active generations and how to market to
them. Green Buzz Agency. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from
https://greenbuzzagency.com/marketing-psychographics-talking-about-my-generation/
Fruci, C. (2020, January 22). Spotify helps artists grow their global fan bases through customer-
facing metrics. Keen. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://keen.io/blog/spotify-
helps-artists-grow-their-global-fan-bases-through-customer-facing-metrics/
Mody, S. (2022). Marketing Trends to Watch Out for in 2022. Marketing Trends 2022: The Good,
Bad, and Ugly. Retrieved 2022, from https://outgrow.co/blog/marketing-trends
North American Industry Classification System - NAICS. United States Census Bureau. (2022).
Retrieved November 6, 2022, from
https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=marketing&year=2022&details=541910
Rolston, C. P., Macy, A., Hutchison, T., & Allen, P. (2022). Record label marketing, 3rd Edition.
O'Reilly Online Learning. Retrieved October 26, 2022, from
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/record-label-
marketing/9781134705559/xhtml/Ch02.xhtml
Untitled image of woman and guitar . (2020). The State of Gen Z's Mental Health During the
Coronavirus Pandemic. Retrieved 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-
mental-health-coronavirus-george-floyd-protests-2020-6.
Video training for online musicians. Indie Music Academy. (2022). Retrieved November 6, 2022,
from https://www.indiemusicacademy.com/services
Wright, L. T. (2017, April 27). Why do so many musicians hate Spotify? Spinditty. Retrieved
November 6, 2022, from https://spinditty.com/industry/why-so-many-artists-hate-spotify

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