Want a masterclass in EXPERT marketing execution?

Enter Taylor Swift.

If you’ve paid any attention over the years, you know that Taylor Swift’s marketing for her albums is impeccable.

She’s built a massive audience of loyal fans who have literally grown up with her for the last 13 years, who know her SO well and if you’ve ever fallen down the rabbit hole that is Swiftok, you know that her fans are DEDICATED and are chomping at the bit for what she is putting out.

Whether you’ve loved her since Tim McGraw or you’ve been a member of the I Hate Taylor Swift club since her debut, we can all learn so much from her record-breaking strategies and apply to our own business.  We LOVE everything about Taylor Swift’s marketing.

Here are 4 things we can learn from Taylor Swift and directly apply to our own biz: 

1. The Power of Building Hype: Creating hype and anticipation around a launch is key and Taylor Swift is known for leaving Easter eggs and cryptic hints throughout her songs, her music videos and her content for her audience to figure out. This creates buzz and engagement around her release before we even actually know what it is!

As business owners, we tend to undervalue the art of teasing out a launch to our audience to build that anticipation. For example, Taylor announced the launch of Midnights on August 28, and then released the album on October 21. That’s roughly an 8 week runway to build momentum for the launch of the album. She doubled down on content during this time, releasing a sneak peek of the album cover, sharing behind the scenes clips, dropping music video trailers and then when the album was released she teased out the video, and she did even more press.

She talked about her offer for about 2 months before it ever came out. AND THEN she kept talking about it after it launched.

2. Building Community + Listening: Taylor Swift KNOWS the value of her community. During her Midnights release, she was liking and commenting on so many TikToks and other posts her fans were creating with her music. She also has such a deep connection with the fans because her music/content resonates so much with them and has throughout the different stages of her life and music career. Nurturing our audiences and making them feel seen and heard is so important and helps to build community.

 

She doubled down on that community during her Reputation release when she essentially went quiet before the release, did no pre-release interview claiming, “There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation.” She simply left it to the album art and the Easter eggs for her fans to create the buzz around the album launch. By creating content that helps our audience feel “in the know” and that they can see themselves in is what helps create community around our service and product.

 

This is kind of a part 2 to the community building aspect, but Taylor Swift has said time and time again she knows her fans VERY well, and it’s because she makes an effort to listen to what they are saying. Her fans have dubbed her social media likes and comments  “Taylurking.” She constantly is paying attention to what they are saying and how they are reacting to her music and releases during each Era. Keeping an ear on the ground for what people are saying about our industry, our product, and our services is how we know the best way to communicate our offers. It’s listening to the “market” and pivoting our message accordingly.

 

3. Creating an Experience = Sales: Taylor Swift doesn’t just release an album. She creates an entire experience around it. From elaborate conceptual music videos to the series of social videos in the retro phone booth announcing the name of each track on the Midnights album, as my advertising professor would say in college, she “art directs her work within an inch of its life” and it shows. She knows that execution is everything. It’s why she focuses on the small details that make a big difference.

 

For example, even with the Midnight’s vinyl albums, she created 4 versions that she eventually shared will form a clock face when you put them all together (which ultimately boosted sales because dedicated Swifties want the clock so they needed all 4 vinyl versions). She’s not just putting out an album and doing a standard press tour and promo around the album. She’s creating an entire customer journey that her audience wants to be a part of. The best way to level up the execution for anything is to think about how something has “always been done” and just do it better or do it in a completely different way than the status quo. I once heard there’s no such thing as a million dollar idea, only million dollar execution, and that’s something we can all learn from. How can we not only execute, but execute in a manner of excellence that makes us stand out?

 

4. Planning with Intention: If there’s one common thread in everything we’ve touched on up to this point, it’s intentionality. Taylor Swift’s marketing team puts so much intention behind everything she puts out- from both a large scale perspective . Mastermind vibes, really. (f you know you know) Her fans will tell you that Taylor does nothing by happenstance.

There’s a purpose behind the creative choices she makes. She creates meaning behind elements and motifs throughout her music videos, her social media content, even her outfits.  She announced her upcoming album (without including the name) while accepting an award at the VMAs and was seen that night in her album themed outfit: a navy blue romper with stars on it for Midnights. She then released Midnights in October at midnight. And for her PST girlies, she even released the 3AM version with additional songs so they felt a part of the release too, even with the time difference.

From a business perspective, it’s really impressive to see the thought that goes into every detail. I imagine her concept meetings for the albums are storyboards and cork boards with lots of threads and circles and images pinned all over it.

What if I told you you could be a Mastermind to your own business?

We can learn as business owners to be more intentional with our content and how we are sharing. How can we tie everything together more intentionally from a marketing and content perspective?

• Build hype by creating campaigns where everything is very focused and on-message for a specific period of time
• You an do market research, send post-service surveys, and ask questions via social to connect with potential customers and build an audience.
• Perfect your customer service experience! What makes working with you special? How will customers feel while working with you?
• Plan your marketing in advance to make sure everything feels intentional and less of an afterthought

 

It’s easy to take inspiration from inside our industry, but by stepping outside of our industry and analyzing our favorite brands and even public figures, we can learn what they are doing and sprinkle tactics into our own business.

This is how we set ourselves apart and put ourselves in a category of our own instead of blending in with those around us.

What can you do to make yourself different? To create your own category? That’s the new marketing era we want to be in. 💅

 

Do you need help updating your branding or website to design a top notch customer service experience for your clients? My team would love to help! Contact us for our upcoming project availability.

 

Until next time,