Hi Frequency Marketing Essays - Marketing, Music Industry

Hi Frequency Marketing Essays - Marketing, Music Industry Hi Frequency Marketing Music Marketing: Hi Frequency Concepts In today's business world, everyone knows that the hardest industry to break into is the music industry. The music industry has evolved from being made up of many independent labels to being run by major corporations such as Warner Brothers and Universal Music Group. Music marketing is the one aspect of the industry that has not gone corporate. While record label marketing departments are running out of ideas, independent marketing firms are taking over their business. Music marketing differs from most other fields in marketing because it does not have one orientation but still uses the fundamentals like conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution (Lamb 6). I was researching the music industry online when I ran into a company called Hi Frequency started by a young entrepreneur named Ron Vos. Hi Frequency is an independent music-marketing firm that promotes for labels, concert halls, and distributors. Hi Frequency uses their financial status to help young musical entrepreneurs like Vos break into the music industry. The company has over 60 field representatives that are unpaid and doing quality promoting in 50 markets across the country. Vos educates his reps so that they will have not only use the position as a resume builder but as a solid background in music to help further their careers. The first thing that Vos realized about the music industry is that although being very corporate, a grassroots marketing campaign is the largest step towards success. Promotions mean more to music than any other aspect of marketing. The record labels fight against the technological advancements such as mp3s gets harder every day. The only thing that can influence people more than computers is other people (Kashif 176). Vos has recruited people all across the country to embrace other people and get the word out on up-and-coming bands and concerts. The different types of promotions by Hi Frequency reps are handouts, poster placement at local music stores, and the always-effective word of mouth. As you can see the music industry is much different from other industries when it comes to promotions. Distribution on the other hand is done in a very similar fashion. The distribution begins with the label recording the tracks of music then making a full CD. After the CD is created it is sent to the middleman, in this case, the labels all have their own manufacturing plants where the CDs are mass-produced. After these CDs are manufactured, they are split up by the middlemen and shipped to record stores. The record store receives them and sells them with the help of people like Hi Frequency field reps. As the number of CDs in distribution increases, so does the price. The record labels spend as low as $.12 for a CD to be made. The middleman, who most of the time is owned by the label, will hike the price up to $3-5.00 for the most popular CDs. Once the retailer receives these, they will raise the price to as much as $17-20.00. The label makes money off the middleman, while the middleman makes money off the retailer, who in turn makes money off us. Hi Frequency has to aid the retailer in selling these CDs. Think of how much the label makes if they own the middleman, it is quite a lucrative business. Record labels do not just rely on marketing firms to sell their CDs, they have to be the conceptual masterminds behind the artist development. Even after all of these years the one thing that sells records is talent (Passman 167). The music industry is not just hard to break into on the business side but has become virtually impossible to get into on the performance end. Record labels have a whole department devoted to finding talent. This department is called A&R. A&R is a group of people that can make or break you and decide if you are something that is worth a completely new marketing concept. Hi Frequency gets the task many times of testing A&R departments by pushing new musicians and proving their worth. The promotions, distribution, pricing, and conceptions that deal with marketing in general agree with musical marketing. Hi Frequency realizes the similarities of music with other