Three Lessons I Learned About Marketing by Writing Songs
In retrospect, the best thing I ever did for my marketing career was to stop it for a year and learn to write songs.
Today as a former CMO and current messaging consultant, songwriting isn’t how I make my living. In fact, my biggest music credits amount to 650K YouTube views on a song video and a 10-second background clip on NBC. But what I learned writing songs has permanently transformed my “day job” as a Marketer.
In 2003 instead of actively looking for my next Product Marketing job I signed up for weekly songwriting classes with the great Bonnie Hayes – author of such hit songs for Bonnie Raitt as Have a Heart and Love Letters. Exposed to the knowledge of a true master and given provocative assignments and deadlines, my classmates and I cranked out a song a week. They weren’t all jewels. But as I fumbled my way through learning song structure and how to patch together a demo (I don’t play an instrument), something else was happening that wasn’t obvious until much later. I was learning in my bones lessons for marketing that completely changed my career when I did return to work. With the benefit of hindsight, I’d like to share a three of those learnings.
Lesson 1: Nobody Has to Listen to You
I still remember my first song screening with an A&R rep (someone who finds songs for established artists) at a songwriting conference. I’d spent time and money creating a professional demo, and was happy to have actually created my first “finished” song. His bar of course was much higher. He was looking for the next smash hit for artists that already had several.
The rep, a Nashville guy, was courtly and courteous in the southern fashion. He listened all the way through the first chorus. Afterwards he gave me kind but pointed feedback. But already in that very long 90 seconds of play I realized that I’d failed to hook him and taken far too long to get to the point.
If I Had Opposable Thumbs, I’d Have Tuned You Out Already
In a song you’ve got 10 seconds to grab the listener’s attention – and there are no switching costs on the radio. It’s not the listener’s job to care about your song; it’s your job to get them to.
Lesson 2: Structure is Everything
Well-produced songs have an attractive skin of production and sound, but the best songs also have great bones. They have melodies that stick in your your head, lyrics that resonate and choruses that are just fun to sing along with.
Months of Preparation Create Structure for Minutes of Presentation (photo courtesy of The Bitter Elegance)
You can peel away the studio magic from a really well-structured song and re-record a completely different version and style, and it still sounds great.
Before writing songs, I’d already started to use a form of Message Matrix structure for marketing (thanks Dave Kellog!). I just wasn’t very good at it. Learning how to build the scaffold of music and lyrics drove message structure into my DNA.
Just as an experienced songwriter would never confuse a verse with a chorus, the distinct roles of Positioning Statement, Key Messages, and Proof Points became clear and visceral. From that gut-level understanding emerged the Matrix methodology I’ve used and taught ever since. Just like a memorable song, a good message set is three minutes of output constructed with days, weeks or months of care.
Lesson 3: Leave Words Out
I’m a word person. Unsurprisingly, my early songs had way too many lyrics. Trying to tell the listener too much, I crowded out feeling and the repetition that makes a song memorable and fun to sing along with.
Know When to Just Sing Your Chorus One More Time (photo courtesy of Jennifer Bryce)
Then in one class, Bonnie gave us homework to write like Tom Petty. Sounds simple, because his songs FEEL simple. Wrong! Petty selects very few words that weave you into a much larger emotional fabric without trying to fully explain it. Trying to write like him is a master class in leaving open space where the listener can join you.
When you are excited about your offering, you want to tell people all about it. And the temptation is to literally tell them ALL about it. But the goal isn’t to convey everything at once. It’s to find the few words that secure interest and make them want to hear the rest of your “song.”
In The Final Chorus…
writing music didn’t make make me rich. It doesn’t for most songwriters. After eighteen months it was time to get a “real” job again, though I still write songs today. But I still mark that time as the pivot point when my marketing career became far more successful, and a lot more fun.
Today it feels as satisfying (and elusive) to nail the “song” of a company, brand or product as an actual song. I did what I loved and, like the saying goes, the money did follow. It just followed sneakily and caught up with me on a different stretch of the road.
Jeffry-Wynne Prince of the band The Bitter Elegance confirms the value of this kind of career cross-pollination to his work as a top-performing design consultant. “The effort and mechanics of getting a person to respond to a song is identical in getting a client to respond to a service or even a product. You have to draw someone in until they have a personal investment in what you are presenting.”
So maybe the biggest music lesson for marketers or any professional is the unexpected richness that personal passions can bring to professional life. Is there something from your private life that has transformed your work? If there isn’t yet, what could it be?
