Marketing Tips from Taylor Swift

No two FYPs are alike, but in recent months it’s felt like our feeds are all Taylor Swift, all the time — and we’re not complaining. The Eras Tour is everywhere, but let's be honest, Taylor has been in her marketing ‘era’ for years. 

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I have admired Taylor and her team's ability to create such authentic content that not only promotes her music but, more importantly, creates an atmosphere for fans to create endless amounts of free marketing for her. She has created a consistent, cohesive brand experience for fans across all platforms and every interaction her fans have.

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So let’s talk about how she does it. Here are 4 key strategies Taylor uses: 

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Storytelling‍

Taylor is the queen of storytelling with her music — and marketing. Taylor masterfully threads stories and easter eggs throughout her work across all channels — social, videos, interviews, merchandise, and more. Because of this, fans are obsessed with figuring out connections across channels to piece together the story she is feeding us. This strategy incentivizes her audience to follow her on all platforms and keeps them engaged with her old and new work. We've previously discussed the benefits of utilizing brand storytelling in this article.

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Community Engagement

With an audience as big as Taylor’s, I think it would be hard to ensure her fans always feel valued. Taylor appears to prioritize her fans above all else. She engages with her community consistently — and with attention to detail. While she is known for large-scale fan activations, a simple example is her TikTok or Twitter account, where she is one of a few public figures that has left their ‘likes’ public and comments directly to her fans. Taylor consistently engages with her fan's content. This incentivizes fans to create content related to Taylor and her work and makes them feel valued and seen — who doesn’t want that?

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Creating Incentives to Purchase

Taylor is in the process of re-recording and re-releasing her music for reasons we don’t have room for in this blog post, but let’s talk about how she is doing. Now fans have already heard all of these albums, so why would fans purchase these again or listen to her version? First, she built the narrative around “Taylor’s Version,” which explains why fans should support her. Then included easter eggs for fans, like subtle changes within the songs, plus added new songs from the vault. But probably the most genius idea so far was with her Midnights album. She created 4 different versions of the vinyl album that fit together to create a working clock. So fans were incentivized to purchase not just one of her albums but at least four to create the clock. GOAT status.

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Rewarding Loyalty

‍Throughout her career, Taylor has found creative ways to reward loyal fans. Notably, her event series “Secret Sessions” rewarded fans with private listening parties as a ‘thank you’ for their commitment and a preview for future projects — though several years back, fans still talk about these sessions to this day! It seems intuitive, but it can be forgotten. Thank your consumers, and thank them often — not only does it keep them coming back, but you’ll also often gain insight into what they’re looking for next.

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Marketing at its core is about building relationships with your customers. Now we can’t all be Taylor Swift, but utilizing these key strategies allow you to build your marketing around creating a relationship with your customer. Tell your authentic story, engage with your audience, create incentives to purchase your product, and reward customer loyalty.

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PS. A true Swiftie would have written 13 key strategies…iykyk but ain't nobody got time for that 😉

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This week's Madak Monday was written by:

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Elli Haddick

Senior Marketing Manager

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