Marketing tips that the EDM industry can learn from Elon Musk

Elon Musk is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring people culturally right now. He is literally building multiple tunnels underneath Los Angeles, creating a new generation of electric cars, making humans a multi-planetary species due to his ambitions to go to Mars, and much more. But despite all of these incredible achievements, he doesn’t spend much money on advertising. Instead, he uses clever tactics to propel his brands into the eyes of consumers around the world. During this article, we’re going to break down several marketing tactics used by the entrepreneur, and talk about how they can potentially be applied to the music industry. 

If you dive deep into his marketing campaigns for product launches, you’ll notice consistency across the board: he doesn’t spend much on advertising. After all, his astounding ingenuity to get attention for his products is certainly awe-inspiring. By using free advertising (such as media interviews), he essentially is able to form connections with millions of customers around the world and spread a message that he is trying to create a better future for the entire human race.

Here are just a few of the incredible marketing strategies that allow him to turn all of his companies into established brands worldwide. And of course, you can use these tactics to your advantage so that you can dominate the entire music industry at minimal cost. 

Firstly, he lets the media market the majority of his products. Elon Musk has the smarts to understand that if he is able to feed the media with new & exciting stories, they will naturally want to promote his companies due to the attention it will attract from readers. For example, when several massive hurricanes struck the US territory of Puerto Rico, the entire electricity network was down on the island. Understandably, this provided reasonable cause for concern. However, Elon offered to help by using Tesla’s electricity network to get operational power on the island within 100 days. If it wasn’t completed within that timeframe, he publicly promised that Tesla would not charge for the service. As expected, this amazing gesture sent the entire internet into meltdown – and was covered by hundreds of media companies around the globe – thus attracting attention towards the benefits of Tesla by providing the company as the solution to a horrific humanitarian crisis. 

By offering your services for free, it can massively help develop your brand as a music producer. For example, you could potentially work with a national charity and produce a single that generates thousands of dollars in revenue – thus helping whatever cause you chose to assist. That would obviously bring a lot of media attention towards your artistic brand, and potentially loads of great opportunities that would significantly further your career.

Elon Musk also loves to challenge the societal norms when marketing his companies in the media. For example, he is known to talk about “simulation theory” – the idea that we are in fact part of a computer simulation that is run by a higher being. “Given that we’re clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality and those games could be played on any set-top box or any PC, and there would probably be billions of computer or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds we are in base reality are one in billions.”

As a producer in the music industry, you have the potential to do something pretty similar. By talking about topics in an intelligent way, it sparks a great conversation – often with people very high up in the scene. Diversifying your social media content to be unique is definitely a good thing. After all, if people see you discussing ideas & theories about how the industry could potentially be changed, it could lead to them wanting to follow you or even generate a relationship with your artistic brand. 

You could be a leading thought figure within the music industry that shows people what is happening on a macro scale. Instead of focusing on small details (like a lot of people), there is a massive opportunity to become somebody who sees their music as part of a bigger scheme. For example, Elon Musk regularly talks about how his Tesla Roadster is to raise funds for electric cars, and for the sales of them to go directly towards manufacturing cheaper electric cars. Similarly, you could talk about how your music is impacting people at a music festival, and thus bringing them happiness – causing them to do kind deeds in the world. By showing people the bigger picture, it allows people to feel like they are part of your journey throughout the music industry.

It comes as no surprise to learn that there are dozens of opportunities to learn from other industries, and then apply that knowledge to the EDM scene. Even if it’s something small such as helping out a competitor, your artistic brand will be respected by many more people due to the fact that you’re someone wanting to create a positive change in the music industry. As clearly shown by the examples, these strategies are certainly effective in propelling a brand into the eyes of millions of people around the world – especially with a limited marketing budget. If you are creative & genuine with your approach to success, there is a high probability of success. By using the knowledge from Elon Musk to develop a comprehensive media plan, you too can dominate the music industry.