How to Get Inspired to Write a Music Marketing Plan

The Part Nobody Teaches You

For most musicians, writing a song comes naturally. Writing a marketing plan feels like waiting for something to fall out of the sky. Most people were never taught how to get inspired for that part — and even fewer realize that getting inspired for marketing is a deliberate practice, not a matter of luck.

After writing a book on creativity, I came to understand that inspiration works nearly the same way no matter what you're working on. Whether you're trying to develop a music video concept, a social media campaign, a contest, or anything else, there's a method that works every time. And it starts with asking yourself one question.

The Only Question That Matters

Whenever you're trying to think about marketing anything, you're really only trying to answer one thing: what will get my fans telling someone else about my music?

The reason that's the right question is that word-of-mouth is the most powerful endorsement you can get. A lot of musicians overvalue blog coverage or social media press, but what actually moves the needle is what gets people talking — because those people don't just text it to one friend. They post about it on social media, they bring it up in forums, and that's where music discovery actually happens. And here's the other thing: if your fans are already talking, the press follows. Not the other way around.

One other parameter worth setting before you brainstorm: any marketing idea that involves someone actually hearing your music is almost always superior to one that doesn't. This is Cannon's Law — the song needs to be good, and if your marketing actually delivers the song to people's ears, it compounds. Marketing that doesn't connect someone to the music rarely creates fans who stick around.

So with that framing, here's how I actually get into a place where good ideas start flowing.

Step 1: Look at Your Favorite Artists

Start by going through a list of your favorite musicians. Pull up your Spotify library, scroll through playlists, or just write down the artists you genuinely love. What you're looking for are the ones who do cool things with marketing — and you're asking yourself two specific questions for each one.

What have they done that you told someone else about? And what do you just genuinely enjoy about them?

Marketing is broader than most people realize. It's a controversial statement in an interview. It's a new instrument showing up in a live set. It's something striking and unexpected in a video. Anything that gets people talking counts. Go through that list, write down every cool marketing idea you've seen those artists execute, and let it keep building as more things come to mind. That list becomes your raw material.

Step 2: Pull Out Your LAMES Analysis

In a previous video, we talked about building a LAMES Analysis — breaking down your Lore, Aspirations, Misperceptions, Exploits, and Strengths — so you can stay clear on what to focus on when marketing your music. This is the moment to bring it back out. You want to be brainstorming ideas that play up your strengths and work around your weaknesses, not generic ideas that could apply to anyone. Keep it in front of you while you work through the rest of this process.

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

Step 3: Get in the Right Mindset

There's a marketing book called Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday. The audiobook runs under three hours. I have probably listened to it twenty times — not because I've forgotten it, but because it reliably puts me in an idea-generating mindset. It's a fast, clear breakdown of the concepts you should actually be thinking about when you're trying to market something, and it's the kind of thing that loosens up your thinking before a brainstorming session.

His other book, Trust Me, I'm Lying, is another one worth keeping in rotation for the same reason.

Put one of those on while you're going through your artist list and your LAMES analysis. Let it work in the background.

Step 4: Go for a Walk

This goes against everything in my nature as someone who is genuinely, deeply indoorsy. But it's scientifically proven that going outside helps generate ideas, so here we are.

I live in New York City, so I go for a walk with the audiobook on or some music playing, and I keep turning over the marketing ideas that have been exciting to me. What I also like about this step is that you can put your phone on airplane mode and actually think without interruption for a stretch. Cal Newport calls this kind of focused, uninterrupted thinking deep work — and it's a different cognitive mode than the internet-browsing, research-gathering phase. I particularly love lately using my Brick to turn off all my social media apps but still be able to get text from my coworkers and wife. Both are useful, but they're not the same. You need both.

Step 5: Brainstorm With Other People

In a previous video, we covered the hub-and-spoke method. What you've been doing up to this point is the spoke work — developing ideas on your own. Now it's time to bring those ideas to your bandmates, your friends, your team, your family, whoever you have around. Lay out what you've been thinking and let them push back, add to it, and help you refine it. What they say matters. Incorporate their feedback and let the ideas evolve from the conversation.

Step 6: Write 20 Variations

This is the step that gets the most pushback, and I'm going to tell you to do it anyway.

Once you have a great idea, the next move is to write 20 variations on how you could execute it. Twenty. This method comes from Alex Osborn, the inventor of brainstorming, who argued that writing out that many variations forces you to fully vet an idea and get to the best possible version of it. We've all been part of plans that seemed great and then fell apart in execution. This process is what prevents that. It makes you exhausted. It surfaces problems early and surfaces better executions you wouldn't have found otherwise.

It takes work. That's the point.