Balance art with science — the same rings true with both music and your digital strategy
I started teaching myself how to play percussion in 2007, when I was a member of my school’s Angklung ensemble. I then took drum lessons for two years in 2010, before I started playing at open mics and in bands that formed with friends in college. Nowadays, I still bust out the Cajon or get behind the kit every now and then. Percussion is a part of who I am.
Now let’s talk about digital strategy. Be it marketing, building your personal brand or digital selling, being clear about your objectives is one thing, adopting a digital strategy to deliver results is a whole other multi-billion dollar ball game.
At present, my goal is to better engage with my clients digitally. I aim to be able to harness all the tools available to me and the knowledge I gather to refine my engagements with clients. I want to help them identify their pain points faster and more accurately, so that they can make the most out of Bluemix.
Also read: This is how a startup-collaborated music performance looks like
As I continue to learn and grow, I wanted to share how my personal experience playing percussion informs my digital strategy day to day.
Be authentic and bring that energy – your clients can tell the difference!
When I play the drums, it’s very important that I put my attention and energy towards feeling the music and maintaining my energy levels. This is especially crucial for performances and long rehearsals, when morale is low because everyone is tired.
At the end of the day, we perform because we love doing it. No matter how tired we are nearing the end of rehearsal, if one person starts grooving, the other band members tend to follow along. Even during casual jam sessions, nobody wants to jam with a mannequin – the best jam sessions are when everyone’s feeling it.
Your clients can feel it too. Every email, every phone call and every text message is your time to shine. I like to make sure I communicate my enthusiasm and commitment to working with a client at every touch point. This may sound silly, but no matter how long the day’s been or how tired I am, before I answer the phone or begin to start typing that email, I take a breath and quickly psych myself up – just like I do before a show.
Just like body language is important in face to face client meetings; tone, language and your eagerness to work with them needs to be communicated digitally. If you’re tired, sleep deprived or restless from the day, there’s a chance your client might pick up on it. Don’t send that email right away, go get yourself that cup of coffee or take a short walk. Come back refreshed and send your client some good vibes.
Balance creativity with methodology – tried-and-tested can go a long way
Drumming is both an art and a science. Sometimes, you’re trying to work on a mash up of two songs or you’re figuring out a new arrangement to the song your band is covering and you get the drummer’s equivalent of writer’s block. You can’t seem to figure out a fill in you like or maybe the beat you originally thought of is no longer working out. Fortunately, there are some basic grooves and fills you can play around with to make it work and the next thing you know your whole band’s bobbing their heads to the beat.
Also read: Developing a good brand strategy can help your business achieve strong mindshare and market position
When we do digital outreach, we want to try and be as creative and unconventional as possible to catch our client’s attention. However sometimes, we end up overdoing it. Sometimes it’s better to just go back to the basics. Playing around with a/b testing to see what works is probably going to be more reliable than a shot in the dark. At times when you’re struggling to come up with a strategy to better engage your clients, it’s important to fall back on crafting clear objectives. Are you looking to acquire, convert or engage them? Setting the right objective will help craft the right strategy.
Watch that tempo! There’s an optimum frequency for everything
As a drummer, you’re the band’s backbone. You hold the tempo and control the pace. If your lead singer or guitarists go off tempo in the heat of the moment, it’s on you to maintain a steady tempo so that they can catch themselves and fall back in sync. Timing is fundamental to any musician’s foundation. Knowing when to play and when not to can make the difference between an awkward hiccup during the song and a very dynamic performance with a captive audience.
The same is true for your digital strategy. There are studies and reports that tell us when the best time to send an email is. At a high level, the optimal time to send an email seems to be 10 am of the recipient’s time zone on a weekday. However, this starts to vary depending on the topic of the email and the target audience.
There are also guides on the optimum frequency for client outreach and the best medium depending on the context. We want to keep our clients engaged and interested and we also need to manage our resources. It’s important to time each campaign and outreach effort so that both you and the client get the most out of it.
I’d love to hear from you!
How have your own personal experiences shaped your digital strategy? Leave a comment below!
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This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.
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The post Playing percussion helped me in forming my digital strategy, it is about balancing creativity with methodology appeared first on e27.