Market Your Music Online

Music students don't get the luxury of job fairs. And compared to their peers, a traditional resume doesn't hold as much power when it comes to post-college employment. Musicians need to be seen, heard, and able to communicate their unique message beyond just a list of accomplishments in order to create a living making music.

Market Your Music Online is an online music marketing course where students will learn how to communicate online by creating their own custom brand messaging and visuals, website design, social graphics, social media marketing plan, and more.

Not only will this help students kickstart their professional music career, but it will also teach them the skills and knowledge to grow and nurture their audience online for years to come.

1 semester, 3 credit, online course

Market Your Music Online was first created and made available Fall 2022 semester at East Tennessee State University for juniors and seniors in the Appalachian Studies department (Bluegrass, Old-Time, & Roots Music Studies majors).

Weekly video lessons are accompanied by assignments given in various formats such as quizzes, writing prompts, design templates, and group discussions.

Students will learn and use current industry standard platforms throughout the semester like Squarespace, Mailchimp, Canva, and YouTube.

Bonus: The course also includes access to an online networking community of all past and present students. This is a safe space meant for practicing social media engagement as well as a way to give students an encouraging environment of others who are also pursuing a creative career in music.

I'm Katherine Forbes, founder of website design agency, Designing the Row®, and creator of the Market Your Music Online course.

Flashback to 2011, I graduated with a dual degree in music performance and music technology and a month later I got my career start in artist management.

After designing the websites for the artists on the management roster, I organically began taking on website design clients of my own in 2016. Since then, I've designed and launched over 200 Squarespace websites and have become recognized by Squarespace as a Squarespace Expert and Squarespace Authorized Trainer.

Today, I'm proud to say that the Designing the Row® client roster has grown to include multiple GRAMMY Nominated & Award Winning Artists, New York Times Best Selling Authors, and Film Composers. My personal work has also been featured on Forbes.com (Music Biz Besties) and I've spoken on panels hosted by brands and businesses such as YELP, the Music Business Association, Women in Music, and WeWork.

I believe that "your success depends on you taking action" and I'm truly passionate about motivating, encouraging, and teaching students to do just that!

Market Your Music Online (Digital Marketing in Bluegrass Music) was first taught at East Tennessee State University, Fall 2022 semester.

"I heard such great things about your class! Thank you for being such an amazing instructor for our students." — Nate O., Academic Director

At the end of the semester, each student will walk away with their own website design along with a 10+ page custom Brand Overview PDF that includes their photos, brand messaging, brand guidelines, website mockup, video overview, social graphics, and future marketing goals.

I'm very passionate about music and music education. But, I believe with today's digital landscape, digital marketing is a huge missing piece for many university music department curriculums.

Every music artist, composer, producer, audio engineer, freelance music teacher, luthier, entrepreneur, and so on - needs an online presence in order to be found. That's step one. Step two is to get hired, booked, or commissioned. And that's not going to happen without coming across as professional, having a conversion strategy, or knowing how and where to reach and connect with the right people online to make that happen. And that's exactly what Market Your Music Online teaches students how to do.

Want to learn more about offering Market Your Music Online to your music students next semester?

Let's connect!

Katherine Forbes
katherine@designingtherow.com
www.designingtherow.com