Marketing Ninja

I’m taking a marketing class this semester at Vanderbilt University and in the run of this course we have to consult a real client based here in Nashville, Tennessee on his or her marketing strategy. My group and I are consulting for a company named CountryHound, which runs a fan site oriented towards providing independent country music news.

The people at CountryHound want to expand their web presence by ranking higher on certain search terms related to CountryMusic, but they don’t know where to begin. I have ideas of my own for them, but I asked their administration if it would be alright to more or less “toss this one up” to Marketing Ninja’s readers.

They said “yes,” so here it goes.

The Problem – Leveraging a New Entrant into Visible Positions Against Big Players

CountryHound wants to position itself as an independent country music news source, meaning that it doesn’t distribute news in favor of one label/artist over another. However, CountryHound faces some stiff competition in the face of the big players in country music news, such as Country Music Television (CMT) and Great American Country (GAC.)

CountryHound’s SEM objective: To leverage AdWords and SEO to make itself visible via Google/Yahoo/MSN for country music related terms.

First Strategic Suggestion – Attack the Local Country Music Scene in Nashville Rather than Try to Compete Globally

Given the current quality and abundance of CountryHound’s content, I’d say their best strategic advantage is their location in Nashville and the ability to dedicate their resources to covering the local country scene, which is where a lot of major country music stars get their start.

Major organizations like CMT and GAC appeal to an international audience and simply cannot allocate the resources to cover local scenes like the Bluebird Cafe, even if they are also headquartered in the Country Music capitol of the world.

The question is then… How can we utilize online media to target audiences interested in Nashville, specifically?

If CountryHound is going to start by marketing itself locally via AdWords and other campaigns, where do we start? What keywords do we bid on? What social media would be the most effective in reaching out people interested in Nashville’s country music scene?

I already have answers. I want to hear yours.

Discussion Questions

I have a few questions below that I’d like to see us try and address.

Assume a marketing budget of approximately $2,000 per month.

• Should CountryHound pursue SEM as its primary means of traffic acquisition? Would social media optimization be a better venue?
• If CountryHound should pursue SEM, how can it do so at a Nashville-centric level?
• If you take a look at CountryHound’s site, what recommendations would you make to improve the quality of the content and the interface?

Technorati Tags: CountryHound,Nashville,Country Music,SEO

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!