Taylor’s Swift Marketing Strategies

Taylor Swift employs unique marketing strategies like no other celebrity.

According to INC, “If they gave Grammys for salesmanship, Taylor Swift would own the category.”

Even if you are not a Taylor Swift fanatic, you can still learn an abundance from her marketing methods. Swift is an amazing story teller and connects with her fans through her songs, album releases and social media platforms.

Her album releases are phenomenal and strategic. Before her album is released she creates suspense and offers subtle hints. Taylor is known to offer private album release sessions even before the music is released to the public, she only does this for her super fans – the loyal ‘Swifties.’

Taylor Swift is a tease. Similar to other artists, she releases a few songs before the album is released. However, she doesn’t release her best song, she releases the song that will get the most buzz and press. She also encourages her fans to pre-order her album ahead of time in an effort to drive album sales.

Taylor Swift is infamous for writing songs about ex boyfriends and love life. In addition to her songs about personal love, Taylor capitalizes on first releasing songs that revolve around well-known celebrity feuds with Kanye West, Katie Perry, Lady Gaga, Nikki Minaj or Calvin Harris.

For example in 2014, Taylor’s first song off her 1989 album was titled “Bad Blood.” Rumors revealed that this song was regarding her feud with Katy Perry. In this video, her celebrity posse created an action filled music video competing against each other symbolizing a girl versus girl feud. Before releasing the video, Taylor teased the public using social media introducing all of the celebrities in this music videos with their bad blood name.

These top actress, singers, and models posted their photos on Instagram before the world release of the song. Her closest gal pals from her notorious “squad” were present in the music video, including as Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Cara Delevingne and Zendaya to name a few. It was also rumored that Selena Gomez was the representation of Katy Perry in the video. Throughout the music video Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez kept fighting, with the end of the video concluding with Taylor and Selena s about to swing at each other. This song and video was engaging, mysterious and made people question if it was written about Katy Perry.

To add to the drama, Taylor Swift’s music could not be accessed via Spotify… until Katie Perry released her album. On the day Perry released her first album in four years on Spotify, Taylor Swift granted Spotify access to her albums and music, increasing Swift play’s by 551% that week and was coined the most streamed artist on Spotify. Her 1989 album went back to #1 after a year of release. This marketing tactic most likely reduced Katie Perry’s steaming, downloads and revenue.

Similarly, another one of her song releases “Look What You Made Me Do” surpassed Bad Blood’s records. This song was rumored to be about her longtime feud with Kanye West. That year West released a song “Famous” which talks about Taylor Swift. He uses lines such as, “I made that B%^&* famous” and even displays Taylor nude in bed with other celebrities in his music video.

In rebuttal, Taylor released “Look What You Made Me Do”, She even hints to certain lyrics and subtle innuendos in her songs about Kanye West. Lyrics included phrases such as “I got a list of names and yours is in red underline,” “I don’t like your little games,” “Don’t like your tilted stage,” “The role you made me play.” At the end of the music video she addresses celebrity rumors with multiple personas of Taylor Swifts. In one persona, Taylor Swift is depicted in the same outfit where Kanye West stole her 2009 MTV VMA Album of the Year award off the stage as she was speaking, saying that Beyoncé should have won record of the year. Taylor Swift capitalized on this experience and released this song breaking numerous viewer records.

Inc states, “It doesn’t matter whether the song is actually any good. Swift launched her product on a platform based on feuds and rumors. People bought into it – and bought the music.”

Swift cryptic subliminal messages and hidden clues cause mystery and interest in her new music. This tactic is essential to her brand. She even incorporates these hidden message in her music videos and lyrics. Swifties are trained just like CIA detectives trying to crack the Da Vinci code.

At the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards, Taylor Swift thanked all of her Swifties attention to detail, Swift states “I love your passion. I love your attention to detail. I love how much you care. I love seeing all the things you’re posting online, And I just wanted to let you know when there’s new music, you will be the first to know.”

She even uses social media to “creep” on her own fans, she calls it “taylurking” and saves these photos on her phone.

Taylor Swift is a modern day marketing mogul, from her strategic song releases, accurate timing, engagement with her fans with social media, hidden secret clues, and secret album release party’s… her marketing strategies are as swift as her name.