Music for productivity the ultimate work playlist guide
What’s the best music for productivity? It’s a simple enough question – and finally, we
How to perfect your background music
We’ve put together a step-by-step checklist on how to successfully use background music for your business. From branding, to target audience, to sound systems and selecting the right tunes, these top tips can help enhance your business through the power of music.
Contents
Step 1: Understand your brand & set the stage
Music can play a crucial role in helping customers understand and connect with your brand. Your brand is your identity, and you can use music to set the tone in a powerful way.
Matching your music to your brand involves some thought, and there are a handful of steps you can take to align your music choices with your brand; start with how you want customers to perceive your business, such as fun, up-beat, relaxed etc, and use these to help develop your brand through the use of sound.
Not only can music help build your brand, but you can use it to underpin and tell the story of your business. It’s important to utilise all the senses your customers experience and align them to make your brand seem solid and well-thought out. By ticking off the senses you’ll leave your customers feeling comfortable and at ease.
Use our branding strategy checklist to help build your vision.
Step 2: Analyse and understand your audience
Once you’ve identified your brand identity, it’s time to connect the customer. Firstly, who do you want your audience to be?
Consider the demographic, location, financial and social elements of your prospective audience. All these characteristics you look for in your potential audience will help define what music you should use within your premises. By doing your research around what music your target audience want to listen to, it can make it easier to attract and attain customers, simply because you’re playing the music that they love.
For further research, why not see what music your competitors are playing, how they’re using background music and how they’ve matched their playlists to their brand. For example, if you’re pub, bar or restaurant, what music are they playing on their busy nights and do their customers look entertained? Spend some time around similar businesses to yours to see how you can take inspiration.
Step 3: Sound systems
Before purchasing your sound system, try and do some research as to what the best system is for your business. Although they don’t have to be expensive or luxury, do consider your business type and its purpose.
Once you’ve attained your sound system, ensure you’re placing it in the correct spots around your premise. Be careful not to place a speaker right next to a table in your restaurant, or a corner of your shop or gym which might overwhelm your customers and cause them to leave. Try sitting or standing in different areas of your venue and test out what it sounds like; if it’s good for you, it’ll be good for your customers.
Overall, choosing the right system and being strategic about placement can significantly enhance the experience your customers have at your venue. From concert hall to café, music has the ability to create an immersive experience for your customers.
Step 4: Select the tunes
Music has the power to influence mood and behaviour. By aligning your brand identity and your target demographic you’ve already researched- it’s time to carefully select and curate the ultimate playlists that suit your business.
If you’re a coffee shop, you may want to opt for something more mellow and relaxed that fits with the vibe you want your customers to experience. However, if you’re a retail store, you might want to play something a bit more energised to keep shoppers engaged. When selecting the music, be careful not to pick anything people may find offensive, such as songs containing expletives, or even music that is irrelevant to your business to avoid confusion for customers around “what you are”. Start easy and select songs that connect with your image, putting personal preferences aside; put yourself in the shoes of your customers- what would they want to hear?
Step 5: Change it up
We all have different music preferences depending on our mood – but so do your customers. You can use music to redefine your business and change it up during different points in the day. For example, if you’re a café/bar, you may have relaxed music throughout the day and look to increase the tempo of your background music in the evening to give it a totally different vibe. A shift in music can give you a whole new identity over the course of the day.
By understanding your audience and utilising background music properly, you can alter each day to suit your audience. Keep track of songs that seem to do well versus those that have little impact, this way you can always look to develop your playlists to suit the needs of customers. You can re-position yourselves by emphasizing a shift in the music throughout the day, which means you can capture different customer types.
A study found that background music can impact a customer’s waiting time and even make queuing feel less stressful [1]. By having familiar and well-fitting tunes in the background, it can help waiting time go faster, encourage customers to stay and come away with a positive review of your business. By constantly developing your playlists, you can continue to enhance the customer experience and become your own music mogul when it comes to the perfect playlist that defines your brand.
Step 6: Music motivates spend
Of course, your product or service is the ultimate selling-point for your customers, but you can utilise music to help increase the customer spend and capitalise on having background music to motivate further spend – even some of the most reputable brands have already discovered this psychological trick to get customers to spend spend spend! [2]
Our survey shows that different genres of music can automatically change the way people perceive your brand. For example, playing classical, soul or slow jazz can translate to opulence, and therefore seem more expensive than those that play pop or rock music. According to our recent survey, we found that one of the most popular genres that gets customers spending is pop, which proves successful in sectors such as salons, supermarkets and retail stores.
While the right music can influence spend, the wrong music may harm further spend if your selected songs don’t match your brand, or if they’re played too loud that the customers are left feeling uncomfortable. That’s why research and careful selection of songs and volume are important.
Step 7: Allowing the staff to play
Music can give us all a boost of energy, and when your staff are working in a fast- paced environment or doing long shifts, your background music could help reduce stress, elevate their mood, and provide a boost of energy. While utilising music for your customers can enhance their experience and increase spend, using music to motivate your staff and create a happy working environment is just as important.
It’s not just about how your customers observe your brand – it’s important that your staff understand and appreciate it too, which in turn can make it a much better place to work, resulting is good employee retention and a unique selling point for recruiting staff in the future.
Your front of house staff see first and foremost how customers react to your business and will have good insight into what your customers are looking for in a good experience. Some well-known and established brands get their employees involved by allowing them to queue or add songs onto playlists that they know will be successful.
Music brings us together, and it could be a good talking point between customers and your employees- why not encourage your staff to ask customers what song they’d like to hear? Or encourage conversation with your employees about what music they’d like to hear during their shift (but first present the background music brand guidelines you identified in point 1). By hearing requested songs throughout the shift, it can enhance the overall atmosphere – giving customers that personalised experience and your staff control over what keeps them motivated and valued.
Why not turn the tunes on before your venue opens to get your staff in the mood, or keep the good vibes going during the end of the day tidy up?
Step 8: Pay your licence
You’ve recognised your brand and audience; you understand what music will appeal to your demographic, you’ve built the playlists, got the staff involved and understood the power of background music.
The final thing to tick off your list is to ensure you’re correctly licensed. Obtaining TheMusicLicence ensures you’re legally covered to play commercial music within your business, and ensures that the artists you love are being fairly paid. By having a licence, you’re able to experience all the benefits of having background music in your business; from reducing stress in staff to enhancing your customers experience, there are many benefits of playing music for your employees, your customers, and the people behind the music.
References
Author
Toni Hendry
Toni Hendry studied Arts at De Montfort University and gained a MSc in Business within the Creativity Industries at the Leicester Business School where she received an award for her writing. Shortly after graduating she joined PPL PRS in 2022 as a National Account Executive and has recently joined the marketing team where she can share her passion for writing, culture and music in her new role as Marketing & Content Executive.
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