JAY-Z: FROM SELLING CRACK TO HIP-HOP BILLIONAIRE

Breaking Down The Strategy

In 1969, a young kid was born to a single mother on the streets of Brooklyn, New York.

By 13, that young kid was already selling crack on the streets. By 14, he’d dropped out of school for good. By 16, he’d been arrested for the first time.

But by 50 that young kid was the first-ever hip-hop billionaire.

His name? Jay-Z.

Now, when most of us hear that name we instantly think of him as a rapper.

But you don’t become a billionaire by releasing a few good rap albums.

It takes being a great businessman and an even better marketer.

Today, we’re looking at the latter.

Over the last week I’ve spent an ungodly amount of hours consuming everything and anything I could find on Jay-Z’s life story.

Unsurprisingly, it was plagued with marketing lessons.

So, here are 5 lessons on how to market your way to billionaire status from the one and only Jay-Z:

Lesson 1: Focus On Attention First

The biggest sin in business is when someone spends years building out a product or service, just to have absolutely no attention on it by the time it launches.

And the same goes for most early musicians/artists.

They spend years crafting the “perfect album” just for no one to listen to it upon release.

Well, that wasn’t Jay-Z.

Before anyone knew who he was, Jay-Z was known for getting his music in front of people by any means possible.

He would jump at any opportunity to tour with someone or even just get on stage with them.

One of my favourite examples of this is him turning up to his friend & mentor - Big Daddy Kane’s - club appearances for just a 10-minute slot.

In his autobiography he says:

This may sound like a nothing moment, but how many rappers today would go out of their way for just a 10 minute gig and then go straight home to work?

Very few.

It was this understanding - that he needed eyes on him - that gave Jay-Z a head start in the early days.

But that’s a pretty basic lesson, so let’s get into the good stuff!

Lesson 2: Launch MVP’s

By 1997, Jay-Z’s attempts to get attention had finally paid off, and he had built himself a substantial fanbase in New York.

Still, he wanted to take it up a notch and decided he would attempt to jump on the popular wave of RnB inspired rap songs to get himself off the ground.

But rather than slaving away at an RnB album for years, Jay decided it would be a better idea to test the water with an MVP (minimum viable product) or in his case a single.

So he released one titled ‘Sunshine’.

By the fact you have never heard of it, you can probably guess that the song didn’t come across as Jay-Z would’ve liked.

In fact, his core audience kinda hated it.

So Jay quickly switched his style back to his classic street-orientated songs.

Had he gone straight in with a full RnB inspired album, Jay-Z could have lost him his entire audience that he’d spent years building.

Instead, he tested the waters with his MVP and adjusted accordingly.

This is one of the biggest marketing lesson you can probably take from Jay.

You don’t need to build a whole marketing campaign until you’ve already tested how it will come across through an MVP. That could be a social post, street interviews, or an email series.

Just anything to see if your idea actually resonates with your audience.

Lesson 3: Never Guess

1 year after his near-failure trying to pivot to RnB music, Jay-z finally had his big hit song – ‘Hard Knock Life’.

Although Jay couldn’t have predicted that the song was such a mainstream hit, he already knew that his fans were going to love it - all because of a genius testing strategy he ran.

Before Jay came on stage during his 1998 tour, one of his DJ’s played the sample of ‘Hard Knock Life’ over the speakers. Jay Z then listened to see how the crowd reacted to it.

After seeing them get lively and react positively during the chorus Jay went all in on the track.

• He bought the beat

• Paid to use the Annie phrase “Hard Knock Life”

• And released the track

That album went on to sell 5 million copies.

All because Jay-Z got his product-market fit right LONG before he hit publish.

Again, something a lot of marketers should learn from.

Lesson 4: Know Your Customers

In the late 90’s Jay-Z was wearing a lot of clothes from a company called ‘Iceberg’.

After a while, he began looking out into the audience at his concerts and noticed hundreds of fans were wearing Iceberg t-shirts.

So he went to the executives at Iceberg and asked for a partnership deal.

They declined.

But Jay now knew that he had the power to influence whatever his fans wore, so he created “Rocawear”.

20 years later, Jay-Z sold the Rocawear brand for $204 million.

Crazy?!?

Not really.

He simply understood his customers → Noticed a trend → Sold what they wanted.

It was destined for success from the start

Lesson 5: Sell To Many, Speak To One

Throughout all of Jay-Z songs there are mentions of the street life that he came from.

Most of us brush it off as classic rap talk.

But it’s one of the core reasons Jay-Z has such a strong core audience.

Millions of people may enjoy Jay’s music and listen to his songs on a regular basis, but Jay isn’t talking to the millions - he’s just talking to one person.

He’s talking to that young kid growing up in a rough area, being pushed to hustle on the streets to provide for their family.

The songs are for that person to relate to, that person to learn from, and for that person to listen to.

Copywriting 101 = Write for one specific member of your target audience

Jay-Z just does this magically in his music.

I must admit I’ve never been a big fan of Jay-Z, in fact, I could probably only name about 2 of his songs prior to writing this.

Yet, I knew there had to be some genius marketing for him to grow so big.

Turns out there was.

Hope you found reading this as interesting as I found writing it :)

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of Jay-Z’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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