Beyoncé Will Teach You Marketing Principles a College Degree Can’t!

On May 10, 2023, Beyoncé obliterated the record when the Renaissance tour began at Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden. 

She single-handedly raised inflation in Sweden due to increased spending during her shows in Stockholm, leading to what experts called the “Beyoncé effect,” “Beyoncé bump,” “Beyoncé blip,” and “Beyflation.”

As if that’s not enough, this tour is projected to become the highest-grossing tour ever by a female artist, with the highest monthly tour gross in history.

Thanks to exceptional marketing expertise, the Renaissance tour is about to make it into the history books. Steal Beyoncé’s marketing tactics and use them to blow up your brand.

Marketing Lessons from the Beyoncé Renaissance Tour

1. Repetition creates reputation

The world over, Beyoncé’s reputation is known. She will always deliver a show! And she has proven it again and again. She didn’t stop when Michelle Williams fell on stage, or when she fell on stage with her sister in 2018, or when her hair got stuck in a fan in the middle of a performance!

Your best evangelist is not the copy on your marketing collateral. Neither is it your team. Your best evangelist is your reputation — how your customers know you and what they have come to expect of you. Build your reputation through consistent repetition and delivery.

The show must go on!

2. Build Your Community 

Beyoncé has the BeyHive. Ariana Grande has the Arianators. Cardi B has the Bardigang. Who do you have? Your customers are not just customers; they are your #1 fans, and you should treat them as such! You can always count on them to buy into your ideas. Therefore, invest in them.

If you’re not yet convinced, do you know there are BeyHive members who have been following Beyoncé for the last 20 years? They bought her first album in 2003 and have attended all her concerts. Invest in your community. Meet them. Make them feel special. 

You should also consider investing in yourself with PCM certification to advance your marketing skills and confidence.

3. Quality. Quality. Quality.

Never produce anything that you are not proud of, even on your worst day. The stage design in the Renaissance tour was a spectacle on its own that got fans buzzing. Guess how much time went into creating it? 18 freaking months! The whole stage design process took 18 months. 

Good things take time. Don’t be in a rush to deliver a half-baked product or service to the world. It will hurt you in the long run. Marketing is not just another activity you do; it is built into your product through quality. Such that, even if you never spend another dollar on promotion, the product will speak for itself.

4. Create Expectation

If you have ever attended a Beyoncé concert, you damn well know that you have to learn all the lyrics in the 2.5-hour setlist. Why? You ask. Because Queen Bey expects you to sing and dance along to her songs, and you can’t fumble. 

Through repetition, Beyoncé has created expectation for the audience to come in at certain points of her songs and sing along with her. For instance, the “Love on Top” bridge is an audience staple. When fans purchase tickets, they can already see themselves singing the bridge of that song to Beyoncé. 

Similarly, your customers should expect your product or service to deliver an end result that they can picture themselves in. Expectation transforms products and services into experiences that customers look forward to purchasing—for instance, Apple products or a Beyoncé concert.

5. Scarcity

If your offer is available to everyone at all times, you have to go back to the drawing board. To sell more, you need scarcity and exclusivity elements in your offers. You can do this by limiting your offer to a group of customers, price, or timeline. No one does this better than Beyoncé.

More than 200,000 people were trying to purchase tickets for one of the London dates, of which fewer than 7,000 were available. In fact, the UK pre-sale, which was limited to O2 customers, had such great demand that it caused the O2 Priority website to crash.

“According to Ticketmaster, the ticket demand exceeded the number of available tickets by more than 800% in Toronto, Chicago, East Rutherford, Summerfield, Atlanta, Inglewood, and Houston..”  Thanks to this, second shows were added in these locations to meet the demand.

6. Consider your External Environment

Evaluate what is going on in your environment and create culturally relevant products and services. The renaissance album was not just a collection of songs, it was rooted in the prevailing “TikTok culture” and “progressive inclusivity culture” that helped it land in a bigger way. 

Songs like “Cuff it,” “Heated,” and “Break My Soul” took an evolution of their own and found expression in TikTok dances, videos, and reels because they connected to a very specific demographic. Stop. Put your tools down. Don’t create anything else unless it has relevance within its existing environment, whether it’s a new product, strategy, or channel. 

7. Surprise!

Beyoncé is a master in engaging her fans. “Any time you think Beyoncé has reached her peak, she surprises you with something else. At one point, she’s singing riffs you’ve never heard. In the next moment, she’s dancing in stilettos. If you look away for a second, you’ll miss a surprise costume change or an exciting set design. It’s magic.” [Esquire]

She has mastered the art of keeping the world hooked with new, unexpected production and performance levels. In the same vein, you need to innovate and produce new versions of existing products. If you can, create entirely new products. Innovate. Pioneer. Introduce something new.

Now that you have the tea on Beyoncé’s marketing tactics, let’s look at how they translated into revenue.

How much money will Beyoncé make from Renaissance tour ticket Sales?

According to Forbes, the Renaissance tour will earn around $2.1 billion by the time it ends. This will make Beyoncé the highest-grossing female act of all time. Currently, the record is held by Madonna, who earned $1.4 billion from her shows in July 2022.

Conclusion

This 32-time Grammy winner has exceptional marketing skills we can all learn from. If you have noticed, both Beyoncé and Apple have a similar marketing pattern: community, quality, repetition, and cultural relevance. Plus, billions of dollars in revenue!

Perhaps it’s time to start creating similar patterns in your business. If you are looking for a team that can help you scale your business using proven strategies and create sustainable success, talk to us today.

You can also pursue digital market certification to improve your knowledge and skills in the marketing field.

See you in the next one!