Targeting and Converting Potential Fans

Posted on 09. Oct, 2009 by refe in STRATEGY

A goal is only as good as the strategy put in place to reach it. In my previous post I talked about Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans concept, and expanded it a bit to include the three other groups that make up an artist’s fan base: active, passive and potential fans.

This model may not be perfect, but I think defining these sub-groups is helpful because it allows an artist to have a different approach for each different kind of fan.

I’ve put together a series of posts with some practical tips intended to get you started in finding fans and moving them up through the pyramid. The goal of course is to cultivate as many true fans as possible so that you can eventually quite that day job (if you haven’t already) and develop a self-sustaining career in music. This first post deals with finding and evangelizing potential fans.

This series is just intended to get you started and is by no means comprehensive. Hopefully you’ll have some additional ideas – please feel free to share them in the comments section.

Start Local

The hardest part of building a fan base is often finding an audience in the first place. The best place to start looking is in your hometown. You don’t have to travel, which means you have little to no expenses. You probably have a decent idea of where bands play and what kinds of bands play there.

You also have the added benefit of a community that wants to get behind you. Everybody wants their city to have a thriving music scene. Sure, if you live in New York or LA you might find that nobody cares whether your band lives or dies. But in the rest of the country most people want to support their local bands.

Here in Chicago I met recently with Mike Sosin who manages a talented local artist named Dick Prall. We spent much of that meeting talking about ways we could have a positive effect on the local scene. I can think of so many others – Erik Peterson of Plugo.la, for example. Supporting local artists is his business. There are people in your community who want you to succeed. Find them and you will have an incredible resource at your disposal.

If you can get to the point where you can consistently sell 300 tickets in your city then chances are you’ve got a strong enough base to begin exploring the surrounding region. Find bands that are selling those same 300 tickets in neighboring cities and ask them to gig swap. You open for them in their city, they open for you in your city. You expand your reach and build your network in the process.

Utilize Online Tools

Beyond conquering your local scene you also have access to the entire world online. The internet has made it easier than ever to target the potential fans at the bottom of the pyramid. People wear their musical tastes like a badge of honor online. If you find people who listen to music similar to your own you’ve got a great place to start making inroads.

Search Twitter, join relevant Facebook groups. Set up Google alerts and TweetBeeps for not only your band name but the names of your influences as well. Figure out where these people are and go after them. Send them free tracks and if enough respond from one particular place, make sure you can set up a show nearby to invite them to.

Martin Atkins, author of Tour:Smart, calls this ‘pouring gasoline on sparks.’ Find out where the sparks are and begin penetrating that city, or that region until you’ve turned those sparks into a bonfire.

Live Performance is Key

Notice that both of these examples revolve around live performances. Yes, you can distribute your music online and acquire new listeners and potential fans that way. And you should – maybe it will cause a few sparks to spring up in unexpected places. But the live performance is where the connection happens. Potential fans become actual fans at the show.

Where these tips helpful? As I said in the beginning this post is in no way designed to be comprehensive. It’s still very much a work in progress. What have you been doing to find and evangelize new fans? What has worked, and what hasn’t? Share the wealth in the comments section – you never know who might benefit.

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Tags: 1000 true fans, gigging, marketing, social media

11 Responses to “Targeting and Converting Potential Fans”

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09. Oct, 2009

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Valery__. Valery__ said: RT @refeup: How to target and convert potential fans http://bit.ly/3y3JJM #music [...]
Suzanne Lainson

09. Oct, 2009

I just responded in your first post on this topic on how an artist I know built her career in the Boulder/Denver area.

I don’t know if I need to repost it here, but it covers some of the same points you’ve covered above. I can break it down in even more detail, but I will leave it at that for now.

Basically her career was built, as you say, by starting local and playing lots of shows. She’s an outstanding live performer and gains new fans whenever she plays in front of new people. So she played whenever and whereever she could. She was able to get to a point where she gets a guarantee, but she started out playing for tips.
Suzanne Lainson

09. Oct, 2009

What a lot of people who haven’t already done this are likely to wonder is how long might it take to finally generate enough money from music to be able to quit your day job.

For singer/songwriter types, a typical progression is from:

1. Open mic nights.
2. Playing for tips.
3. Putting together a band.
4. Putting out a CD.
5. Opening for bigger acts.
6. Headlining small local clubs.
7. Doing some touring.
8. Either scraping together enough money to take the leap to do music full-time, going into debt to go full-time, or finding an investor, sponsor, or some other source to put in some money upfront.

Even for talented artists, step 8 can be a stumbling block. Many buzzworthy bands still have day jobs to pay the bills. They play SXSW and CMJ, get written about in a number of national blogs, and still don’t make enough money from music to support themselves.
Rich Huxley

09. Oct, 2009

There are hundreds of bands who make it to step 7, the leap to step 8 is much more rarely made. The key is in “doing”. As per, I suspect, Martin Atkins (@marteen), Steve Lawson (@solobasssteve), and myself, a significant portion of our paid time is spent talking about how to make money from music. Our music output is part of why people are interested in us, and is part of why we get paid. Andrew Dubber (@dubber) gives away his free eBook at http://www.newmusicstrategies.com and at Unconvention (@unconvention) Swansea stated “I don’t get paid for the words I write, I get paid Because of the words I write”.

For me it means that the band I’m part of (www.hopeandsocial.com) and the label we set up is part of the reason that people want me, for rock schools, guitar lessons, speaking at conferences, universities etc.

I think of it like this; attention and interest is the commodity now. As for the band, it’s a part of my income, however it doesn’t pay the mortgage… It does mean that I can pay the mortgage however, and without it, I’d have a whole lot less to be interesting about. And interest is the commodity. More on this in my very own Creative Deconstruction blog soon.
Woop.
Rich
x
- Suzanne Lainson
  
  09. Oct, 2009
  
  Perhaps you can sum up the trend now (and I think Amanda Palmer is the prime example): Music is what makes you interesting, but you get paid for being interesting, not for playing music.
  - refe
    
    09. Oct, 2009
    
    That is one business model, yes. It’s always been around I suppose, but it’s getting much more common lately.
    
    I don’t think it’s the only model, though. There are still bands who live off their music, performances and the related merchandise. In that model – which is the traditional model – the other stuff those artists do (interviews, appearances, social media interactions, etc.) support the artist’s ability to make music.
Jeff Deibel

11. Oct, 2009

I think Amanda Palmer is on to something more than being interesting. Is she interesting? Yes. However, the success of her sharpie/twitter/postcard money making extravaganza was more than about being interesting. It was about converting fans into a community.

Artists have a limited number of hours in the day to twitter, write, promote, perform their music and are always debating how much time to put into each activity to get the greatest outcome. Amanda built a community where fans are engaging with each other even when the artist is out working on other things. Now, not only to do the fans feel connected to Amanda, they also feel connected to each other.
- Suzanne Lainson
  
  11. Oct, 2009
  
  I haven’t paid too much attention to the extent to which Palmer has gotten her fans talking to each other. I think the greatest example of fan communities are those where people collect at various events around the year. A number of local bands have regulars that show up for lots of shows and know each other. String Cheese Incident had annual vacation trips where fans would go and stay at a hotel and hear the band. Roger Clyne is doing something similar twice a year in Mexico.
  
  So I think the community of fans part has been done in a variety of ways for quite awhile. I don’t think Palmer has necessarily taken that aspect to a higher level.
  - Jeff Deibel
    
    12. Oct, 2009
    
    I didn’t say Amanda Palmer is taking things to a higher level. I am only pointing out that she is getting her fans to communicate with each other. Whether she knows it or not, she is creating a community of fans, not just fans.
    
    Thriving fan communities happen all the time and in different ways. Look at the success of Phish. When they tour, their fans travel for weeks on end to see a block of shows and when they aren’t at the shows they are watching live updates of the setlist via websites and blogs specifically geared towards the band. Pearl Jam, NIN and Clay Aiken (they call themselves Claymates) are more great examples of vibrant fan communities fueling the band’s economy.
    
    Amanda Palmer isn’t doing anything new by creating a community around her music; however, she is offering up a different way to communicate with her fans by creating one off experiences where access to entry is minimal (internet connection & twitter account). Cruises are great for an older audience that has more disposable income, but that wouldn’t work as well for Palmer’s younger crowd.
    
    It all comes down to knowing your fans and finding authentic ways to engage with them and the cultivate a community.
John Kasiewicz

12. Oct, 2009

Thank you for mentioning that live performance is key. It sounds like some people have forgotten that music isn’t just a product to be hustled on social networks or licensed to reality TV. My passion for music was cultivated on attending live concerts. I’d hate to see that disappear anytime soon.
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13. Dec, 2009

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