Think Strategically

If you’re a musician, in a band, or solo performer, and you are aspiring to be able to make that your full time work, then one of your main goals, (aside from writing better songs, and making your live performances better) is to grow your audience.  Sounds pretty obvious, but it’s also a pretty broad statement.  Let’s get a little more clinical for a minute… Increasing the number of people who like (and will pay for) your music and the ancillary goods surrounding it is a quantifiable mission that you can constantly work on, and there are many things you can do in effort to continually achieve this goal.  My advice would be to always think, and be, strategic with your efforts.

Start by targeting someone.  Zero in on who is more likely to enjoy your music.  To figure out who you could target, try stepping outside yourself for a second and think about these questions, and make sure your answers aren’t just your wishlists of heroes… be as specific and realistic as you can, it will only help you more.  Start by imagining your album in the bins at a record store.  What section is it in?  If it was in a campaign flyer alongside other releases from other artists… what other artists are they?  If you were on tour opening for some other bands, what bands would it be?  Make a list of those artists and look each of them up on iTunes.  For each one, make note of the “listeners also bought” lists… it will give you more artists who appeal to a similar demographic as you will.  Try the same thing on Amazon too.

So now you have a list of “like-artists”… note, these artists don’t need to “sound like you” because I’m sure you would like to consider yourselves unique or different from them… instead, consider these artists as musicians who would  most likely appeal to the same group of people that you would appeal to.  Then study what those artists have done promotionally… see what websites feature them, what magazines/blogs talk about them, what bars play them, etc.  Find contacts at those places, introduce yourself to them, and start building relationships with those people.  Focus on those places to get your music featured.  Also, go online to your like-artists social network pages, and you’ll have a direct window to your demographic.  Scan their myspace friends, see if there’s any common factors… are they mostly male, female, is there an age-range that stands out, do they live in suburbs, urban centres, what countries, etc.  Don’t just start friending their fans out of the blue, but if you want to, send introductory messages to their fans who are from your hometown or from towns where you have concerts upcoming, something like “hi, XXX, sorry for the uninvited message, but we’re an independent band from XXX, we noticed you’re a fan of XXX, and because of that we thought you might like our music too.  Here’s a link to our page, and if you like what you hear, we’d love you have you as a friend.”  Just know that you’re message to them is unexpected, so be polite, somewhat apologetic, and brief.  And don’t add them as friends, let them add you.  It’s a slower process, but it weeds out false-leads… you’re far better off with 100 friends who asked to be your friend, than 1,000 people who accepted your unsolicited request.

Get active in the fan-groups of these artists, and don’t just go there to shout about your band.  Talk to the fans, talk about the other bands, ask questions, etc.  People who like what you have to say, will check out your profile, and then check out your band.  You don’t need to talk about your band, you just need to have conversations.

It’s not about shouting, it’s about targeting the most-likely candidates for a successful campaign, giving those people something meaningful (a friendly greeting, a conversation, a free download, an invitation, etc.) creating a relationship with them, and ultimately helping them to discover your music.

Thinking strategically about your promotional actions, and targeting specific demographics will give your efforts more focus, more efficiency, and ideally more success.