How To Get Fans For Your Band

What is the best way to get more fans?

This is a question all musicians ask themselves. First, don’t look for a magic bullet because there isn’t one. There is no specific reason why fans like any particular artist because first and foremost, music is emotional and people have many reasons why they gravitate towards one artist or another. What you can do is make sure your music is engaging, authentic and honest. Express yourself, even if it seems like you’re revealing too much. People want to be emotionally involved worth your music so you must be emotionally involved yourself or it will never happen for you, no matter how talented you are.

I want you to understand that I am not any more of an expert than you are, I’ve just been doing this for a long, long time , and I’ve seen what works, made my mistakes, and I know successful people who have attained a fair amount of success. Please, research other sources.

I also realize some of you already are implementing these methods and have more tricks up your sleeve. You might find this insightful, but I’m really writing this for the beginners , the bands who are struggling with this questions and perhaps may not have been promoting themselves very well as of yet.

Identify Specific Goals

Identify the next goal, and promote that one thing. If you have a new single spend time promoting that. A gig? Promote that. An interview? By focusing on one thing at a time you keep it simple and avoid information overload. When that happens, people tune out completely and you don’t want to have that happen to you!  Also, by defining each goal, you can develop specific strategies for each one and broaden your approach. And each time you reach a milestone, spread the word! Let your fans know you are making progress and they will feel included in your success.

Define your Niche

 If you are a speed metal shedder, you aren’t getting the blues crowd. If you’re a blues band, you aren’t tapping the pop charts. It’s just not realistic. But you do have a target audience to shoot for and you need to figure out what that is. Now it may take some gigs, and Facebook has a pretty decent analytics system when used with promoting YouTube vids. It tells you what age group and where they are geographically. Of course, the best way is to talk to the people at your shows and find out who they are.

Chances are, they have certain commonalities and you can use this as a guide to find people of similar taste. Also, I cannot stress the importance of SoundCloud enough. SoundCloud is a real time response website that links to your Facebook. As they listen to your song, they can comment on the parts they like, or dislike and you can find out who is listening and what they like. 

Of course it may take time to find who your fans are if you are doing something different from the rest of the bands. But, being different can be good as long as people are responding and the more you differ, the longer it will take to find your footing, so that is a factor. Now If you start out as a metal band, you have a good idea of what your niche is but you need to refine it by defining yourselves within a well-worn genre. What makes you different and why are fans responding to you? Capitalize on your differences and you will discover your niche

Give stuff away

Always give away merch. At shows, in person, have things to give to fans. Music is good, but also stickers, t-shirts, tickets. All of these are god and it helps you get involved directly with your fans and it generates new ones through a solid first impression. If you offer value without strings, people will sense your integrity and are more inclined to follow you career. Stickers are good because it helps brand awareness; music is good because they instantly know what your product is. Offer free downloads to subscribers, buy drinks for fans, in fact you can make a game of it, whoever does such and such first, gets a free drink, on the band.

Download Cards

CD Baby has a way to create download cards. Basically it cuts out the CDs altogether and has a  code that links to a digital download. These can be passed out to people at your shows, or to venues, or promoters, Studio Execs, and so on. The plus side is that a quick scan with your smartphone is all it takes; the downside is that they cost more so you don’t want to give them away like the standard business card. You don’t want to waste a one of them so make sure the person you are giving it to really wants it.  One artist holds contests each show, whoever wears the most outrageous outfit, gets a download card. Sometimes they ask trivia questions and gives one as a prize. By doing this, you add value to your performance and increase the likelihood of a word of mouth promotion campaign.

Mailing List

One of the most important tools we as artists can make use of is the good ol` mailing list. What this does is give you a direct and targeted audience to send mailings to newsletters and blog posts. This is your best tool in expanding your fan base and I’m surprised so many bands fail to use one. It’s as simple as bringing a form to your show and asking people to put their email on the list. After that, all you need is to enter the data in a log on your group e mailer ( CD Baby has a good one and its cheap when you’re an artist with them already) When set up properly, this insures that your fans are kept up to date and engaged in your progress and gets the word out on future shows in a direct way. This is the best method for informing fans about gigs, and big news as Facebook events tend to get lost in the deluge of all the birthdays, and inane events posts by people you never met.

Fan Engagement

Last but most important on this list, be involved with your fans. Make sure each and 3every person who sat through your whole show knows that you personally appreciate it. Talk to them and find out who they are. This is just a good rule of society to follow. You don’t have to be Marylyn Manson to get attention, just realize that the fans make you. Without them, you have no value. Let them know, but more importantly, show it by   mingling after the show. It’s incredibly poor taste to sit at your band table after the gig and be antisocial. It gives the impression that you are a snob. I absolutely hate it when artists ignore fans or even fellow musicians after the show.  It makes me realize how little they value my presence and guess what? I won’t ever see them again. I won’t tell people about them, or support them. How far do you think they will get with that attitude?

In fact, I was going to do a write up on the jazz singer I met last week but she blew me off, and only focused on the person she thought would further her career and now you will never know about her, not from me anyways.

Now picture the artist who, after giving one hell of a show, goes onto the crowd and talks to people, responds to fans, even if just to say hi and thank you. That performer might even ask you your opinion of the show and what you liked about it. Who’s going to get the word of mouth that generates a loyal fan base?

Of course, these are just a few techniques you can implement and I can’t guarantee they will generate thousands of fans, but I can guarantee that if you pursue these strategies honestly and consistently you will see results. The best thing to do is try these out and build your own repertoire of successful methods of promoting yourself and acquiring new fans.

Now if you have and suggestions or ideas, please share them with the readers of this blog and share the love! If you like this blog, please subscribe here: .http://eepurl.com/pfEsX