Creating Value in Your Music Marketing
Marketing has taken on a whole ‘nother meaning in this technology and “always on” age. Marketing is not just neatly packaged ads and campaigns that you push out to the public. Marketing is now a communication channel between you and the public – whether your fans, potential fans, passers by, people looking in Twitter Search, Google searches, YouTube videos, comments and any other interaction point that there is.
The goal here is to create value at all of these interaction points.
photo by Enrico Fuente
Last Thursday, I went to an Atmosphere show in Orlando, FL – a long way from his hometown in Minneapolis, MN. Upon first glance it would appear that 1,000 kids paid $15 to see a white rapper from the burbs. Taking a closer look you will see the real value of what was happening here.
Pre-Pre-Show
As with all Atmosphere tours, he has released a new EP for concert go-ers to get excited about. This time he made it a free 7-song download available at their in-house record shop, 5th Element Online. To help their overall marketing efforts, they made you sign-up for a free account to be notified of new releases and tour info in exchange for the EP.
Pre-Show
We arrived at the Club 40 minutes after doors opened and saw a line of about 100 folks still waiting to get in. While moseying up the line I noticed a familiar face making rounds to all the concert goers. Slug (or Sean) from Atmosphere was meeting and greeting with every person in line and had been all night. Chatting with Sean for a few seconds revealed that he actually cared about every person in attendance that night and was going to do his best to earn his money. He posed for pictures, answered questions and was generally hanging out with the crowd before the show.
The Performance
For those that are into hip-hop and have never seen an Atmosphere show live, you need to YouTube some footage right now. This night was no different. Two hours into his performance he was still going strong, busting freestyles, talking about specific encounters he had in Orlando (remembering venues, opening acts and even people from the crowd) and genuinely entertaining everyone. He got the crowd involved in nearly every song, captured attention and brought attention back to his band and to his hometown. At one point, Slug commented about his hat that he picked up at the mall earlier that day, a Marlins hat, just to show that he cared he was in our hometown for a few hours.
Post Show
After the show, he rushed out to the merch area, talking with more fans, signing autographs and ensuring that every fan got what they wanted out of the night.
Putting This All Together
You may not be at the level of Atmosphere, bringing in 1,000 people on a 40-city tour, but you do have the potential to connect with every fan, every night you play out, every time they say hello on a social network and every time you meet someone on the street. Adding value to those conversations makes it even more likely that they will continue to support you and your music.
How To Add Value
Involve the Crowd – Whether at live shows or at home playing a laptop MC or singer/songwriter, get your fans involved. At live shows bring in live Twitter Screens, have fans text you song requests and invite them onstage. Make their time at your show unforgettable.
Make It Easy For Them To Talk To You – No matter if it is before or after the show, online or at your job, you need to be communicating with fans. Using technology like Twitter, Meebo or uStream it makes it very easy for back-and-forth communication. Start talking to your fans today.
Give Away Products That Have Value – Everyone is jumping on the free bandwagon. The ones that excel give away stuff that is of great value. Three demo songs is not high value. Give away your new radio single and the video. Give away your CD with a t-shirt purchase. Give away stickers for Apple users (MacBooks and iPods). Giving away junk only makes you look like junk.
Love Your Work – This music thing is your job, even if it is just part-time right now. Show pride in your work, put in overtime, work late, get up early and love every second of it. Your fans will appreciate the effort and give back their time to you.
How are you adding value to your fans? Let us know in the comments below.
This post was written by Greg Rollett from Label 2.0, an interactive marketing school for musicians. You can grab a seat in class here. Greg can also be found on Twitter, @g_ro.
thank you! I really liked this post!