Good fans vs. everyone else.

The other night I met with a band that I’ve known for a long time. We meet periodically to discuss what they have going on and the best way to attack certain scenarios.  The guys just got a new drummer in the band and they’ve been writing, playing new material and they feel they are ready to start planning a release.  One thing that I really appreciate about these guys is that they don’t assume they have it all figured out. They have been a band for several years but they still like to ask for input from those that have been around and gone through this sort of exercise several times over.

I’ve found that young bands tend to not know what they don’t know and so they don’t know why they should ever enlist the services of someone with extensive experience. They then repeat the same tire-spinning activities and wonder why nothing they do ever works or works for long but I digress…

We covered a lot of topics and ideas in the 2 hours that we chatted.  We discussed strategy in everything.  Strategy is KEY.  You can buy ads, play shows, distribute music, etc. but it’s all just an exercise if there is no strategy behind it.

There are a lot of different ways to approach a career in music and there is no real one-size-fits all approach. We talked about picking your fans which reminded me of a blog a friend of mine wrote about picking your customers.  As a band you can almost dictate what fans you will have based on the music you play. When you think about it this way, it makes your job of marketing your band a little easier. If you know who your fans should be, you can imagine where they frequent, what they read, what hobbies they may have, similar bands, where they see live music, the kind of look that appeals to them, etc. It’s almost like you get to hone in on who could be a good fan vs. anyone else.

So what if you decided who your fans were and you focused on cultivating them? You know, real fans instead of passer-bys?

Convincing someone to care, that might care is much easier than convincing someone that would never care ever.  The question is: can you be satisfied with a career based off of a smaller group of fans that are true fans? Or would you rather shoot for a career based on a ton of people that could care less and then be gone like a fart in the wind?

PS. If you’re in a band and you are looking for some outside insight, please email me. We can schedule time for Skype, phone or in-person.