Cultivating and caring for your core fans is one of the key aspects of maintaining lively and profitable fan base. Here we look at how to successful market to your core fans without scaring them away with overzealousness.
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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski on Music 3.0
Music 4.1 is totally dependent upon the development, care, and feeding of your fanbase. This audience can be broken down into the following two categories: your casual fans and your core fans.
Your core audience fans are your most passionate fans. They’ll buy whatever you have to sell, work for free, recruit other fans, and basically do anything you ask. All they want is access to and communication with the artist.
Even though your core fans might everything you have to offer, but they don’t want to be hyped about it. Here are some ideas from my Music 4.1 internet music guidebook that will make sure that your fans get all the information about your products without feeling they are being sold.
“When it comes to your music, make an announcement about a new release or video (or even a piece of merch), but don’t oversell it. Fans don’t need to know that you think your new music is the greatest thing you ever did or that it’s better than the Foo Fighters’ last release. They’ll decide for themselves and then sell it for you in their own conversations if they like it. The way to market to your core fans is by simply presenting your product to them. Just make them aware that it’s available, and they’ll do the rest. You can take it a bit further by offering them information about the product—the more exclusive, the better.
Marketing to your core fans is really very simple. There are just 3 things to remember:
- Present your product, don’t sell it
- Give them lots of information and trivia
- Absolutely no hype!
Instead of a sales pitch:
- Give them a behind-the-scenes story about the making of the product.
- Tell them where the idea for it came from.
- Tell them about all the people involved, especially other core fans.
- Provide interviews with others involved in the project.
- Give them all the trivia involved in the project, no matter how small. True fans will eat it up. If it’s a new song, tell them where it was recorded, who the engineer and producer are, how many Pro Tools tracks were needed, how long the mix took to finish, how many mixes you did, how the final mix compared with the rough mix, and all of the hundred other fine details that go into producing a song. If you just produced a new T-shirt, describe where the design came from, why you chose the manufacturer, what the shirt is made of, why you chose the color, and so on. Get the idea?
Giving them insight that no one else has makes them feel special, will keep them loyal, and will show mere fans and lurkers the benefits of tribal participation.”
You can read more from my Music 4.1 internet music guidebook and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.