What's Your Fan Pipeline?

How does someone with ears transform into a fan so obsessive they dig through your garbage?

1. Hear your single.
2. Super-fan?
Probably not.

More Realistically:
1. Hear 1/2 a song showing up at the end of your set opening for a band the fan actually came to see.
2. Sorta remember a song. Promptly forget.
3. See your band mentioned on another flyer.
4. Hear a song of yours off myspace.
5. Buy a song.
6. Done.

Don’t feel bad about something like this, you’ve sold a song! But if you wanna quit your day job and live off song (and I want it soooo bad!), you’re gonna need a whole lot more songs sold. And apparently all your other band members want to be paid too… (pricks)

So how do you plan on getting a super-fan?

Two things.
  -Make it exciting to become more involved with your music.
  -Make a pathway for fans who want to get more involved so they know how to do it.

Don’t “just” have your music. Your art is too big for that! Make it stretch as wide and deep as you can! Make people want to get sucked into your band’s world.

The initial contact most people have with your music will be cursory at most, so don’t bother putting your heart and soul into this. Just use these initial contact points to give people a little bit of information, then direct them to the one place you do want them to focus on. The more you can focus on one destination, the more enthralling you can make the journey. Make as many points of casual contact as you can, then lead them to your brilliantly sculpted garden.

Reward people for increasing their devotion to you!!!

Think. 

Why should someone give a crap about you once they’ve been to one show or bought one song?

—-

Derek is an MBA student and bassist for Onward We March, a Dallas-based Progressive Metal band. Their first EP The Golden Vine will be released Q3 2010.