So here’s something super obvious that a lot of bands fuck up. The best way to make more money from your band is not to try and grow your audience, it’s to make more money from the fans you already have. Retargeting fans who have already expressed interest is going to generate a lot more funds over the long run than trying to win over a new fan every day of the week. It’s a psychological thing. Think about it this way; which are you more likely to go see, a band you have seen before and thoroughly enjoyed, or a band you have heard you might like, but have never seen? In most cases, you’re probably going to be going out to see the band you’ve already seen because it’s a guarantee of a good time. Well, you need to be aiming to do the same thing with your band – bringing people back in for a good time again and again.
Here’s another way to think about it. Who is more likely to buy a shirt from you, someone who has seen your band three times and who you’ve started to build a relationship with, or someone who just sat through your set, and even though they might have enjoyed it, were honestly waiting for their friends’ band? A lot of times you won’t buy a shirt from a band the first time you find out about them, so why should you expect your fans to do the same? Time and time again though I see bands trying to pitch to completely new markets of disinterested people. This is part of why opening slots aren’t really helpful unless the band is in your genre, because only then are the fans “hot,” that is to say, receptive to checking out new bands and buying their merch.
The point being – this is exactly why I always talk about how regional touring is much more important than national tours, because with regional touring you can hit the same customer bases multiple times and win them over in order to convert merch sales. Meanwhile, with national tours so frequently you hit a market that you aren’t going to play again. This is also why if you open up on a cool national tour it’s so key that you follow up with yet another tour because people’s memories are short and you need to be able to serve the same batch of fans who you have already won over again and again, because they like spending money on you, they are stoked on spending money on you. You need to show people the love because once they feel that they are much more likely to want to keep going in on what you have to offer.
You want to know the best part of capitalizing on your core fanbase and making them feel loved? They become their own mini-PR people for your band. So, if you are big in a region, you don’t generally only stay big in that region. Instead what usually happens is that the people on the outskirts of your region start talking to their friends a little bit further out about how cool you are. Then you go play there. Then those people talk to THEIR friends a little bit further out etc etc. The important thing to remember is to think about it in terms of how your band has grown and how you have found out about new local level bands. So frequently it’s because they pushed the boundaries bit by little bit and suddenly were able to get somewhere meaningful and do something cool. The only way they were able to push the boundaries though was by focusing on the people who already dug them.
After all, who is more likely to buy your CD, the guy who bought the last two records you put out or the guy who discovered you just tonight? Yeah, there you go. This is why it’s so important to have PR and mailing lists. It’s often not just for trying to reach out to new people, it’s for showing the people who have been following you that something new is coming. The thing is – you can’t rely on the reach of social media to do that for you anymore. If you have one record that gets a lot of attention because you put a PR push behind it and then another that goes nowhere because there was no PR you can’t expect your pre-existing fans to find out about you just from social media. It’s the whole package that matters. Think about your own albums sales if you have released multiple, of the people who bought the later ones, how many had purchased a previous record? Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s a lot easy to get repeat customers than new ones, simple as that.
Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying to tire an audience out, that’s just a waste of time, just realize that by getting to those who have already expressed an interest in you, then you are a lot more likely to see success than if you are constantly trying to find new people. And after all, if no one is biting, even after having seen you a few times… maybe there’s an issue with your band. So go out, make the tweaks you need to make and work on optimizing what your band is about, who you reach and what your band means for those throughout the scene. It’s going to be a grind and it’s not always going to be fun, but being in a band is hard work. If having the ability to do cool tours and sell a lot of merch was easy then everyone would be doing it.
MATT BACON
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Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. Having worked with everyone from Glam Rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard, to post Black Metal titans Alcest, by way of legendary thrashers Exhorder as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music, he has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop. Having started his own blog at the age of 14 he views his career in artist development as ‘a hobby that got out of hand’. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. We sit here now, years later with countless tours booked, records released and deals signed, and loving every minute of it.
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