I read “Unmarketing: Stop Marketing, Start Engaging” by Scott Stratten @unmarketing, recently and I highly suggest that all independent artists take time to do the same. The book extensively covers how to effectively use social media, and other marketing tools. A main point is that instead of blindly spreading information, we should be creating content that is engaging and spend our time developing relationships.
I thought I’d take the time to explain how the book’s Hierarchy of Buying directly relates to independent musicians.
This hierarchy is essentially a list of reasons people purchase products. The higher up on the list, the less amount of competition you have. The point being that we should be focusing more attention on the top and middle of the list than the bottom.
The book displays it as a pyramid, with the top section being the smallest, but I’ll use a list it here.
1. Current satisfied customers
2. Referred by a trusted source
3. Current relationship but has yet to purchase
4. Recognized expert in field
5. Search thru ads.
6. Cold calls
Current satisfied customers are the people who are at the show, buying albums, and telling their friends about the music. It is very counterproductive for an up-and-coming artist to neglect this group. There are a lot of different ways we can make them feel neglected.
Artists often miss out on opportunities to develop relationships with the people who purchase our products because we ignore them. Spending time before and after a show backstage drinking flavored vodka might be a lot of fun, but it is also costing you a relationship with everyone in attendance. People appreciate the opportunity to talk to artists. Many people at the show are artists themselves and will appreciate you taking the time to listen to them talk about their projects even if it just for a moment.
DJ Flip Flop said this is one of the things that has helped the CunninLynguists remain so successful. After their shows you can find them at the merch booth or outside talking with their fans. He said that he sold out all the CDs he brought on tour in one night while talking to fans outside after a show. Kno, of the same group, is also great using social media to develop these relationships. It is not necessary to be on Twitter 24/7. It’s more important to use the time on Twitter efficiently. When Kno is on, he is responding to and retweeting those who make the effort to reach out to him.
Referred by a Trusted Source. I know I personally have made posts on Facebook and Twitter asking “What album should I buy?” When people are asking their friends what music they should listen to, will they tell them yours?
Current relationship but have yet to purchase. These are the people who have listened to our music, maybe they follow us on Twitter, but they haven’t been able to make it out to a show yet or purchased an album. So when they get gift cards for their birthday they at least are aware that we have an album out they can buy.
Recognized expert in the field. Are you taking the time necessary to master your craft and become known as the best at what you do? Do people refer to you as the best in your area? This is a great way to move someone into your Current Satisfied Customers category.
Search thru ads. This is where we really start to see a change in the amount of competition we have. If people are searching on Google or browsing ads in a magazine, there is going to be a huge amount of competition that your product will be up against. The percentage of people that will actually listen to your music because they saw your ad in their favorite magazine is small.
Cold Calls. Aka SPAM! This is where we will see the smallest amount of success but for some reason seem to spend the most time.
I believe that most people are like me in that we will never give an artist a chance because they tweeted at us “check out my new mixtape” followed by a link. Especially when we click on their timeline and see they have sent the exact same message to hundreds of others.
So why do people invest so much time doing this sort of thing? We should instead be creating a relationship!
If that same person had taken 10 seconds to comment on something I posted and then followed it up with, “you should also check out my music” I’d probably give it a shot every time.
AND by posting you have a new album coming out every 20 minutes on Facebook, you are actually damaging your current relationships and making promoting future events harder on yourself.
Another form of spamming is handing out flyers! Unless we have an opportunity to actually talk to the people who we are giving flyers to, there is a very small percent of people who will hold onto their flyer for long enough to look further into the details on it.
As an example, only 5% of the people who visit this magazine are from Seattle. Being that Seattle is the biggest city in the northwest, this is a problem. So we decided to take a trip up to Seattle and hit the city with flyers. We handed out thousands of flyers all over the city and put them inside of every store that would let us. I followed our numbers for the next couple of weeks, and THE FLYES HAD NO IMPACT! As our readership in other areas increased, the percentage of our Seattle users dropped.
On the reverse side, we co-host a monthly event with Gen.Erik of Animal Farm at the Crown Room in Portland called Woo Hah. At the event we are able to bring people together and talk with them about their ideas for stories and things we have done in the past. Since beginning this event, we have seen our number of Portland readers skyrocket!
Building relationships does take time, but it is a worthwhile investment for people looking for long term customers!