As a musician wanting to market your music one of the most important things you need to do is discover who your fans are. This is easy enough if you've been gigging and are attracting some fans. Back when my band Womanizer was playing we ended up with our shows being filled with UCLA co-eds. When The Tooners played we always seemed to have one long haired, skinny and shirtless guy who would stand right in the middle of the dance floor holding a beer and staring at us until we finished our song and then would hold his beer up high and shout out; "You guys ROCK!" I appreciated whoever he was, he was someone different at every gig but always matched the same description, but I really preferred the co-eds.
If you are not yet performing enough to start attracting fans, and by fans I mean strangers who are coming specifically to see you perform and not your family members, friends or neighbors who may be attending out of personal loyalty and not because they like your music, then it's tougher to discover who your potential fans may be.
One way to discover the type of person who may become your fan is to look at yourself. You are your biggest fan, at least at this point. You like the kind of music you perform (presumably) so how would someone reach you? What TV shows do you watch? What magazines do you read? To what clubs do you go? To what websites do you go or what blogs do you read? Where do you shop for clothes, or music? How can you reach YOU?
Now it's important to realize that we're interested in reaching YOU the fan, not YOU the musician so don't say that you hang out at Guitar Center since you do that as a musician looking for gear not as a music fan looking for new music. When I'm in a Rock & Roll FAN mood I'll go to the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal City Walk just for the ambiance. I'll look at the "Rock & Roll" titles in the Kindle store (especially for free ebooks) and I'll turn on Palladia music channel occasionally to see what's on.
Here's something else to consider; a lot of the time I'll get turned on to new music because of what my sons are listening to and they seem to find new music through their friends and the friends find it through their friends but it always seems to boil down to the Internet. Getting back to your friends who may not be your fans, they may nevertheless be a good distribution service for your music if, because of your friendship, they'll post your music on their Facebook page. This works as an endorsement and is a great way to spread the word.
When The Tooners were playing the clubs in L.A. I noticed that if we hadn't played out in a while our friends, most of whom were also in bands, might come to see us but only once or twice. However, they would bring a friend with them and it was the friends who would come back, especially if they were introduced to us backstage after the show. Knowing a member of the band was no big deal to our friends but their friend was made to feel special getting to go backstage or to an after show party. It would be the friends of friends who would return to our shows this time bringing their friends thus adding to our circle of new friends (fans). This is how we eventually got a room full of cute blond UCLA students. What we had to offer these new fans, besides the music, was the after show parties (sex & drugs) which were private, invitation only affairs. The admission charge to these parties was paying the admission charge to get into the club to watch the band. We even ended up getting more fans because the girls would get picked up by guys in the bar and they would bring these guys back for the party. The next week these guys would show up with a different girl and the group kept swelling.
We were all young, single, unemployed so could party all night and didn't own anything we worried about strangers in our apartment stealing or breaking. Having those sort of parties now just wouldn't cut it with the wife.
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