Who Cares?
August 18, 2011
Darren in Consumer Trends, Fans, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, The Future of Music, Understanding Your Market, music consumption

Image by Stephen Eastop

How important is it to know who really cares about your business or your music?

Until very recently, most successful businesses would aim to market their goods or services to the ‘safe centre’, the large section of society that follow the crowd in seemingly predictable ways.

Trend setters, geeks and super-fans were not worth marketing to directly because there are never enough of them to sustain growth.

We are, however, going through a monumental shift in consumer culture, you may have noticed! This shift not only affects our buying habits, but also how we connect and build customers (or loyal fans).

Where we once watched TV adverts and followed the masses in product choice, now we have switched off, quite literally. Consumers now view marketing campaigns that cost millions as background noise. There is so much choice for consumers, so many channels and purchasing options that savvy businesses are quickly realising two things;

  1. Being safe in today’s business world is risky
  2. It’s often better to find the super-fans who really care about your product

Being different, risky or on the fringe is becoming a safer option than being good, nice or predictable. We’ve often heard how being original in music is important, but that advice usually comes with a caveat, don’t be too original!

Maybe now is the time to throw all restraints away and truly do what you believe in and create what you love. Be as unique as you can and then find the people who really care about what you do.

By switching your attention from the masses to the super-fans, you’ll create a stronger core of followers. It’s this core that will endorse your product and tell their friends, which produces ‘fans’.

Here’s a great video showing (in real time) how one leader can enjoy large amounts of followers after cultivating a few super-fans.

If you’re wondering how to create a meaningful fan base for your music, try finding those people who really care and can champion what you are doing. A few super-fans can lead to a large fan base if they really believe in you.

Something that really stands out from the video above is the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals and making everything be about the ‘movement’ and not just about you.

So, how do you find who really cares about your music or product?

This is an interesting topic for me because my business, AudioRokit.co.uk is essentially a platform for musicians to connect with industry reps and I am worry that the bigger Audio Rokit get’s, the harder it is to stay connected with my customers. 

We wanted to find who really cares about what we are trying to achieve here at Audio Rokit, so we took action!

View our Blog post to continue reading this article …

Article originally appeared on Music Think Tank (https://www.musicthinktank.com/).
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