Secrets of a 20-Year Music Career

The blond in the photo to the left is my friend Celeste.  The photo to the right is also Celeste, about 20 years ago. 

What's changed in her life?  A lot...

What hasn't changed?  She's still crazy about New Kids on the Block.  In fact, the only reason that photo to the right made it out of an old photo album is because she used it as part of a contest to win backstage passes.

On this tour, she's going to see the group in St. Louis, Memphis, Dallas, and Houston.  But it's how she's going to see them that I find interesting.

Here are a couple of photos from her trip to last night's show in St. Louis...

What kind of person would decorate a car like this and drive hundreds of miles to see a show?

A superfan!

Let's face it... The music business is changing.  It's easier than ever to download music for free, and while there are a lot of new and exciting ways for musicians to make money, album sales isn't necessarily one of them...at least when it comes to "casual" fans.

That's why it would be a smart strategy for you to work on developing relationships with fans who will buy your highend stuff again, and again, and again.  Fewer fans, more money.

You're probably heard the "1000 True Fans" argument, which says you can make a pretty good living if you've got 1000 people spending $100/year with you.

It's true.  You can make a good living with "1000 True Fans."

But what would happen if you focused on developing "500 Superfans" who would spend $300/year with you?

You've just increased your income by 50%, even though you only have half as many fans...

What if you could do both though?  What if you could have "1000 True Fans" and another 500 people who would spend much more than average?

And what if you could have these relationships for 10 or more years?

You can...but you have to work on creating a solid foundation you can build upon.

My question to you... What are you doing to develop these "superfan" relationships?

Post comments below.  I'll also be adding my own ideas over the next few weeks, so subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything.

Comments

[Krzysztof Wiszniewski]

In cases like these, where an observation is used to support a theory, I always like to reflect on it for a moment. My question is: what have NKOTB done to develop that particular superfan relationship?

I don't know the details (obviously), but my gut feeling is: absolutely nothing.

This would probably prove true for the majority of long-time artists who do have a fair number of superfans.

I find the Superfan Strategy to be yet another one of those things that looks great on paper, but considerably less so when you start getting into the nitty-gritty. I don't wish to overblow this comment, so - since you asked - I'll point out some of its more obvious flaws and dubious assumptions at The Cynical Musician.

[Toggo]

I love it! You and Seth Godin are two of the few Industry Pros who REALLY get it.

One of the things that I do, which has always paid off, is to make my closest fans (the ones who write me personal mails/myspace comments/etc) feel important, by always taking the time to reply to them, both via e-mail and telephone.

I also offer new releases (whether it's music, merch, or anything else) to them first, exclusively, some time before it's released publicly.

However, I've slacked off it for a while now - this post was the wake-up call I needed.

Can't wait to hear more on the call tonight. Thanks again for always being an inspiration to me David.

[Eric Verrastro]

Hey David,

This topic is fantastic, thank you for sharing this point of view, ít's something to think about and creat a strategy to get there.
Im focused a lot on creating really good music, that people can remember after listening to it, and this is what Im aiming to do for the rest of my life to impress people by my music.
I've seen that post, and heard the interview you did with Nathan Chapman, Taylor Swift's producer, it was awesome.
She is one of my favorite artists.
Can I ask you some questions by e mail?
keep it up man!

[Mark Maxwell]

Any way you look at the music business, and we all know too well how it's morphing into who knows what, you've got to 1.) find, and then 2.) communicate with your fans. And whether its 1,000 fans at $100 or 5,000 fans at $25 the idea is the same: touch the hearts and minds of your fans, repeatedly and with emotional emphasis.

I've had some success at doing that; you can read about it here: http://markmaxwellmusic/mark-maxwell-music/ . Whatever success I've had has been all about touching people directly with my music, always some new people from year to year, but always a group of the same people - my fans and superfans.

Great article, David, and a great reminder of what's really important.

[www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlAvSBHZD0eE5p73Axfo85CSJQlBqTrfqc]

Interesting way of thinking of the music career. I have been a musician for over 40 years, playing both full and part time, as I had a 9-5 job. I am going through a career change from the 9-5 to trying to make a living from song writing and freelance journal writing. I have released a CD of instrumental music on iTunes, etc. and have looked at it as how to market this CD to everyone. I have tried to narrow my target audience to stress relief, relaxation methods and Bed & Breakfasts, but I am finding it hard to develop this target. I am getting some good feedback but I am searching for more methods to bring in followers. To your article, it makes me think of getting friends and people who have known and liked my music for years as my first base audience but to my amazement...so many friends said they liked the music but only a few bought it. I thought they would have purchased more so just to support me...but that didn't' happen. I supposed that those just weren't fans of relaxation/easy listening type music...but I still was amazed that more didn't buy it, just to show support. I was friends at work with many of them for over 20 years. Anyway...your site looks like it can give me many ideas to find my target audience. I like your idea of just finding a small amount of devoted, super-fans. Thanks.

[KSE]

Celeste makes some great points in this blog. The fact she recognizes fan, real fans, and supper fans is awesome.

At KleerStreem, we always say to our artists: Each fan is worth a min. of $100/yr. Anything an artist can do to increase this amount/fan is a bonus. However, we believe to have a successful career touring with a full band (5-7) people, $250K/gross will not cut it. It will probably cover 3-5 musicians, but, no one is going to have too many extra coins to spend. Our goal with each artist is to have a real fan base of at least 5,000.....10,000 would be a preferred amount of fans. If they are True Blue Fans, as we call them, the amount of revenue should come close to one million gross. Our goal is to have each musician earning at least 60K in gross revenue/year. We would love to see that amount go to 100k/year in a span of 7 years+.

We are advocates of the POWER OF 5, which means each True Blue Fan can bring on board 5 new True Blue Fans. We keep our fan list broken down into: fans & TBF.

From a marketing standpoint we conduct contests for fans and we solicit TBF for Street Team Leaders in each city we want to tour or are touring. There are tons of promotional things we do for TBF and Street Team Leaders. We try and give an annual prize of 2 round trip tickets to nice resorts to the top person that brought in the most TBF in a year. We ask all artist to give away Mp3 for free. We do sell 'special' fan packages at shows. If we have a TBF that can perform well, we will put them on stage for a couple of songs at each gig..they love doing this. Many,many more things that can be done to build you TBF base, for without fans, an artist does not have much of career and it's no fun sleeping in vans/cars while on the road.

Last but not least, we are big time supporters of Music World 2.0; Music World 1.0 is dead, especially if you are indie and want to earn a decent living.

--end

[MikeOso]

The only way to develop a "superfan" relationship is through authenticity. Be and express who and what you are, whatever that may be, as best you can understand it, as deep as you can get. The practice of ulterior motives and manipulation are in quick process to completely end.

[Ransack Productions]

This is very true! Fans are what make or break an artist career and now that we are living in times that fans want to become the artist or group and can via the internet and other easier method for DIY produced songs. The chaos has not only began but along with the massive saturation within the music business makes it even harder to find fans who don't want to be involved in the process of creating music. Building a fan base is something that a lot of these new artists forget but is the ultimate core to a group or band or singers success and it is something that they shouldn't take for granted now a days.

[patriciointernational@gmail.com]

This is truly powerful stuff David. I love these types of concepts, See gerd leonhard ( the future of music ) for Music like water concepts. our society will have to adjust it's thinking slightly, but soon many things will change before our eyes. Electric cars,what seems like free down loads for every media and more $$$ for the artists and publishers/ Producers I am getting really excited about the media of personal messaging through cell phone and skype.Patricio

[David Hooper]

The best way to get questions to me is via my weekly podcast. It's every Wednesday at 9pm Eastern. At that time, or a little before, call (347) 637-2654 to get me. http://www.musicmarketingpodcast.com has more info.

[David Hooper]

Unable to give specific examples for this group and what they've done to facilitate the relationship over the years, but http://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/06/backstage-pass-contest-for-nkotb.html has more info on a contest they're doing now.

You've brought up a good point, in that many artists, once they reach a certain level of success and sell millions of albums, have so many fans that they don't have to do as much to have a large number of superfans. It's a numbers game.

The reality is that 94% of people who say _________ is their favorite band, don't know that _________ has a new album out.

What I'm talking about will prevent this from happening. It will also allow you to make good money from a fanbase that isn't nearly as large as a group like New Kids on the Block.

[David Hooper]

Thank you. http://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/03/seth-godin.html has an interview I did with Seth when he was in town for Country Radio Seminar. Very sharp guy!

[Molly]

David,
What some don't understand is that you don't have to be on Billboard's top charts or on ET walking a red carpet in order to 'make it in music' and have a hard core (True Blue in Lee's terminology) fan base. New Kids on the Block are still performing, they're just not 'big stars' anymore. Their TBF won't leave them for the next new thing. That's what makes them who they are. THAT's the concept indies need to get into their heads. Not a super platinum album, not a major label deal. Just a core base of fans who love your music whether anyone else is paying attention to you or not.

[Eliana Gilad]

I really appreciate this post and all of the comments. As a composer and performer of ancient healing and transformational music (based in Israel), I have been focusing my work and marketing upon writing and teaching, and exposing the peaceful sides of the middle east (that rarely gets exposed through traditional media).

In this process, I see I have kind of downplayed the actual music, which has been medically proven to lower blood pressure, increase focus and quality of sleep.

It's also made by Jews and Arabs working together peacefully - a living example of solution.

Reading the posts are giving me alot of food for thought - as to how to build my fan base - around inner peace makers...

[musiclovergal]

It's not only the fans that make or break an artist, but also the people behind the scenes. In order for an artist to be successful, one must also have a good, strong management team that includes business, legal, marketing, promotions, PR, road, stage, tour, and the band members that are chosen.

For example, take Taylor Swift. She is involved in every aspect of managing her own career, creating her albums, marketing and promoting herself, her looks, her brand image, and having that relateable factor that allows her to relate to her audience and thus, increasing her fan base.

She also is very tech-savvy, taken the digital world by storm, uses the latest new technologies and social media and always stays one step ahead of herself. This is one smart young woman and she is only 19! She has only been out on the scene for three years, but yet she is still going strong and I suspect, will continue to do so for many, many years to come. She stays true to herself, knows who she is, what she wants, stays connected to her fans, and goes after what she sets out to accomplish. Taylor Swift has become one huge star because of all of these factors involved and not just one. Taylor is a great blessing for all companies out there today. Go Taylor!