Defining Your Audience
Knowing whom you appeal to is a critical step to your success, longevity, and stability of your career. It may seem obvious that you want to find fans, yet, it’s harder for a band to define their audience then they think. Therefore, most bands don’t take that step. Most bands are happy to have any audience, but there is a big difference between any audience and your audience.
Your Audience VS Any Audience
Your audience:
• Will come to every show
• Will buy merchandise
• Will tell their friends and bring their friends to the shows
• May even buy your music
Any audience:
• Will show up just to drink and happen to catch your show
• Will leave during your set
• Will forget your name and your band
Which Audience Do You Want?
There are career artists whose names and music you don’t know. They don’t get mainstream attention, but still they have a big enough fanbase to sustain a career.
If you understand who your fanbase is and where you can find them, you can start focusing your efforts on that core group. If you try to push your music on everyone, you will probably get weak results and burn out quickly.
To get a start on defining your audience, answer the following questions:
1. What artists do you sound similar too?
2. Are they female, male or an equal mix?
3. How old are they generally?
4. What websites do they frequent (besides Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube)?
5. What are they into that you’re into (causes, lifestyle)
Even if you don’t know the exact answers for every question, writing it down will help you find where you want to focus.
Once again these are question that may take some time. Play some gigs, release some music and see who you appeal to. But remember to take note of who’s digging you and who’s not. It’s way more important then you may think.
Take Control of Your Music
Voyno
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Category: Music Career, Music Marketing
[...] Do you have a voice? It’s a harder question to answer then you think, but finding your voice is as critical as finding your audience. [...]