Share of Fan

“There can be no expertise in innovation unless there is also expertise in demolishing the ensconced.” — Kevin Kelly

The foundation of any real marketing is authentic relationships. I suspect it’s always been this way. The previous generation simply lost its course and was forced to live through an age of “one size fits all” mass marketing.

Our society, institutions, and information were mass produced over the last few hundred years. We assume this is normal, but it isn’t. For most of human history, our culture, ideas and information were transmitted on a smaller and more personal scale.

The first and most crucial step for us now is to actually understand who our customers are and be able to reach them directly.

Every other business can do this, it’s insane that we in the music industry can’t. As it stands, whenever a creator transacts or interacts on a third party platform, it’s the platform that owns the relationship.

Apple knows every fan who has ever made a purchase on iTunes (and are expanding their empire with this info). Artists and executives don’t. When it’s time to reach all of the fans who liked your Facebook page, it’s time to dig into your pockets (hopefully they’re deep) to pay Facebook.

The name of the game is now precision data. Understand everything you can about who your fans are and own the relationship with them. Leverage social networks, don’t rely on them.

“In the 1:1 future businesses will focus less on short-term profits…and more on the kind of profits that can be realized from long-term customer retention and lifetime values.” — Don Peppers

It’s time to shift the commonly held assumptions about how a creative career is built. Share of customer is now more important than share of market.

Instead of looking to reach the masses, start with the core base of true fans. Invest time in building these relationships, as opposed to trying to reach as many people as possible in a transactional way. By definition, a relationship is collaborative, not just one way communication. It’s the “state of being connected,” which means a two way dialogue.

The fans are your lifeblood and they’re more than willing to talk to you when given an opportunity. It’s these dialogues that will guide your path to monetization and longevity.

“The lesson is clear: listening to potential future customers is the difference between the winners and losers.” — Steve Blank

This simple idea is the foundation for the “lean” movement that has swept through the startup community. The premise is that the wisdom of the crowd is greater than the wisdom of a select few.

For startups, it’s listening to real customer feedback, as opposed to sitting in a room guessing what people want. For artists, it’s engaging with fans instead of relying on gatekeepers to tell you what’s relevant.

This doesn’t involve compromising any level of artistic integrity. It means discovering who your audience really is and how they want to support you. There is also value starting with a hyper focused and localized fan base. This is what Uber did:

“Uber used intense market focus to create local network effects in their launch city, San Francisco, while fueling word of mouth growth through targeting of the early adopting Bay Area techset.” — Sean Ellis

Whether this literally means a hyper focus on your city (which is a great place to start), or in an online world, the mandate is clear. By trying to reach everyone, you reach no one. It’s this intense, localized focus that generates organic word of mouth and real growth.

It’s time to graduate from the “market share mentality” and start to focus on building collaborative, long-term relationships with fans.