We often make marketing wickedly abstract.
I, for instance, am running Meta ads for my music right now, with the general idea that someone somewhere in the world will see an ad for my music, listen to it, like it, and then love me forever.
The process is somewhat concrete, I guess. It’s the people that I’ve made abstract.
Every so often a heartfelt Instagram comment will jar me back to the fact that any real audience is made of real people – but too often I think of my audience (when I stop to think about them at all) as a sort of grey, faceless, almost person-less crowd. They’re numbers, not names, compacted together like garbage. I had 26,100 listeners last month, all lumped into one incomprehensible statistical blob.
There are many problems with this way of thinking, but one of the most pressing is that it’s hard to have a relationship with a blob.
Thankfully, there are many paths out of this way of thinking, too. One I’ve been following today is an exercise in making your own fandom concrete.
Ask yourself these three questions:
- Who are the three artists you’ve most recently become a fan of?
- How were you first connected with their music?
- How and why have you acted to support them?
I do this periodically, and I think it’s helpful because it reveals that the nameless blob is really made up of beings like you.
On that note, I’ll give you my own answers below.
The three artists I’ve most recently become a fan of are:
Gregory Alan Isakov – He’s floated around my algorithms for like a decade, but I’d say that last year I finally latched on to became a genuine fan.
Wild Rivers – I’ve had a few of their tracks in heavy rotation since first finding them last year.
Maverick Sabre – To say I’m a fan is probably stretching the truth, but I found his feature on “Weak” a couple of days ago, which led me to stream it 17 times, which led me to Burn The Right Things Down, which was fun.
How I found them:
Gregory Alan Isakov – I’m not entirely sure. I think I first heard him through Spotify Radio like ten years ago. But Alli got super into Appaloosa Bones last year, and I have a few friends who were hardcore fans before me. It’s probably a matter of multiple touch points.
Wild Rivers – My cousin, whose taste in music I enjoy, texted me a link to “Bedrock” with a short explanation: “This song gives me Jon vibes.” He was right.
Maverick Sabre – I’m promoting a minimal house playlist for a customer that features “Weak” as the first song. That track is undeniably fun, so I checked out the artists who made it.
How and why I’ve acted to support them:
Gregory Alan Isakov – Alli and I saw his show at Red Rocks last year, and this past Christmas I bought her a vinyl copy of Appaloosa Bones. I probably wouldn’t have taken either action alone; both of those purchases flowed from my relationship with Alli.
Wild Rivers – I haven’t taken any material action to support them outside of streaming them a bunch. But Alli and I are thinking about going to their show at Red Rocks this summer.
Maverick Sabre – All I’ve done is stream his music. Honestly, I don’t think I’m likely to do more than that.
Okay, so what are the takeaways?
I think the most profound one is that my strongest fandom has flowed from my strongest relationships.
If you measure my fandom in monetary terms, I’m the biggest fan of Gregory, having spent around $300 to engage with his music last year. And as I mentioned above, I don’t think I would have spent anything if the fandom hadn’t been something Alli and I shared.
I’d rank my fandom for Wild Rivers second on the list – and that came directly from my cousin’s recommendation. Even Maverick (whom I’ll probably forget in a few months, at least until Spotify Wrapped reminds me that he exists in December) is a connection from a customer relationship.
This isn’t to say that less personal discovery channels (like, for example, Meta ads) don’t work. They clearly do, and they’re easier to scale.
But I think the climb from impersonal discovery to true connection is steeper, and it probably takes more work on the part of the artist.
Of course, if your audience is only ever abstract, you’re unlikely to do the hard work of relationship.
So whenever possible, break up the blob. Value names over numbers. Make your marketing – and your market – concrete, and you’ll make real relationship possible. That’s the whole point of all of this, and it’s my main point for today.
Here’s wishing you the good luck to build a big audience, and the good sense to treat them as people, too.
– Jon
