As a musician or a band, it will help you in your marketing if you try and identify who your typical fan is.  All musicians and artists will have a fans with a variety of ages and interests however you should find that you have a ‘core demographic’, a large group of people with a similar age, similar interests and music preferences. They might even live in the same location.

Who is your ideal fan?

In marketing terms, the  a typical customer or ‘customer profile’ is called a persona and it will help your music marketing if you create the profile of a typical fan of your music.

First of all, let’s talk about ways you can create that profile. For starters, have a look at Facebook Insights on your Facebook page.  There is a section entitled People – Your Fans which gives age, sex and location information about your followers.  Twitter has Twitter Analytics (which gives you information about followers’ interests . In addition, think about your own experience of the types of fans who turn up to your shows.

A typical fan…yesterday.

For my own band our ‘typical’ fan profile is a 25-35 year old male from Wigan, England. He like comedy, music, drinking beer and watching films.

Now that you have this information, it can help you in a number of ways.

• It helps you think about the type of social media content this ideal fan will like so that your posts and Tweets engage them more. 
• It can help you target your advertising/marketing to find new fans. If my typical fan is a 30 year old who likes beer and football and who lives in the North West of England.  I can pay Facebook to show my Facebook music videos to other 30 year old people in the North West of England who like beer and football.  Those people stand a strong chance of liking what I do rather than just paying to show my music to some random person.
  
• If you know what other music your fans are into (and you can find out by asking them on social media) you can pay for a Facebook advert to your show your content to fans of those musical artists.  So if you’re a musician whose fans also like Rage Against The Machine & Public Enemy you can use a paid Facebook boost to show your content to their fans and they should have a greater likelihood of digging your stuff. If you’re a small artist just starting out, think about your own musical preferences and use that as a guide.
  
  

Takeaway Tip

Sit down with a pen and paper and come up with a description of your typical fan.  Then think about ways you can reach more of THOSE people.

Further Reading: A typical Macklemore Fan

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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