Selling to 4 levels of fans

This is a great post from the ReverbNation blog that sets out the nreleatively simple idea of making a tier of products available for different types of fans.

The following illustration is an attempt to visualize four types of fans that buy for different reasons. Any given Artist may have fans in any or all of the buckets, depending on where they are at in their career. You’ll notice that I added a ‘value’ arrow that increases as you go up the illustration. This value arrow is based on a combination of the price each type of fan is willing to pay multiplied by the number of potential fans in each group. Your biggest supporters are willing to pay more than some of the other groups, but there will likely be fewer of them, especially as you tour farther from home.

Check the post here.

How to increase sales at your shows

This latest quick video advice from Phil at Nimbit has two great tips for selling more CD's at your shows.

Unfortunately, the very clever Square card reader isn't yet available in the UK but every savvy performing artist in the US ought to be using this.

 

DJ Shadow on Merchandising on the road

Last part (4 of 4) on Hypebot that we've followed, as a member of Shadow's team, Michael Fiebach, gives a master class on music marketing and  promotion. See the first part on the MiiM Dailies here.

This last part looks at the merchandising that they've made for this tour and gives a best practice guide. It's gold!

I love the fact that he points out that merch is pointless if you're band is whack - no-one will buy it! - and that a genius yet utterly obvious idea is to have bags! People will buy more and can check it to pick up after the show. So simple but almost never done.

This sums up the basics of the merchandising approach.  Care, attention, and quality are the most important things, and as with ALL of the topics I am discussing, if the music isn't good, and isn't commercially viable, then none of this matters.  So upcoming bands: perfect the music before you dive into this wonderful world of Direct To Fan mania. 

Read the piece here.