How well do you know your fans?

Oftentimes you'll hear people say that the purpose of business is to make money, but that's not true. Making money is the result of a business, and it's essential to keep a business going. But it's not the purpose of business. The purpose of a business is to attract and retain customers. For musicians in the business of making money, your business purpose is to attract and retain fans.

Not all fans are equal, however. You need fans that will buy your music and merchandise, and pay to come to your shows. Your "Superfans", or "1,000 True Fans", whatever. What's difficult, besides making great music and just getting fans, is knowing exactly who these fans are so you can personally reach out to them.

I propose that mobile technology provides a solution to this problem better than any other marketing tool available to musicians.

Check out this screen capture:

(We blocked out the email addresses and names because, hey, it's a real list!!)

This is a fan database from an artist on the Adva Mobile platform. It provides their phone number (for reaching them via our SMS Text Service), and their email address  (for sending them email marketing, either through our service or your own email service like Constant Contact, Mail chimp, or Fan Bridge), details about their age, gender and location. Also, the number of page views of your mobile site / App for that fan. It's incredibly useful to know that two fans on this page (circled in RED) have visited you mobile site pages 204 and 106 times since they joined your site. Those fans are checking you out all the time!!

Mobile can provide so much more, however. Here's another screen capture from our soon to be released new portal, showing enhanced fan data (again, real info, so the name is blocked).

With this information, you can learn more about your fans, how they engage you on mobile phones, and what they are interested in. You can target them precisely - even individually - and you can expect great results from your efforts to market and sell to them.

Mobile is a new world of fan engagement and the ability to data mine fan information and behavior on your mobile site and App will improve your ability to make money with your music.

Postscript:

From Jonathan Ostrow and Music Think Tank

Back in November 2010, Jonathan Ostrow  wrote a blog titled "How well do you know your fans?". It was picked up and re-published by Music Think Tank - you can read it again here. It's a decent attempt to categorize fan types to help Artists spend time cultivating fans that really matter. I remembered this article when I was writing the article above, about what Adva Mobile was doing to help Artists figure out who their best fans were.  Enjoy!

Natalie Stovall's Blog Message

Natalie Stovall officially launched her mobile strategy yesterday with a simple blog telling fans she had a new mobile site and that fans can get a cool, free song if they  texted in and joined.

Here's what she wrote:
News – Natalie Launches New Mobile Club



June 6th, 2011

We are excited to announce the launch of Natalie’s new mobile community. It was developed in partnership with our friends at Adva Mobile and over the months and years to come it will allow Natalie to communicate and interact with her fans in new and exciting ways.

All you have to do is text “GetFiddle” to 88704 and you will get:
-Access to Natalie blog and tour schedule right from your phone.
-Localized alerts when Natalie is playing in your area.
-The chance to participate in contests and offers that won’t be available anywhere else.
-And for a limited time you will be able to download a special live recording of her infamous “Fiddlepalooza Medley”

That’s right, the only medley where you can see a 5’2″ blond girl play everything from AC/DC to Michael Jackson on the fiddle in the same song, and it’s yours! All you have to do is text “GetFiddle” to 88704.

In less than 24 hours, more than 100 fan joined her mobile site.

She'll get many more fans when she tells them from the stage during shows, but it's great to see so many Natalie Srivall fans who want to stay connected with her on their phones. It's really the best way.