…a tasty little jig to grow your fanbase.
We recently had the pleasure of working with an incredibly talented, hard-working band and management team, the Fanfarlo crew. Their campaign makes for an interesting study as it highlights a focus on growth as opposed to revenue. We’ll get into the details momentarily, but the basic formula they applied is one that can benefit growth bands far and wide:
1) Don’t suck.
2) Get others to introduce you to their audiences.
3) Make those audiences an offer they can’t refuse.
4) Repeat.
Now for a little background and detail…
After obtaining some groundswell in the UK, Fanfarlo certainly struck the right chord with independent music enthusiasts with stellar performances at CMJ and SXSW in 2008/2009, including a secret garden performance and an off-the-cuff recovery (electrical failures) that endeared them to those in attendance. One doesn’t have to scour the blogs long before they see a pattern of praises being sung for this quintet.
The band released their debut album, Reservoir, through iTunes in March, 2009. Check it out for yourself on the widget below (copied/embedded from Fanfarlo.com). It’s a keeper.
The band sold 839 albums through the US iTunes store after 3 months of being live. Like many other successful independent bands, the crew entertained label offers but hadn’t found anything of much interest. They then decided to ignite their album release through a direct-to-fan campaign.
What was that campaign to entail? We started by asking management what they really wanted out of it. The goal was articulated as such: “I want to play the Mercury Lounge in NY and have a queue around the corner“…selling out a popular venue in a major US market. Management’s clear focus let us, in turn, focus on fan growth as our primary measure of success, and from there, the plan was crafted.
I present you the Fanfarlo Four Step:
1) Don’t suck.
It all begins with a quality product. This growth strategy is not for untested music or those just finding their voice. We can argue about what’s good music and what’s not, but at the end of the day, your music has to excite and enthuse folks to the point they feel the need to share it with others. Do some googling and see how folks are talking about Fanfarlo. Are fans and taste makers in your niche reflecting similar sentiment? If not, maybe there’s some product issues to deal with or perhaps you’re playing to the wrong audience.
2) Get others to introduce you to their audience.
Let’s face it…as a small band, your direct reach will only go so far. You’ve got to enlist the help of others to meet new fans. Fanfarlo did this in three primary ways:
- Assembled a team of marketing professionals: in addition to Topspin, Fanfarlo brought on the folks from Radar Maker, Sneak Attack, and 12th Degree for publicity and online marketing in the UK and US. These folks worked diligently to get Fanfarlo’s online presence aligned with campaign objectives, find the right tastemakers and media outlets for new Fanfarlo fans, and turn them on to the opportunity at hand (Fanfarlo’s offer discussed in point #3).
- Enlisted the help of a major music act that had strong ties to the band and wholeheartedly endorsed their music. This act introduced Fanfarlo to their fans by way of email.
- Made it dead simple and natural for anyone to share the offer with their own audience, be that 25 followers on twitter, 200 friends on Facebook, or 1,500 unique visitors on a blog. This was accomplished through Topspin widgets that not only make sharing and embedding a snap, but they also provide a direct-link/call-to-action that leads back to the artist-controlled offer page (a seemingly simple, but very important detail). This last item is a bit of a multiplier. It made sure that attention garnered by the marketing team, band introduction, or general buzz could in turn generate more attention via viral sharing.
3) Make those audiences an offer they can’t refuse.
Ok, so you’ve got completely brand new fans’ attention. WTH now? It may not be the best time to hit them up to buy your $99 deluxe package that includes your baby teeth. There’s a time and place for that, but it’s not necessarily when someone’s discovering you for the first time. Fanfarlo created an offer that not only drove amazing conversion but also became a conversation piece and cause for sharing. For a limited time, they offered a full download of their album plus four bonus tracks for $1. $1 album download for 1 month. When it comes to how that offer resonated with fans, don’t take my word for it…check out a few examples for yourself – the fans do an amazing job of describing the very simple, but powerful offer with amazing accuracy:
4) Repeat.
If growth is your game, don’t stop. Remember, it’s the Fanfarlo Four Step we’re talking about here. Fanfarlo, their management, and their marketing team continue to not suck, enlist others to introduce Fanfarlo to their audiences, and make them an offer they can’t refuse. The current set of offers includes:
- Incredibly affordable tix to their US tour, which finished last week in NYC.
- A still very accessible digital download for $5.99, CD, Vinyl, and Special Edition (sorry, no baby teeth this time around). http://fanfarlo.com
Results
During June and July:
- Fanfarlo acquired 15,000 new fan relationships, 13,000 of which were paying.
- 56% (7,280) of those paying fans were from the US – representing nearly 800% growth in the US.
- 22% of all folks that saw the offer purchased. 22%! More than double what we normally see from a *stellar-performing* offer that is focused on revenue rather than growth.
- 30% of all CD/Vinyl/Special-Edition purchasers were repeat buyers – they also bought the $1 album download during the promo period.
- Reach: widgets appeared on 240 different domains and garnered 272,000 impressions and 114,000 interactions (plays, clicks, shares).
- Reach quality: 35 fans acquired per thousand impressions. Compare that to ad-based methods of promo that acquire single digit numbers of fans per thousand impressions.
- The band not only booked their NYC show, but they bumped their venue from The Mercury Lounge to The Bowery Ballroom. They also added shows in Seattle, LA, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.
- The band surfaced on The Hype Machine’s most blogged bands chart.
None too shabby team. None too shabby.
PS, I’ve shared this story with a few dozen folks so far. Some that hear it like to zero in on the “major act that introduced us to their fan base” item of the story as cause for discounting the case as one that applies to other emerging artists. Understandable. That introduction certainly did play a major part in campaign sales: 30%. Even if the number was 50%, wouldn’t you consider 400% paying-fan growth in the US to be an admirable result for a month’s work?
Rather than discount the case, I encourage folks to apply some creativity to map the case to their set of circumstances…along with your other ingenuity, apply the four step. Don’t suck (at least to the people of which you’re asking endorsement – if they don’t like you, they’re not going to put their reputations on the line to recommend you). Make relationships (not hurried/impersonal solicitations for help) with artists and tastemakers with audiences of their own. Once you have that relationship, ask them, “if you like what you’re hearing, would you be willing to extend this offer to your audience?” Even if they’re not a major music act, if they make the intro, you’ve been given the opportunity to grow your audience, which brings me to the next point I want to emphasize…
…don’t discount the other executional part of the story – making those audiences an offer they can’t refuse. let them hear your music. make the value (good stuff given for great price) of your offering such that they can’t turn it down AND they feel the need to share it with their audiences. Remember, this is a strategy for growth, not revenue maximization. And of course, keep at it. Step 4 means this is something you repeat until you’re happy with the growth you’ve attained. Don’t be frustrated if your growth isn’t measured by hundreds of percentage points per campaign (I’d classify Fanfarlo’s response as amazing). Rather, listen for the feedback your audience is giving and incorporate that into your product, your offer, and the audience you choose to target.
Good luck. Join the community in the green room, and let us know what’s working for you. We love hearing lessons learned from those out there getting it done.
Great post, many thanks to Fanfarlo and Topspin for sharing all these stats!
“Assembled a team of marketing professionals: in addition to Topspin, Fanfarlo brought on the folks from Radar Maker, Sneak Attack, and 12th Degree for publicity and online marketing in the UK and US.”
That’s the part that may be a stumbling block for many bands. A lot of them don’t have the resources to put together a team like that.
And, I’m curious about the ROI. There is a general thinking that if you throw enough marketing money and talent at a project, you will get results. But if you are spending more than you are taking in, then you may have to think twice. And if you are losing money, you have to decide how long you can and want to sustain a loss until you turn a profit.
I’ll always keep pushing bands to supply profit and loss, income and expense figures to help us learn more. I know most bands and their managers won’t provide it, but Topspin has been more forthcoming with figures than almost anyone else, and I appreciate it.
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Hey Suzanne,
I don’t have the liberty of sharing the full campaign P&L, but it was considered a financial success by the Fanfarlo team, to the point of also being able to fund their US tour.
However, we don’t subscribe to the notion: “if you throw enough marketing money and talent at a project, you will get results.”
Fanfarlo was in a position to put marketing talent to good use, at least partly, because they had spent the previous couple of years building a good groundswell – playing frequently, producing a ton of content, and generally building a good name for themselves. By the time they hired this talent, they had already received a ton of feedback from their market that a) they didn’t suck, and b) there was awareness amongst tastemakers and early adopters. This was Step 1 for them. The talent they hired was aware of this also and saw Fanfarlo as a band they absolutely could help.
The point to make from that is you can greatly reduce the risk of ‘little result’ from a marketing spend by first putting in the time and effort to organically develop your name and paying attention to the feedback you get from market. If 3 out of 5 reviews you get are “meh”, perhaps a marketing spend isn’t the best use of resources.
The other point worth making is to define what “results” means before you plan your campaign. Have a primary, measurable goal in mind. For Fanfarlo, we set this as fan acquisition (emails and paying fans – note, not the same as revenue generation). We looked at what would be an acceptable result in fans acquired, and it was apparent that we weren’t going to get there without some marketing investment.
When it comes to ROI on that spend, I’m with you. You’ve gotta approach the spend as an investment, and thus understand what you want out of it. As Fanfarlo’s case states, management wanted to be able to play a show at a small venue in a major US market. That was the goal. That implies that 1) you’ve got a few hundred people that want to see you, and 2) you’ve got the funds to get to the US and play the show. Admittedly, #1 was very hard to quantify…how many fans acquired in an online marketing campaign translates to 300 tickets in NYC? However, #2 is a different story, so that provided a good financial goal. One they were able to hit.
There was certainly a risk of not hitting that goal, but hey, we’re talking about growth strategy here. There will always be an element of risk in that. However, it’s minimized if you know (not *feel*) you have a good product and you know what you want out of the investment and can structure it to meet that goal.
Hope that’s helpful in explaining our thoughts on marketing spend. Thanks for the comment.
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Adam, thanks for the additional information. Topspin has been at the top of my list of online music companies I admire because you guys are open to sharing as much info as you are free to give out.
I don’t think it’s as easy to just say
“PS, I’ve shared this story with a few dozen folks so far. Some that hear it like to zero in on the “major act that introduced us to their fan base” item of the story as cause for discounting the case as one that applies to other emerging artists. Understandable. That introduction certainly did play a major part in campaign sales: 30%. Even if the number was 50%, wouldn’t you consider 400% paying-fan growth in the US to be an admirable result for a month’s work?”
Although they don’t suck, w/o that they would have been still swimming in the same pool. And I would argue that first 30% (where you get that stat I don’t know) is the most important, even if it was 10-20%. They owe alot to Sigur Ros and their management (who they share) for getting the ball rolling. Not your typical garage to awareness story. Lesson here, get a big time manager and ride on the back of their big client.
great post adam. i think the step where artists struggle the most is one of the most basic.
for example purposes, consider twitter. it’s great to see your friend count adding up, but if nobody is engaging, how valuable is the platform for the band? it may be a good metric for a label evaluating the act, but in terms of playing a role in acquiring those SUPERFANS, too many bands overlook this aspect. Like you said, it’s all about building a RELATIONSHIP.
you need to ENGAGE them. you need to keep them coming back for more. hopefully bands will understand twitter’s power in connecting them with their fans and allowing the conversation to turn into a two-way street
-adam w.
Thanks for the comments.
Tom,
The 30% measurement comes from the way we’re able to instrument links/widgets, attribute follow-on activity to an initial click, and measure results…a set of activities our technology helps tie together for artists.
I totally agree with you that Fanfarlo’s specific circumstances (major artist endorsement, established management) played a major role in the magnitude of their performance, and I hope that comes across clearly in the blog post.
However, I don’t agree with you that the only lesson to be drawn is to “get a big time manager and ride on the back of their big client.” For artists that have that option, great. Emerging artists that are out there putting quality music in front of the right audience have a related opportunity though…when you catch someone’s eye, enlist their help in extending a compelling marketing offer to their audience. That very tactical element of having a low-friction/high-value offer and having an endorser extend it to others vs. just having that endorser mention you is the difference between momentary buzz (measured in hits and mentions) and creating fan relationships (measured in emails and $).
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
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The ‘Don’t Suck’ rule is smashed to bits by the usage of horrible rockmurdering terms like these;
“a quality product”
“taste makers in your niche”
“Assembled a team of marketing professionals”
“online presence aligned with campaign objectives”
“viral sharing”
“fan relationships”
“Reach quality”
The sentiment is not unappreciated “karen eliot.” I hear ya. You can take the marketing geek out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of the marketing geek…or something like that.
We have the honor of working with a lot of talented artists, and the biggest learning to-date is that not sucking is not enough. The marketing execution, the rockmurdering terms you cite, make the world of difference. Taking talent as a given, we’ve repeatedly seen acts that follow marketing best practices outperform more marketing-casual bands, not just marginally, but by hundreds of percentage points.
The art is in not actually mudering the rock when you employ the rockmurdering terms
We’ve seen a buttload of artists pull it off, and we’re working to extract the high-value practices and make it easier for all professional musicians to get busy with them.
thanks for commenting.
Adam
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