One to One

There is no better way to make a fan for life than to actually shake a persons hand and thank them for listening to and supporting your music. Despite the internet and the ease to send files around the world to try to get people to get on your band wagon, the reality remains. It is about the hard core fan.

I had coffee with the manager of a very successful group on Warner Bros. Actually it is a Joint Venture with Warners in which the band and management have a ton of say on how they will approach their career. This is a good thing.

For 2 years this manager tried to get some support for an old fashioned take it to the streets type bus tour BEFORE the concert tour, just to meet fans and play them the new record BEFORE it went on sale. Finally, when the local promoters and the label could not see the benefit in spending 150k on this the manager underwrote the first half of this and finally got the label to kick in the other half. Here is what happened.

As they rolled into each city which they will play on their upcoming fall tour, they would take a party bus into a mall parking lot and having invited the most hardcore fans (sometimes only 6 in any city) they would hang with them on the bus, play them the record, do photos with them and of course sell tshirts, front of line concert tix and re-release copies of the record.

The result has been a phenomenal groundswell of good will towards the band and those hardcore fans have by word of mouth, begun to help sell out the tour. Again this is without any other promotion from the label, no radio single yet, no local concert promotion yet.

What a great concept! Hey actually go cultivate the hard core fans and let them help you win over new converts. This model obviously doesn't work yet for unknown independent bands who are just starting, but if you get one rung up the ladder, you could start doing this on a cycle around your region and beyond.

The money spent will naturally be limited to how far you go and thus it is completely scalable.

I am excited to see where this goes in the future. Yes the internet is an amazing tool to promote and share music, but when a true fan shakes the hand of their favorite artist, it simply is not even comparable.