Branding Continued: Creating A Plan

Once you have an idea of your audience, your brand, and your goals, put it all together in one document – something that gives you a sense of where you have come from, where you are now, and where you are headed. It also lays out your next steps for getting there (even if they are all theoretical at this point). You have done the dreaming, and this document is going to define the logistics. This is your business plan. My business/marketing plan is 18 pages long, and it is constantly changing, but it keeps me on track. You might not need 18 pages; you may only need one. Or maybe you need a hundred. Everyone is different. One thing is indisputable, however: Having a plan will give you a professional leg up. I talked to one booking agent who said that she has signed artists upon seeing a business plan alone. 

First, include in your plan information about where you are and what you have accomplished so far. How big and how active is your fan base? How big is your email list? How many concerts did you play last year and how much money did you gross on concerts and merchandise sales?

Next, include all of your touring goals for at least the next year (or whatever time period you decide on). What cities do you want to be hitting? How big do you want your audience to be? How big is it now in each of these cities (if you have never played there before, your audience is zero until your first concert there). How many concert dates do you want to play every year? How often are you planning to return to the same city or do the same route? Are you going to stay in one place for a month to do several residencies in the area when the time is right? At the end of this period, what numbers do you want to be hitting (audience and sales-wise)? 

The last part of your business plan (and perhaps the hardest) is working out a budget. It’s going to be nearly impossible to know how much things will actually cost until you get out there, but you can come up with a general idea, and you should. We will talk specifically about tour budgeting when we discuss tour preparation later on, but for now you should have a solid idea of what you plan on doing, and a rough estimate of what it will cost you. 

Define Your Goals

Remember that while writing music is a practice of creative expression, professional touring is a business. The difference between a hobbyist and a professional is that the professional artist goes out on the road with the intention of growing and engaging his or her fan-base and making a living. 

It's important to have goals for every aspect of your career, but since we are talking about touring, let's focus on that. 

First, allow yourself to dream a little. What are your ultimate touring goals? Do you want to be playing clubs? Theaters? Stadiums? County Fairs? Symphony Halls? Really think about your music and the type of audience you would like to be connecting with night after night. Your ultimate goals will drive your decision-making and the way you approach your career, starting now. A lot of this will depend on your target audience and your brand, which we've discussed at length during the last few articles. In five years, where do you see yourself performing? Who are you playing for, and how many people at a time? Are you appearing on television? Are you appearing on stage with other artists; are you collaborating? How much are you making per show? Are you touring by bus, plane, RV, or van? It’s your dream, and you have the right to put it together however you see fit. 

There are plenty of books written about effective goal setting, and I think it lies in everyone's best interest to have a good idea of your long/short term goals before starting out on something as emotionally, financially, and time intensive as a concert tour. 

Once you have your broader career goals defined, let’s zero in on this upcoming tour, or period of touring. How many people do you hope to meet/play for in this year? Is your ultimate goal to make money, or is this a first tour where the goal is to increase exposure and build relationships with venues, fans, and press? (If this is your first year of touring, then your answer to this question will probably be the latter.)

If you’re going to make a commitment to touring professionally, know that this is a long-term process and success happens with time and perseverance. Be prepared to hit the same markets (cities) multiple times a year (Ideally, 2-4 times per year). Be prepared to lose money for awhile. If you are consistent, you will see your audiences grow. If you go to a place once and don’t return for another year, you will find yourself starting over every time you visit a city. I think it is very helpful to set specific goals for the long and short term and then work your way back from there, year by year, to now. Things rarely happen exactly the way you anticipate, and these goals will be a moving target that you will have to revisit every few weeks/months, but having specific targets (audience, concert fees, social-networking numbers, merchandise sales, etc.) will help keep you on track and give more meaning to your day-to-day efforts. 

I have found it very useful to write down my long and short term goals in a place where I can easily access them. Every year, I'm able to look at the list, see what I've accomplished and what was maybe too much of a stretch, and revise. If you are an artist in the process of planning a tour, try challenging yourself to do this for your upcoming tour or touring period. 

The A, B, C's of Fan Demographics

As an exercise, take out a list of your fans (maybe an email list, or a facebook list, etc) and see if you can break your current fan base down into three basic categories: “A”, “B”, and “C” fans. This will also help you define your target demographics.

Your “A” fans are your musical evangelists. These are the people who tell everyone they know about your music, show up to your concerts early with groups of their friends, and buy everything you sell. 

Your “B” fans are people who love your music, but aren’t necessarily as loyal or committed as your “A” fans. They might come to most of your concerts in any given town, buy some of the things sell, and be fans on your social networking sites, but they don’t necessarily go around telling everyone about you. 

Your “C” fans are there only when convenient for them. They might listen to your music from time to time and come to your concerts with their friends who are “A” and “B” fans - and they might follow you online, and even occasionally buy something - but that’s about it. 

Do you have an idea of who might fit into each of these categories? Knowing who your “A”, “B”, and “C” fans are will help you figure out how best to approach your career and who to market to. For example, if you know that most of your “A” fans are college students (say, particularly female college students), this might be a good group (demographic) to target in your marketing efforts. Of course, you might have many different fans in different demographics, but the purpose of this exercise is to figure out who, in general, responds most strongly to what you do. When doing this exercise, remove any outliers (such as parents, boyfriends/girlfriends, etc.) and try to focus on people who are only fans of your music first. 

Next, given the information you have, identify your primary demographic. This is the demographic you’re going to put the most effort into reaching. For example, if your music gets the best response from American female college students, then you might consider targeting a primary demographic of educated females, ages 18-22. In this case, any concert opportunity that helps you reach that audience will take priority for you. In general, marketers love the younger demographics for music, because kids in high school/college usually have disposable income, so if this is the crowd that truly appeals to your music, great. If not, it’s more important to pursue YOUR audience than it is to pursue a popular audience.


If you have trouble with this idea, think of an artist you sound similar to and analyze his/her primary demographic – what age and background are most of the people who go to this artist’s concerts? What is their financial background? Religious background? If you do something that becomes popular, it is likely that people of all different ages and backgrounds are going to be attracted to your music eventually. But it has to start with a consistent primary demographic, and consistent marketing efforts.


One thing to think about is something I call the “Hometown” Principle – the idea that people like to support their own. An artist usually has the biggest following in his or her hometown, because there’s this sense that he/she is “one of us.” This works in many different respects. If you’re a Christian or Jewish artist, zeroing in on church or synagogue events might be a way to get in front of a crowd who will understand and respect what you’re doing, and do everything they can to help grow your career and share your music. If you’re in a fraternity or sorority, visiting that frat or sorority house in the different towns you play will probably earn you more loyalty in that community.

Branding Pt. III: Define Your Audience

We’ve discussed the importance of how you’re seen. Now we turn to the question of who is going to see you.

What if the people marketing Justin Bieber had decided to target senior citizens as his audience? What if the people marketing Susan Boyle had decided to market her to thirteen year old girls? The success of an artist, independent or otherwise, is largely determined by where your biggest efforts are placed. You could have Justin Beiber perform at retirement homes across the country, and I’m sure they would have thought he was a ‘nice boy’, but he wouldn’t have been an international sensation. At the same time, you could bring Susan Boyle in to perform at every junior high school in the country, but my guess is that, as phenomenal as her voice is, most of the students wouldn’t really care about someone who looks like their great-aunt (the one with the cats). 

Modern success for an independent performer hinges less on your ability to reach an audience, and more on your ability to reach the right audience. People are so inundated with new information and media every day that they only remember a small fraction of what they see and hear – usually the things that are most relevant to them. Choosing to seek out a very specific audience you know will most likely respond to what you do will help you achieve more success with more efficiency, and help you connect with a loyal, lifelong fan-base.

Many artists play whatever concerts they can find, and I understand the impulse. In the beginning, this is the way to become good at what you do. You want to be playing as much as you can, having the experience of being on stage. In my recent interview with Jeff Riddle, Jeff refers to the 'fog test', that exists for most new businesses - (“When [artists] start out, they work with anybody that will pass the fog test – meaning, put a mirror up to their face and if they breathe into it and it creates fog then they work with them.”)  But don’t spread yourself too thin, especially as you begin approaching music as a long-term career. Remember that people often discover new music through their peers – people in their same age group or community. If you’re playing for people in their teens one night, college students the next, and their parents the night after that, you might do well with each crowd, but how are people in different areas supposed to talk about you or send their friends to your show, when it’s a different crowd, venue, and vibe every time? Your music may be universal, but you’ve got to pick a specific audience to focus on, and the more specific, the better. 

Exercise: Branding Brainstorm

If you haven't done this yet, now is a great time to dig in. In a document or on a piece of paper, write down answers to the following. If you have done  a branding exercise like this recently, see how many of these things you can remember off the top of your head.  

1.     Brainstorm words that you feel accurately and concisely describe who you are in your music. What style or tradition do you most relate yourself to? When you have a solid list, narrow it down to the top three strongest words or phrases that define your vibe as an artist and a personality. It helps if you have truthful friends or colleagues who you can run this by to get a sense of whether your image of yourself matches the impressions you give to those around you.

2.     Decide the top 2 genres your music fits into, and write down names of well-known artists who cover similar musical territory to yours. You might say ‘nobody fits into the same genre as I do’. Re-evaluate that. We’re all musically borne in the arms of the greats who have come before. If you had to associate even loosely with another musical tradition or genre, what would it be?

3.     Create a branding outline. This will be your cheat sheet when putting together promo materials, doing interviews, booking, and carrying out the day-to-day of your business. This can be a series of bullet points, or even a page with paragraphs summarizing your plans for the following:

-      How will you dress on stage?

-    Is there a font/logo you plan to use consistently with your name? Is there a specific color or colors you plan to use? This will come in handy for both web and print design (your website theme as well as fliers, posters, album art, etc)

-   Recurring themes in your persona that you want to highlight in public? (Are you a rebel? The sensitive poet? The fun loving boy or girl next door? The loner?) Derive these concepts from who you actually are (or who you are in your art) and you’ll be much happier in the long run. Again, it might feel unnatural to try to distill your personality down to such simple terms, but this is branding, and it’s necessary. This is what a record label would be doing if you had one, and you’ve got to learn to do this for yourself. 

-     Any performance name or nickname that you want your fans to know you by? Be careful here - names stick; this is something that will be very hard to undo. 

-     Any boundaries you have as far as your public image and presentation. For example, are you willing to be publicly political or religious, or do you simply want to be known as an entertainer? Elvis would often answer that he was only an entertainer when asked about politics at press conferences. Comedian Jon Stewart is a master at using his entertainer status as a shield for his hard hitting political satire and commentary, which has made it harder for the press and politicians to criticize him effectively. 

-    Any other defining qualities of your music that stand out – do you play an instrument that most artists don’t play? What quality about your music stands out most? Anything unique about your appearance? Voice? Personality? Performance Style? All of these things will help to define your brand and presentation.

What you’re doing here is forming a specific picture of your brand – how you wish to be perceived by your fans, and ultimately what you wish to be known for. This may change over time, and in a few months you may actually go back and re-evaluate this document. But for now, use this as a guideline. Your branding plan is probably something you will keep to yourself, or only share with your team and trusted friends, but it’s important to define for yourself what your boundaries and parameters are, and to be especially aware of how you want to be presented in public. If you don’t decide these things for yourself, someone else will eventually dictate them for you, and it could take you by surprise.

Branding (Part One)

6 MONTHS PRIOR TO TOUR:

1.     Define your brand.

2.     Define your audience.

3.     Define your goals.

4.     Create your business plan.

As opposed to later entries, in which I will lay out specific procedures you’ll walk through for every tour, this section details procedures that you’ll only need to do once (and revisit from time to time after). These things are all about laying a wider groundwork for your touring career, and, once you have them in place, it should be easier for you to take the more concrete steps. If you've already done this, it's always helpful to take a moment to re-evaluate your branding and make sure you're doing everything you can to make it effective.

DEFINE YOUR BRAND

If I name any A-list celebrity or public figure, you can probably tell me in one or two words what the public’s impression of that person is; not just what he/she is known for, but how people see him/her. 

Every artist knows that it’s important to be seen, but how people see you publicly is just as important. You and I could walk into a random party and immediately start making up stories about each person we see based on our first impressions. We could guess where each person likes to hang out, what they do, who their friends are, how much money they have, even what kind of music they like. If I pointed to someone and told you he/she was a musician, you could probably tell me what kind of music he/she plays on appearance alone. That’s branding! We could, of course, guess wrong about everything. But it doesn’t matter. We live in a culture of short attention spans and those first impressions stick with us. Before people even hear your music, they will likely be exposed to elements of your style, presentation, logo and graphics, fashion, nicknames, and the tone of your communication online. These things, in addition to your music, are all part of your brand, and they play a huge role in determining whether the right audiences will gravitate toward you. As a matter of fact, it may sound crazy, but audiences may form a solid impression of you - and may decide to like or dislike your work - long before they see you perform or even hear your recordings.

With a physical product like a sports drink, branding is easier to figure out. You research the audience you are after and mold the packaging, design scheme, and marketing to reach those particular people. For an individual - especially an artist - it becomes a lot harder. No artist is one-dimensional, but most good brands, at first glance, have a simple, one-dimensional appeal. The challenge is taking the most marketable, most memorable aspects of what you stand for as an artist and a personality, and distilling those into a brand that hooks people in, a brand that people can easily talk about.

Many artists are very resistant to the idea of one-dimensional branding, and worry that presenting themselves in such a limited way will negatively affect their creative options. The truth is actually the opposite – by branding yourself well, you will pull in the right people who will then have a chance to discover the depth of your work. On the other side of it, if your brand is too generic, scattered, or inconsistent, people won’t take the time to try and figure it out, and your work will likely remain obscure. The most iconic artists have been branded like this for decades; the only difference was that many of them had a team of people telling them what to do, and for the time being, you’ve got to do it for yourself. 

What do you stand for? What does your music stand for? What genre/musical tradition is your work a continuation of? If you sing folk songs about the struggle and plight of the workingman, but you show up in dressed in trendy clothing, carrying a flashy new guitar, you might send a mixed message to potential fans. At the same time, if you’re crooning ballads and targeting wholesome family audiences and you show up covered in tattoos, wearing a grungy t-shirt and ripped clothing, what are you saying to your audience? You want to make sure that your brand – your logo, mode of dress, and presentation – are in line with the audience you’re trying to reach and the impression you want them to have of you.

Your audience wants to see their best selves in you. This is why we listen to music – not to connect with the artist, but to connect with what the artist shows us about ourselves. Whether it’s our most poetic selves, our most eloquent selves, or our most rebellious selves – we look for that reflection in the music, movies, books, and other art we love. Become a conduit for that, in your own way. 

A Career In Music is a Career In Politics

There's a great HBO movie called The Special Relationship, which explores the complex relationship between an American president (Bill Clinton) and a British Prime Minister (Tony Blair). Toward the beginning of the film, there's a moment when one of Blair's advisors, after seeing Clinton's success, tells Blair, “It’s easier to change what you stand for than to change what people want.” For an artist, of course, this is terrible advice. Creatively, moulding yourself to what you think people want you to be is the kiss of death. But when it comes to your business, knowing who your audience is - and knowing how to tailor your approach to them - is the absolute key to your success. 


A tour is a political campaign. They have candidates. We have artists. Politicians hit the road with a message. We hit the road with our music. Politicians give speeches, but the most important way they connect is by meeting voters. We perform at concerts, but the most important way we connect is by meeting and interacting with fans. In politics, supporters speak with their votes. In music, fans vote with their money. Politicians are running for office so they can be the voice that speaks for their constituents' minds. We are running a campaign to be the spokespeople of hearts. 


Many artists think that touring is about showing up, performing, getting in the car, and driving to the next place. For these people, vagabond mentality can easily take over on the road, and it's shortsighted. If they get in a disagreement with a venue owner or another artist, they figure it doesn't matter because they're leaving town and will never see them again. And for people who think that way, they're right. They'll never be invited back. The reality is, as much as that hour on stage may be your favorite hour of the day and the one that keeps you going, the other 23 will make all the difference between success and failure. 


If it's not apparent now, wait until you get on the road and start navigating your way through complex and 'special' relationships with industry people, venues, fans, press, and other artists, over weeks, months, and years. You may be a musician, but make no mistake - if you tour for a living, you have a career in politics.


If artists really understood this concept, the world of touring would be completely different. Artists would approach the idea of professionalism differently. They would build relationships differently. They would spend more time making their fans feel special and important. And you know what? Artists would all make more money. Accepting that you are building a long-term reputation, and realizing that you have professional commitments to your colleagues, vendors, and supporters is an essential first step before talking about anything technical. Before you reach out to venues, it's important to know what you stand for, how you plan on conducting your business, and who exactly you should be setting your sights on. 


Next week I'm going to talk about branding, and present a few ideas that may help in that process. A lot of artists have trouble with the concept of branding themselves (they somehow liken it to the process of being marked with a hot iron). Instead, think about the following question: If you were looking at this as a politician might, and you were running a campaign around your music, what would your platform be? Would you have a slogan? What types of signs would you want your fans to hold up for you? What types of people would you be targeting to 'vote' for you? And ultimately, what feeling would you want to leave people with when they met you and saw you perform?


More on this next week.