One of the key steps for artists to have a successful career is for them to know their target audience. Targeting everyone is not a smart strategy (sorry to burst your bubble), but it does not work.
Think about it this way, does everyone enjoy watching sitcoms? Of course not!
People have different tastes and preferences, so it is almost impossible to reach out to everyone.
Hence, invest your time, money, and energy in establishing, sustaining and expanding your niche.
Why Establish A Niche:
Knowing your audience will help you personally and professionally. For starters, you will have a better chance of connecting with your fanbase. Also, knowing your audience will surely help you in understanding their needs. Finally, having a well-defined and narrowed niche will ultimately lead to long-term gains such as cost efficiency and accuracy in terms of content.
How To Establish A Niche?
Research! Research! Research!
Researching will help you locate your audience. Thus, it crucial that you correctly utilize the online tools for audience segmentation and retargeting.
If you are using Facebook, the platform offers the audience insights feature which assists artists in that specific process.
Additionally, creatives can look for fans in Reddit/SubReddit’s communities by following specific hashtags and reaching out to targeted communities. Also, tracing competitors and using their techniques is a great way of getting started.
Finally, it is important to stay consistent as well as to know your brand well. It is okay! Take your time in creating your brand, but make sure to be both unique and authentic.
Final Thoughts:
Always remember that fans come in different types. In fact, there are three major types of fans:
- Active fans
- Passive fans
- Superfans aka the crazed ones who will spend their money buying your CDs and merch
Establishing artists should focus on active and superfans to generate income. To do so, artists should offer something special to their audience, besides your talents.
Hence, it is crucial that you share your passions with them. Start with identifying the things that inspire you and share them with your fans.
It does not matter whether you are discussing video games or sharing your activism, always remember to get personal with them. Artists could also conduct surveys to know more about their audience’s passions and interests. This might come in handy if you want to brand yourself online using blogs, podcasts, or even videos.
Before jumping in and using the available online tools to segment, ask yourself what your passions are? What excites you the most? By going through this self-observational process, you will be able to document the things that ignite your passion the most.
