Tip Jar: Turn Your Fan from Bystander to Team Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . By Erin Parker

Turn Your Fan from Bystander to Team Member

Build Lasting Bonds with Your Fans to Increase Profitability

“An effective experiential marketing strategy engages fans as individuals, people to people, vs. brand (or artist) to crowd. A creative, strategic VIP activation gives you the opportunity to foster a sense of discovery in fans.”

During my time in the music industry, I’ve spent several years putting together partnerships between artists, event properties and brands to engage audiences in the most effective and authentic way possible. With artists breaking under the weight of content demands, how can we do what brands learned long ago and leverage the concert experience successfully?

Let’s take a look at how experiential marketing can help bring fans into the fold:

TODAY’S AUDIENCE IS EVERYWHERE — USE IT!

We all know all too well that today’s concert audience’s attention is everywhere at once. Rather than lament, we can harness that power and give audiences the tools they need to share intentional messaging cross-platform.

When planning experiential activations on-site, encourage preevent, post-event and in-concert sharing by giving the audience the tools they need to spread your message. These tools will empower your audience to be micro-influencers on your behalf:

• Contests • AR filters • QR codes • Hashtags • Swipe-ups

SMALL GROUP ACTIVATIONS

“Immersive experience,” “experiential marketing,” “interactive” Many of us have had one of those phrases thrown at us, only to walk away thinking; okay, but what does that mean?

An effective experiential marketing strategy engages fans as individuals, people to people, vs. brand (or artist) to crowd. A creative, strategic VIP activation gives you the opportunity to foster a sense of discovery in fans.

I spoke to Marissa Turk, who has helped Walker Hayes become a viral sensation and stresses authenticity as the key to social success.

“Interactive events arm audiences with the ability to create authentic content of their own,” said Turk, manager at SMACK Songs in Nashville.

Emotionally, this turns your fans into characters in your narrative rather than a passive audience. Use pre-show and backstage as an opportunity for one-on-one connection to turn your fan from bystander to team member.

BE INTENTIONAL, STRATEGIC AND NERDY

You can’t assume that each artist’s fans want the same thing. At Fog City, we immerse ourselves in both the artists’ music and quantitative market research to create a strategy that supports larger goals.

By working with an artist’s cross-functional team, we can create an integrated experience across all platforms—from Instagram to TikTok to website to email and back.

After experiences are put into place, it’s imperative to track, analyze and report on effectiveness regularly so that pivots can be made as needed. This allows you to own your data insights, building a solid and devoted fan base.

Social media marketing is highly effective and something that the music business should be leveraging. However, with intentional, strategic small-group activations, we can take some pressure off of artists to be the only content creators and turn the audience into influencers. After all, artists can’t “create something out of nothing” without first having the space for “nothing.”