One question that repeatedly comes up is how do bands find their audience? So I thought I’d share a neat tip that allows you to start finding fans with Amazon.com today.
One of the concepts I teach in the 1K Fan Formula is to find SSBs (similar sounding bands) to yours and build up your audience by marketing to the fans of these bands. It’s a pretty simple concept that others talk about as well, but some people get hung up on who they sound like or how they can go about doing this.
This tip allows you to tap into the resources of the biggest ecommerce site online to find out for certain (rather than by guessing) the bands that are most often purchased together. People are actually paying for the music, so you’re getting some great insight here.
Check out the video below I made for you.
How to find fans for your band:
- Come up with just one band that you think your band sounds like or served as an inspiration to the sound of your band.
- Search for the band in Amazon.
- Pick an album (ideally the one you sound the most like or were inspired by the most) and then scroll through the ‘People who bought this also bought’ section at the bottom of the page.
- Choose 3 to 5 bands that you think are a good match for your sound.
- Google the name of the band with the word forums like “Metallica forums” (just don’t use quotation marks).
- Visit each forum, looking for lots of activity (lots of members, frequent posts and members online are good stats to check – you’ll want hundreds or thousands of members ideally. Make sure the forum allows you to create a signature file with a link back to your band website/squeeze page).
- Join the forum, read up on the rules and become a part of the community by asking and answering questions. Don’t spam people about your band or you’ll be wasting your time – this is forum marketing for bands 101.
This isn’t a short term tactic; to make it work you have to commit to the long haul. Ideally you’d have each member of the band sign up for one or two forums and spend 5 to 10 minutes at least a few days a week commenting and asking questions.
Abandon any forums that aren’t converting for you. You can find out which ones are sending you traffic if you have Google Analytics, Stat Counter or the Jetpack plugin (if you use WordPress) with the WordPress.com stats feature enabled.
Try it and let me know how works for you. Leave your questions and comments about finding fans with Amazon.com below!