We need help. We have no brand. Well, actually, we have a brand, but we don’t know what it is yet.
My band, Cryns #3, has been playing shows regularly now for over 3 years, and over that time we have been focusing on what we do best (making music) and neglecting what we do worst (the business).
We have a number of strong assetts working for us:
- The Band. We are a fun group of guys hailing from Minnesota.
- Our Music. Our music kicks ass. It is fun, up beat, funny, tells heartbreaking stories, and makes me want to dance all at the same time.
- This Website. Okay. So our website user interface & corresponding usability actually suck quite bad. BUT we have a lot of rich content on this thing (photos, videos, tour updates, songwriting workshops, mp3s, strategy, etc.)…if only we can make it usable.
Last week, I met with Dan over at Idea Food to discuss how we can make people take notice of Cryns #3 and, ultimately, get people to show up to our awesome swinging rock shows. First let me say that Dan is awesome. He and I brainstormed for about 2 hours about the band’s goals, aspirations, target market, brand, strategy, and other items. Here is our summary document.
The main thing that we need to do, as a band, is get people to the shows. Getting more people to the shows is more fun and provides us more motivation to keep doing this (It also provides more money and more fame).
As best we can figure, the most reliable way to get people to show up is to let them know that we are doing something awesome. So, we decided to build our email list. My goal is to balloon it up from 400 people up (at present) to 10,000 people over the course of the next year. That’s roughly 1,000 people added to the list every month.
Dan and I brainstormed lots of different ways to accomplish this goal of a humongous email announcement list, mainly:
- Give away “Free Download” cards at the door of the clubs and around the clubs when we play in an effort to get people to fill out their email address when they visit the site for a free download.
- Take people’s photos at clubs when we play, and send the link to the photos out via our email list. This is both a value add and an incentive.
Generally we think that free stuff attracts people. It also convinces people to hand our their email list.
Of course, we will have a multi-faceted approach, focusing energies on our live show and our music in addition to getting people to sign up for our email list and come to shows, but the email list remains the centerpiece.
What do you think? Am I on the right path here? Should I change this up a bit? Is there something I am leaving out? Browse our working strategic document and let me know what you think!
THANKS!!