Brand Building in the Arts

I was reading a post today on Medium by Mark Schaefer, the renowned marketing author. 

In the post, Schaefer was explaining marketing for the arts, and specifically musicians, in five minutes.

I love this as it is really a combination of what I love about being a creative entrepreneur and marketer. 

The post describes why brand marketing -- the feeling that you expect from what a company or musician/band represents -- is so important, and how attracting one's ideal audience to your brand (that is, finding people who emotionally connect to what you create, or rather not you individually, but what the brand creates and represents) is the basis for cultivating loyal fans, or in corporate business setting you might call them customer advocates. 

It's only when you've garnered the attention of those people (across social or the like) who sense something in you that they can potentially connect to emotionally that you can capitalize on the invitation to deepen your respective relationship and truly harvest a loyal fan willing to help financially support your creative endeavors that bring them value.

The reason this works is because from a tactical standpoint, when you uncover a potential fan -- someone sees one of your reels on social media, etc. -- and you capture their attention, if there is a potential for an emotional connection while you have their attention, driving them to your website or email list provides that next step to deepen the relationship.

​That's where you, as a brand, can build a deeper connection and introduce that potential fan to a whole community of fans surrounding your brand. This allows them to further deepen their connection with your brand by helping them foster an emotional connection not only to you, but to others with a shared interest or purpose related to the brand at large. Now, that fan is a fan for more than just you as their singular interest in the brand, now they're part of a community where they can make friends.