It comes from the internal, not the external. It comes from the identity of the performer, not the penumbra. Which is why it’s much harder to create loyalty with a song written by committee using the producer and mixer du jour. It may sound like a previous hit, it may fit on the Spotify Top 50, but it won’t engender loyalty, and the money is in loyalty.
That’s what the major labels are into these days, creating digital products to monetize loyalty. Although they always take it too far, instead of rewarding the customer, they rip them off. A good example is the multiple iterations of vinyl. One is enough. Down the line the customer is going to lament having purchased four copies of the same LP, albeit with different covers. Loyalty is for the long haul.
In a business that does not believe in it. Especially on the recording side.
There’s no money in it for the record executives. They don’t own the company and they’re not going to be there that long. It’s not about investing for the future, it’s all about the now, and the new and shiny, or the train-wreck, gains your attention to begin with, but then it wanes.
There’s a greater focus on loyalty in the live sphere, but the only people who seem to do it well have come up from the bottom and are not yet superstars. They know their careers are based on their loyal customers, so they coddle them, offer them perks, to make them feel like members of the club, to incentivize them to not only be a fan themselves, but to bring their friends into the fold.
But should you play an arena on your first tour? You feel special if you see an act in a small venue. But when you’re there with 15,000 others, you don’t. And when you feel special there is a bond, there is loyalty. Which augurs for building from the bottom up, small to big. If you can’t get a ticket, if the shows are all sold out, it only adds to the aura of the act. There’s time to play arenas and stadiums down the line.
As for ticket prices… There are ways to keep them low and satiate the hard core and keep them loyal, but the truth is most acts don’t want to do this, they don’t want to go totally paperless and risk not selling out, the mania helps move tickets, the concept that you’ve got to buy now or you won’t get in.
Furthermore, the most loyal fans are the ones paying for what was called platinum in the past, up close and personal for a higher price. Loyalty does not inherently mean a low price. Luxury cars are not cheap, but they tend to have the greatest loyalty. People like the product, and maybe the status too.
As for the penumbra, the brand extensions, the perfumes and clothing… It might be low-hanging fruit, but it’s too far from the essence, the music. Unless the creator is a designer too. Kanye convinced his fans he had design talent, and it worked for him, for a while anyway, whereas it does not for most.
And for loyalty, sometimes you have to leave money on the table.
And loyalty is not assembling your fanbase to contact, impress and alienate nonbelievers. Like I say about Springsteen, I don’t hate Bruce, I hate his fans. Self-satisfied Boomers and Gen-X’ers who go to every show, quote every lyric and can’t stop talking about the Boss. And the dirty little secret is as much as Bruce is revered, he doesn’t go clean everywhere, because the loyal audience is not as large as the casual audience.
Contrast this to Kenny Chesney. The shows are what make Kenny’s fans loyal. Especially the stadium shows. There’s a sense of community, you come every year, for a stacked bill of artists and Kenny’s innovations and reciprocal love.
The king of loyalty was Jimmy Buffett. And Buffett never tried to convince everybody, he just spoke to the Parrotheads, his loyal fans, who gave him all their money because they loved being members of the club. Sure, Jimmy had hits, but ultimately it wasn’t even about the hits, a new song at a show could connect with the audience just as well as an old one, assuming it was on topic and spoke to those in the building. Oftentimes the introduction was enough to get people to pay attention. Jimmy had a personality, he was 3-D, most acts today are not.
What is a prepubescent going to have to say. What does someone who has grown up in the spotlight have to say. It seems that those who grew off the radar and then blew up have the most loyal fans, like Metallica.
And you always need to ask yourself if something is “on brand.” Not every opportunity is. Sure, something left field can be, because it makes the audience think. But when you have a generic act going through the paces just like everybody else, no loyalty is produced.
There’s money in hit and run. But in today’s world, where it’s so hard to get noticed, why not put your effort into creating an act that makes loyal fans.
Loyalty starts off the radar. And loyalty is not trumpeted by the act, but third parties. You want Bloomberg to talk about loyalty, not some bloviating, self-promoting act. And loyal fans always want to know that they are primary. If you try to reach those outside the bubble, the loyal fan wonders if they are still primary.
Creativity comes first. When you listen to the music do you say you’ve never heard anything like this before? Do you dive deeper into the performer’s lyrics? Do you need to go online to find out more about not only the act, but their beliefs? That’s the starting point of loyalty.
Never mind most publicity not speaking to loyalty whatsoever. Not only does not it not make new fans, it might piss off the loyal fans.
You’ve got to think smaller today. You want the biggest cult audience you can achieve. It’s not about worldwide domination, but domination in the life of your fans. Your fans will keep you alive.
Don’t look at what others are doing, think about what is unique about you and double-down. And if your art is not unique, the odds of there being sustained demand for it are low. You’ve got to be different to draw people to you, and stay the course, once you sell out you sacrifice loyalty.
This is the way it used to be. But then MTV showed how much money you could make, and the CD delivered huge financial benefits, and then everybody started shooting for the stratosphere and everybody who didn’t reach the stratosphere complained.
We are in the middle of a reset, akin to when FM took over from AM in the sixties. The Spotify Top 50 is AM. The rest is FM, where the heart and the action are. It’s not about breaking records, but blowing minds. And minds are not blown by statistics, but songs.
