Niche is another word for target audience in the music marketing business. As we have mentioned in previous entries, whenever you want to create a solid fanbase, you must not reach for absolutely everyone. In the long run, this initial hard work will save you time, effort, and even money. So let’s begin to explain what a niche consists of and how to build it.
Niche: Who Are These People?
In marketing, a niche denotes products, services, or interests that appeal to a small and specialized fragment of a population. For the music industry, a niche should consist of fans, i. e., people who will listen to your music, follow your productions, and buy the merchandise that results from it. For example, Kevin Kelly suggests that any emerging musician needs, at least, a thousand fans for your business to be sustainable. Of course the main step in this process is to get people to listen. However, you should never lose sight of the bigger picture: these people are the principal source of economic sustent throughout your career.
Why Not Reaching for the Stars?
Everything in music promotion is filtered through efficiency. For this reason, aiming for a larger audience doesn’t produce stable and profitable results. When you think of your audience as a niche, the process of forming a meaningful relationship with the people who build it is easier. That is, a targeted audience allows you to better understand the consumer’s needs, difficulties, values, and cultural backgrounds. In the end, this results in a better brand. One of the immediate actions to take, that can improve your results considerably, is that you pragmatically know how to write your copies and, thus, engage your public.
In addition, when you aim for a niche, you locate communities with less effort, either if it is face-to-face or virtually. This grants you a bigger chance to come together with your fanbase, and therefore, interact with them in a more organic fashion. All in all, the kind of interaction we’ve been describing speaks of a stronger bond between you and the people who’ll listen to your tunes. Remember than a more authentic connection—for the public now demands to know you as a person— produces a reverberating effect. As a consequence, your number of listeners grows.
Niche: Conclusions
Like we’ve demonstrated, focusing on a targeted audience—a niche—is indispensable for the emerging musician. It is more cost and time effective and will bring more positive results in the long run.
Even though we recommend you to focus on a niche as you’re beginning your public career, keep in mind that all tips that we provide you with in terms of music marketing target your growth as an artist. In conclusion, even if a niche is a starting point, think of it too for the future. Once you build a niche, you can then subdivide into another niche, and so on. Creating a niche is a way of reaching for the stars—but effectively.
