The first thing you must realize as an artist is that nothing is stopping your targeted audience from zapping past your audio commercial on Spotify Marquee or scrolling past your Facebook ad. They have the remote control and they can choose to ignore you regardless of how many times your ad appears on their screen. That’s heartbreaking but it’s the truth.
A reliable fanbase is a reward you get for doing not just one thing but a lot of things right. In this guide, we will teach you how to drive your streams up to the maximum using the “heating” process explained in this guide. Interested? We thought as much.
Guess whose attention span sits beside that of a Goldfish
Your potential audience – you heard that right!
While the comparison of a human attention span to that of a Goldfish (which is 9 seconds) is a truthful lie (an unverified assumption); one open secret we cannot deny is that our attention span has decreased spontaneously since the internet was made public in 1993.
In line with the beliefs of Neil Postman, a renowned American educator, modern technology is successfully taking the human attention span to its nadir.
Also, Seth Godin rightly stated in the Nordic Business Forum, “We have branded ourselves to death”, thereby giving our audience no choice but to turn a deaf ear to our ads. Hence, the average artist must “warm-up” their cold audience before they can get the opportunity to sell merch, ask for users’ data, or ask for a Spotify follow.
What are Cold Audiences?
A cold audience is simply an infinite group of social media users who have not heard of your brand before online or offline. A CNN news consumer who has seen your infomercial on TV is not regarded as a member of the cold audience. A driver who has seen your Billboard ad is not considered part of the cold audience. Do you know what a cold audience looks like? Regular students in India who have not listened to your trap track before and don’t know if your brand exists.
Some blogs will limit the definition of a cold audience to online users who have an interest in a certain genre. However, we live on an all-inclusive sonic planet where most songs fit into multiple genres and many artists are still trying to find their unique sounds. To limit their potential audience(s) to a certain interest/genre is to shut out the vast potential fans out there. For the sake of this guide, we’ll like to keep the hope of finding new listeners alive.
What are Warm Audiences?
A warm audience is a category of internet users who are familiar with your brand to an extent. These are people who have read a blog article about your brand, watched your YouTube video before, followed you on social media, or engaged with your content online.
On a scale of 1 to 10, the warmth of an audience varies, where 1 is mildly warm and 10 is very hot.
How to warm up cold audiences
Like we mentioned earlier, artists need to educate their targeted audience about their brands before trying to convert them to fans. Facebook (or Meta, LOL) gives artists the opportunity to specify their audience based on specific interests, so as to help them find users who are more likely to enjoy their sound. Follow the steps below to warm up cold audiences;
- Put your best foot forward by creating a static/moving video that features the most memorable/melodic part of your song.
- Ensure that the art cover (if it is a static video) or your background (if it is a freestyle video) tells a story and puts the listener in a unique mood. For instance, a freestyle video at the beach is very suitable for an acoustic guitar song.
- Write a short caption that gives the viewer a sneak peek at your brand. And don’t forget to be personal when composing your introduction.
- Give them a good reason to follow you for more without sounding desperate.
When heating up the cold audience, do not try to get them off the social media platform. Your first goal is to get their attention and turn it into brand affection.
How to keep engaging the warm audience
Like the cold audience, the warm audience needs to be sustained with great content to prevent them from growing cold. You have to create a content calendar and ensure you keep adding value to your established audience.
Don’t bombard them with sales posts about your merch or live shows. Entertain first before asking them for a favor and when you try to sell them something, don’t overdo it.
