A Salt Lake City band called Bloom is doing a crowdfunding campaign and, if you want to connect with fans in a deeper way and make more money for your music, you should pay attention because they completely crushed one of the biggest obstacles that keep most acts from taking off.
Before I get into what they're doing right, watch the pitch they give when you land on their page on Kickstarter...
Are you making this mistake in your music marketing?
Are you failing to tell your story? Are you telling people what it took, the good and the bad, to get you where you are? This is very powerful when done right and Bloom nails this right from the beginning of their pitch.
More or less, the story goes something like this...
- Things with the band were going great.
- Oops. We've got a problem.
- Oh no, the project is dead.
- A hero (the pink-haired drummer) comes along.
- Will it work? Can a girl really play drums?
- Wow! She's good.
- The band is back!
This is actually two stories in one. First, there's the general issue of the band breaking up, but under that is a woman who had a dream to play music and worked hard in an attempt to make it happen. Fans want to see the band succeed, but when you throw her in the mix, it doubles-down on things, adds another element to the suspense, and because of this, when everything finally comes together there is an even bigger payoff.
Every musician has a similar story.
Tom Johnston of The Doobies Brothers once told me, "You're not paying me to play for an hour. You're paying me for the other 23 hours of the day it takes to do it."
It's not easy to keep a band together. It's like being married to 3-4 (or more) other people -- with bigger egos than a standard spouse. Even if you're a solo artist, you still face adversity when it comes to doing your music.
Tell the story of "the other 23 hours." What have you had to do in order to keep the music going, get to where you are, and be ready to record your new album?
And here is where the story really gets powerful...
A third element to Bloom's story, or any crowdfunding story, is that whether or not the band succeeds is up to the person watching the video. At this point, at least when it comes to the crowdfunded project, the only thing that can keep them from succeeding is the fans...
That is powerful.
Obviously, you don't want to berate your fans or make them feel forced to donate to your project, but if you can subtly tell your story in a way that gets them to take ownership of the project's success, you'll get a much larger response from them.
But is this ethical?
Of course it is. And it will actually provide a lot of emotional satisfaction for your fans since, by helping them to take this kind of ownership on your project, they'll get the good feeling that comes from it being successful.