There are two breeds of music-lover, the fickle, and loyal. The fickle go with anything that is current and trendy, while the loyal are die hard country-travelling, band-following, forum-posting, nutters who will stick with a band from start to finish. (Or at least until the band foolishly completely change musical direction)

What Are Loyal Fans?

Loyal fans are best classified as borderline stalkers, they love you music and you style so much that they are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to help you and to follow you. Loyal fans are the guys who get on a bus in London to watch you play a gig in Dundee, they’re the ones who post on your website messageboard twenty times a day, and buy your merchandise at every gig, not to mention three copies of every bit of music that you release. I won’t bother covering why you want loyal fans, if you haven’t worked that out by now then you’re in the wrong industry.

How Important They Really Are

About four years ago I was part of a pretty large but niche fanbase for one particular band who were just ‘breaking’ at the time. We would do all of the things above, and more. I’ll give you an example, when the band in question released their first UK single we got word that one obscure scottish radio station had picked up the track early but hadn’t played it yet (I can’t remember how or why we knew that). Anyway, we (about 30 of us) emailed this radio station non stop for three hours to play the song, at which point the DJ gave in, and not only played the song, but read off all of our messages, mentioned the band website, and talked about them for a good three or four minutes.

Needless to say this got them instant exposure and by chance or otherwise, the single was picked up by a LOT of national stations throughout the following week. The point here is that a small group of crazy people influenced the media and made something happen. We promoted the band on the most simple level imaginable and it worked brilliantly, the band themselves didn’t even lift a finger.

How You Can Attract Loyal Fans

You need to get these crazy people on your side, and I’m here to give you some tips on how to do it.

• Talk To People! - The number one most important thing of the lot, there are lots of people at your gigs who like you, but are too shy to talk to you (sounds silly, but is true). Try and pick them out of the crowd when you’re on stage, and talk to as many people as you can after you’ve played. Tell them about your website and your music, and take some interest in them personally too.
• Show Some Respect - The easiest way to pick up fans is by playing gigs with other bands with the same musical style as you, the idea is that their fans become your fans. Don’t EVER say things like “we blew the headline act away!” it’s not a fucking competition! Respect and praise the artists who you share the stage with, even if you don’t like them or their music. Respect might make their fans like you.
• Have A Forum - Crazy music people love talking to crazy music people. Some of my best friends in the world to this day are crazy music people who I ‘met’ for the first time on band forums. Give your fans somewhere to talk to eachother and soon they will be arranging meetups and grouping up together to go your gigs. Make sure that you post on the forum regularly too, and appoint a good team of moderators to keep stuff under control.
• Have A Mailing List - And only use it for decent information! Don’t spam your loyal fans with gig dates or useless news, tell them about new merch that isn’t available yet, tell them about your new tracks and give them information that’s not available anywhere else. Make sure that they have a reason to be on your mailing list and that they want to stay on it!
• Make Them Feel Special - Take notice of what people show up consistantly to all your gigs, even if it is only friends and family to start off with. Once you’ve done that, thank them! At every opportunity show your appreciation for their support, drop forum-member names into radio interviews, dedicate songs to them at gigs, and mention people because you can guarantee that the second they feel like you don’t care… they’ll stop caring too.

Once You’ve Got Them…

Keep them! Don’t ever let them go, these guys are your most important asset, they are your most loyal customers and often your biggest revenue stream. The great thing about them is that they will likely recruit more of their own kind, but only if you make it worth their while (so make sure that you do).

What About You?

Do you have, or have you been one of these hyper-loyal fans? Or have you seen any that have really gone to far? Let me know and leave me a message in the comments section below.

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