Why Word-of-Mouth is Key in Live Music – And it’s free!

Word-of-mouth marketing in the music industry is absolutely key and can influence a person’s feelings.

If you’re an event owner in this industry, you need to pay attention to your venue and surroundings as well as the line-up. You want your excited fans telling their friends: You’ve got to check this out – it’s so cool!

What makes word-of-mouth marketing so effective is that it’s completely free! Free advertisement is an event owners dream. Although it can’t be guaranteed, there are various ways you can increase the chances of word-of-mouth marketing and these strategies will help you get your fans talking.

Give the fans what they want!

Your most valuable word-of-mouth marketing stems from your most valuable fans – the loyal attendees.

These types of fans are usually the party go-ers and most influential people in this niche. They love going out, and they love bringing their friends along with them. They are always the most sociable, which is great as word-of-mouth marketing requires a lot of talking!

Sure, there are ways such as instagram analytics, to identify this persona and find out more in-depth demographics but it’s much more effective to get personal and get to know them yourself: Look out for familiar faces. Is there the same person on the front row for every event?

Once you have a feel of who these fans are, you need to find out what they’re excited about — and what makes them keep coming back to your events. Having this information will give you a clear direction in terms of tailoring future events to your target audience and this will create a buzz factor around it.

The not-so-famous (yet) artists are favourable

It’s a known fact that bigger names sell more tickets. But it’s not quite that simple. Nowadays, the most hyped performers — the ones your fans are most likely to text their friends about — are usually small-to-midsize artists.

Because of your fans passion and interest in the music industry, they are always keen to find the best up-coming artists and having good relationships with the right booking agents will help you identify these artists before they blow up – big-time!

Social media is king

Maintaining an effective presence on social media can be difficult and nevertheless, time consuming. However, Social media is essential to the success of your business and event promotion. You can run as many ad’s as you want, but if people aren’t talking about your event and engaging with it – there’s no point.

There are some basic techniques you can easily implement that will immediately show an increase in insights. Respond to your fans directly and promptly – reply to all comments and messages personally and spend time answering any questions.

Have a personality. You really need a brand voice if you want fans to resonate with you. Get witty, quirky and even sassy if it suits you ( and the event – of course!)  — which will get them talking and increase your brand awareness.