If the first thing that you thought when you read funnel was: “You mean the thing that always stops my kitchen drawer from closing?,” we’re with you!
The term “funnel” gets thrown around a lot when we’re talking about marketing. You hear the term a lot when applied to big business, but what does that mean for artists marketing their own music?
Let’s break it down to the basics.
What is a marketing funnel?
A funnel is simply a map that shows you how the average person on the street becomes your biggest superfan.
When we’re out trying to market ourselves, it’s easy to think about this map as one step:
If a person would just take a listen they would become a superfan
Sometimes we find those magical people who become instant fans-for-life, but in many cases, the fan-making process isn’t so simple.
Your fans progress through these steps:
- Awareness: I know about you
- Acquisition: I’ve engaged with your content in some way
- Retention: I keep coming back for more!
- Referral: I tell everyone about it
Let’s take this back to the old-school analog: roadside billboards. We’ve all had this happen: you’re walking down a street and see a billboard for something you’ve never heard of before. For the sake of our metaphor, let’s talk about a recent sensation, Squid Game. Now that you’ve seen that billboard, you are aware that Squid Game exists.
It would be a pretty bad billboard if it didn’t have an action to take. So you see that this new TV show is available on Netflix. When you get home, you turn on your TV, log into Netflix and start the first episode. You have been acquired as a new viewer. You get up to cook dinner, and Netflix auto-plays the next episode. By the time dinner is done, you’re on episode three and have been retained as a viewer. By the time you’ve finished your binge-watch, you’re now texting all your friends the totally unpredictable ending, referring them to the show.
At this point, you might be saying “What in the world does that have to do with the thing on the Tin Man’s head?”
Well, that has to do with how many people make it through the steps! Not everyone who will know about you will engage with your content. And likewise, not everyone who engages with your content will keep coming back for more. As you move through the funnel, you will expect your audience to narrow resulting in…
As a potential fan moves down the funnel, they are getting closer and closer to a conversion point like concert-goer, repeat streamer, merch buyer, whatever your campaign goal is!
How do I use funnel marketing for my music?
Now you know the theory, but what about practice? Show.co helps you engage every step of your funnel through Awareness campaigns like Ad Builder Interactive Ads, to contest entries in your campaigns.
However, the most important thing you can do with this information is to plan your marketing strategy to hit every funnel stage.
Think about how someone may want to be approached in each step. For example, offering someone in the “Awareness” section of your funnel a discount on merch may be a wasted effort; they don’t know you well enough to buy yet! But it may be the perfect thing for a fan in the retention stage to start posting pics of themselves in that rad new t-shirt you made and become part of your referral crew.
The opposite may be true of your super fans! Asking them to stream your back catalog might not resonate, because they’re already doing it, but for that person in the awareness stage who hasn’t listened to your back catalog yet it’s perfect messaging.
If you need a little help planning, here are 3 examples of marketing plans for different goals:
There is one last bit of marketing funnels to keep in mind… they never end! The very last step of your funnel is re-engagement. How do you put that person who made it to your conversion point back in your funnel to keep them coming back for more?
It’s all about creativity, and understanding your audience. You’ve got this!
Got your plan of action?