1.Audience Development

I chose these two quotes for a reason. They relate an internal conflict I have. I have experienced far too many musicians whose main impetus is narcissism. They desperately need others to pay attention to them. Their heart and mind are not in the right place, in my opinion. They make decisions based on sometimes temporary benefits and act without a long or even mid-term plan. In contrast I have focused my efforts on the development of my project concept and crafting music. Ultimately, however, without an audience (whatever form that may take) I’m just a guy in the woods with a guitar. If I fell a tree with my might and prowess on the guitar and nobody hears it, does it really matter? Developing an engaged and interested audience for The Sunrise Review is essential to the success of the other goals I outlined in my last post. It is key to the continued growth of the project. It’s also the area I have put the least amount of effort into and the one that may require the most effort.

The audience-performer relationship is an interesting one, even more so when it’s construed into a business scenario and that’s the goal of this year. So, what does that look like?

The Classic Patronage Model

A single individual supporting one or more artists. It is incredibly rare these days and I am not putting any effort into development in this area. Individuals just don’t have that kind of moolah laying around.

Distributed Patronage

This is the new paradigm, lots of folks giving a little bit to support the artist. For a while having an audience also meant being in close physical proximity to them if only temporarily. That has also changed, thanks to the ol’ internet. As a result so has how you go about developing the relationship. There are a number of ways to engage fans and listeners as a musician using the world wide web. It’s actually a multi-billion dollar a year industry. There are so many methods that it can be somewhat mind-numbing to choose the best ones for a particular endeavor.

A Digital Game Plan

Here is my focus in 2013 for developing the audience for The Sunrise Review

A Dedicated Website:

www.solarpoweredmusic.com

I had this already, and have spent the past few months updating, upgrading and generally improving it.(it took 3, really!) I’m pretty pleased with it and am equally glad that I am able to be in complete control of it. It’s the official source of info on The Sunrise Review. It’s got all the music, videos and photos in one spot as well as blog posts and project updates. An area that could improve is SEO. Right now if you search, solar power music or sunrise review, it takes a couple pages to get to this site. Something I aim to change.

Newsletter Subscribers

This is my primary form of communication with my audience. So far I have about 750 folks who get the email. About 20% of them actually read it and significantly fewer click on the links. I would like to get the subscribers above 1,000 and more folks participating in the calls to action I include in them. One of the ways of enticing folks into joining is free music, so I have some tunes set aside for that purpose.

Are you signed up? I promise you won’t get spam. It’ll be just the opposite. Great music and interesting stories.

http://solarpoweredmusic.com/newsletter-signup

Social Media

Like any responsible independent musician these days, I have social media accounts for The Sunrise Review.

Follow me on Twitter or Like my Facebook Page

You can also gorge yourself on actual media at Soundcloud, Youtube, and Flickr.

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t use these as much as I could. Partly due to my aversion to the narcissistic nature of them and partly because I’m not really sure what to do with them. I’ve made an effort to begin working on creating a “social media strategy” but it’s full of fits and starts in trying to remember to follow it along with the hours of research and web design I have been doing. Not to mention actually writing and rehearsing music, the point of it all.

This is the basic 1, 2, 3 plan for building the general awareness around The Sunrise Review in 2013. I have also identified some target demographic markets for the project: Americana and Arabian Music Enthusiasts, Outdoor Adventurers and Renewable Energy/Sustainability Advocates. I will be working on creating different materials for engaging each of them.

By Erin

Explore some place new
Be inspired (x2)
Read a classic (x4)
Try a new recipe (x6)
(Re)connect (x12)
Get selfishly creative (x12)

I thought that (re)connecting would be a little bit more of an effort, but this one came together pretty easily. I think in the future it WILL be harder to keep up on this goal. There is a two year old at home (and another one due in May), which makes it hard for either parent to feel like we can spend significant time away from the family while the other one is home with the kid(s). Also not aiding our “going out” efforts is both adults’ enjoyment of keeping our bodies at home. One of us is more likely to want to “do SOMEthing” but in general, we both kind of feed off the other’s desire for family time. I suppose there are worse things. There are also different ways to “connect” which I will also be exploring through the year, so it’s not a hopeless resolution.

The first connection can strangely be summed up in the title of a movie:

ANNE

Out of the blue and with very little thought, which is very unlike me, I invited my friend Anne out to lunch. This is somewhat significant because we are “the spouses.” It is the husbands’ work relationship that blossomed first and morphed into the two families becoming “family friends.” This is always tricky business because more often than not, I don’t usually warm up to many of the spouses or significant others in these situations. Who knows the psychology behind it, but in most cases I much prefer my husband’s friends. Instead, I am obligated to try my best with the other. Not so with Anne. We hit it off at first meeting and this was our first “date” without the husbands and kids. It was lovely to talk the whole time without the interruption of cutting up a child’s food, soothing a crying baby, or chasing down a runaway.

THE KING OF SIAM

We (probably I) chose to go to my favorite restaurant: 3 Sisters Cafe. For those of you reading this from Indianapolis – if you haven’t been yet, go now. Get your body to Broad Ripple and bring your appetite. Even if the items below seem strange for your tastes, you will find something just as delicious. (I’m always ready with recommendations, too!) Breifly, here is what I chose. (I borrowed photos from Amanda at namastewhile. It was just a coincidence that we had the same meal.)

The King of Siam sandwich is a warm pita topped with hummus, spinach, and a cranberries-apples-almonds–fava bean-onion grain pilaf. It’s impossible to eat cleanly and makes my growing pregnant belly happy. Add fruit on the side and it’s better. Follow it up with a blueberry goat cheese pie and you’ve just consumed heaven in under an hour!