Why you must identify your ideal customer

Post 42 of Dream, create and make money in the arts.

After doing the podcast coaching session with Ryan yesterday (link here)I feel far calmer about my path to releasing this dance song into a market I know nothing of and have no reputation in.

Sure there is still a mountain to climb but he has told me to just look at the foundation this week and from there I can breathe a bit easier.  I am moving this weekend so I am listening to podcasts whilst I pack and I listened to the following podcast which backed up what Ryan had said.
CD Baby interviewed  Seth Godin who is always amazing. He re-echoed that you need to find your 1000 true fans, your tribe. That you only need 1000 fans to pay $50 a year for 2 tickets or a few CDS to be able to earn a living from music. The large majority of people will not care about or get your style and that is ok. You just have to play or sing, write or sculpt the art that makes you happy and then find your tribe. If they don’t like it either you need to adjust your product or change tribes. This is what Ryan was saying to me yesterday about thinking about my perfect audience, who I intend this work for. Well, given the few people I have played it to so far, it is my gay male friends that love it. The straight men aren’t bothered and the girls do like it but the strong ‘WOW’ reaction I am getting is from all of my male friends who are gay.

I didnt mean to focus on the pink pound, and neither did Andrew Hyde who spent far too many late nights mixing, remixing, fiddling with instrumentation on it, but somehow we have a high energy summer mix, helped no doubt by Andrew’s wife Alex who makes the most amazing cakes ever. So if my early research says that the pink pound is where  need to go, then why fight it?

If I know my perfect customer then those people who don’t fit within my parameters can like or dislike it but it is of less importance to me, and hopefully I will feel less bruised when people don’t like my ‘baby’

So I am building a profile of my perfect buyer, gay, handsome, 28, in a relationship, still loves to club, loves clothes, the gym, beauty, art, loves life, positive thinker, lives and appreciates the moment, (basically I am starting to build my perfect man apart from the sexuality and the age – I try to no longer date men in their 20s ;-))

Ryan has told me the more I can see my ideal customer the more then I can target my marketing strategies.. not that I have one yet ;-))

About this series – Becoming a Successful Creative – The Business of Creativity covering all the angles and issues of putting on a show, exhibition or event to showcase your art

This is a series of daily blogs for you on how to dream up, build, market and sell a creative event, gig, festival, book launch, cabaret night, exhibition of rude plastic cupcakes or whatever creatively inspires you. It is time to create and put on that play about your family, a series of drawings about hedgehogs, the album you have talked about making or the short film you always wanted to write and make. You can read the series in order  Part One or just pick and choose a topic that interests you.