I had a client call with a lovely musician. Warm. Calming. She has beautiful energy.
Her recent project had performed to 200 people online. The piece centred around the topic of dementia. It had an amazing response. It was incredible to hear her talk about it.
She wanted some guidance on what to do next. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure if I could be of help. 200 people paid for a ticket to watch her piece! What could I help with? Then it occurred to me. The missing piece.
Have you spotted it?
As a performer, it is easy to see each performance as an isolated event. It begins, it finishes. Then you move onto the next event. But what if you added an extra element. Something that could follow you. Allow you to grow your support.
Like my mentor, Chris Gardener says, “think like a chess player, rather than a drafts player.” In essence, look a few steps ahead of the next move.
What was missing?
She hadn’t set up a way to continue the conversation with her audience of 200 people.
Let’s think of it from an audience journey perspective.
- They’ve SEEN that the event is coming up.
- They’ve THOUGHT about it and decided to book a ticket.
- They’ve EXPERIENCED the event.
- (The missing piece) Now they want to be CARED for.
Think of any memorable experience you’ve had as a customer. Being showed care. Before, during and AFTER your experience. This is what we could learn to do as musicians. Continuing the conversation is one way to do this.
By reaching out to them after the recital, you can continue to build relationships. You can show them some of your other creative work.
The Common Thread
You are the common thread. If someone likes your performance, there’s a good chance they’ll enjoy your other projects, recordings or workshops.
For my client, she can let those people know that her community choir has spaces for people who want to join. Her own recordings can boost their mood. She can share her creative passion with even more people.
Think of yourself as a splendid ship, sailing from one port to another. Each time you dock you let people choose to join your ship. They are now part of your creative journey.
Taking Action
My first suggestion would be to set up an email list. You can send out a regular email to your audience. When I say regular, I mean at least once a month. As I’ve talked about before, you own your email list. With it comes direct communication to your lovely audience.
- Choose a company to set up your mail list (MailChimp etc)
- Connect your email list account with your website,
- Set up a subscribe button so people can add themselves to your email list.
Once it’s set up you can be confident. You have taken another step to continue the conversation with your audience.
Other Ways
Setting up a Facebook Group allows you to have a visible space for people to talk to each other. You can do live streams into it. But it may take more time and energy to moderate and administer.
Following a social media profile. This allows for people to like and comment on your posts. You can reply back to those comments. But the organic reach of your posts can be as low as 1-2% of your network.
Subscribe to your podcast, video series or blog. It allows you to talk directly to them. They get to follow your journey. But make sure you give them away to chat with you. This could be using a specific # or leaving comments in a specific place.
In Summary
It can be easy to think of each performance as an isolated moment. If you have many creative projects, you may think they’re unrelated to each other. So your audience for your recital wouldn’t be interested in your community project. But, YOU are the creative energy around all these events. YOU are the common thread. If they love your performance, then they are likely to love your projects.
So remember to invite people to continue the conversation. To join you on your creative journey. Over time that will grow to be an amazing support network for you.
Take CARE of your audience. Especially after a performance.
Join the Digital Recitalist Weekly Email to see the next post first. You’ll also receive extras that only come in the weekly email.
Ollie Mansfield 