Whether you're online with us live or watching your dashboard, super glad you're here. This is Monetizr. Monetizr happens the fourth Tuesday of each month, where we talk about e commerce productizations process systems, kind of the back office stuff that makes the front office possible.

So today, we're going to be talking about superfanartists communities. We're talking about 30 takeaways that we've assembled over the last four or five years. As you have questions or thoughts, you can put them in the comments and our team will compile those and we'll answer those at the end of the training here.

So let's talk a little bit about SuprFan and artists communities. Over the years we have done a bunch of work for one of the largest publishing companies in the world here in Nashville. They brought us into work with them with some of their legacy artists, Burt Bacharach, Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan type artists.

For example an artist like Ashford and Simpson have had a great career and maybe now, they didn't quite know the world we're living in today, The world has shifted. It used to be, record labels and big advances. That was kind of the world they came up in, in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. So that world is, is largely gone. The dinosaur record label model, they brought us in to help them think through a way to kind of reinvigorate their universe.

• If you're into Burt Bacharach, that's what you care about.

• If you're into Bob Dylan, that's what you care about.

This is the origin story for Suprfan really started there where we worked with them and thier legacy artists.

We're going to open up the artist dashboard, take a look at some of their pricing and some of their models of a current artist who's using super fan. We're also going to take a look at a super fan event where everybody comes together and connects in a really rich way. So that's going to happen at the end of the training.

Super fan artists, communities, 30 takeaways. I wanted to do is just kind of assemble kind of a. Stream of consciousness punch list of things that we've learned, maybe the hard way, or maybe the right way that really gets artists communities.

30 Takeaways from SuprFan - Artist Fan Communities

1. It's not just for KISS. 

2. Music isn't the main product

3. Artists leave tons of money on the table

4. This isn't Patreon, this isn't Indiegogo, this isn't ClickFunnels

5. Show the work

6. The hamster wheel is real

7. Understanding product types

8. Cadence

9. Product Stack

10. Both And Options

11. Supersize me

12. Fulfillment and delivery

13. MRR matters

14. People stay customers forever

15. Saves SASS costs

16. Artists get back to being an artist

17. Artists fail at productization

18. Artists love shiny objects

19. Artist buy in

20. Messaging matters. A Lot

21. Energy travels

22. VA's? yay!!

23. Remove friction

24. Fans are cheerleaders

25. Community > Content

26. A confused mind never buys

27. Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered

28. Communication is everything

29. Onboarding is huge

30. Communities are the center of gravity for career growth

1. The first takeaway is that it's not just for KISS. It's not just for those huge bands who, you know have been there, done that, had a great career. This is for artists who are regional artists, local artists. You know, they could be starting out, they could be touring regionally. So it's not just for the headliners that everybody knows about. That's a common thing. It says, well, it's easy. It's easy if you're a kiss or Taylor Swift or Van Halen or even Coheed and Cambria. It's not that at all. This is what we've found is that it's for. Developing artists, deploying artists, and dominating artists. And if you've been in the hacking music community for a while, you'll know that those are our three gears of an artist's career. That's one of the beautiful things about Superfan is that it it works all three gears.

2. The second takeaway, music isn't the main product. We've found what's called people by the mirror. People are spending money on the mirror. So what's the mirror? The mirror is people like them. Music is important as, as Sheryl Crow said, music does something to the molecules in the room and she's exactly right. That doesn't change. Music still matters. But what we've found is music's kind of the gateway drug, right? But the thing that. Keeps them in the community is connecting with people like themselves. They're into the same things. They could be at the same stage in their life. They're into the same general things. Think of it like, you know, Grateful Dead fans. They're kind of into the same thing. Harley Davidson fans. They're kind of into the same thing. That's the second takeaway that music isn't the main product.

   SuprFan - Artist Fan Communities, Monetizr: Revenue Building for Artists

   SuprFan - Artist Fan Communities, Monetizr: Revenue Building for Artists

   adilo.bigcommand.com/watch/9VOqU9y1?autoplay=true

   

3. Third takeaway is artists leave tons of money on the table. Communities are popping up. All over the place. It's just a question of whether the artist will participate in that community and own their own community. So it's kind of like name and likeness. If you follow college football at all, when you have a community, you own the zeitgeist, the glue, The universe around what you do, takeaway number three is that artists leave money on the table.

4. The next takeaway that this isn't Patreon, this isn't Indiegogo, this isn't ClickFunnels or Infusionsoft. This is something completely different from those. So as we're kind of pinning. Popping the old beliefs here for the first few takeaways. This isn't just Patreon. This is Indiegogo. It's not those kind of first generation things. That's the fourth takeaway is that it's not ClickFunnels and Indiegogo and Patreon.

5. The fifth takeaway is that you want to show the work. What does that mean? So most artists get their end zones flipped. They work hard on the music part. And when they're done with the music, they think they're done. We call this getting their end zones flipped. They think they're at the touchdown line when they're really at the 20 yard line, they're just starting when the music's done. So you want to be very careful and not getting your end zones flipped. You want to really embrace the idea of showing the work. Whereas some of the legacy artists of the dinosaur era just wanted to make the record and. Handed off and they were done at that point, whereas now with the idea of show the work fans will pay to be in that conversation of writing the record, producing the record designing the music around that. On tour with the artist. So the idea of showing the work is really important. So that's the fifth takeaway. Artists want to get comfortable with showing the work and not just you know, looking down and your fans say, okay, here's my musical genius. Go buy it. And I don't want to see you anymore. It's not that at all. Show the work is takeaway. Number five.

6. Takeaway number six is: The hamster wheel is real. When we first started developing this with the company here in town, some legacy artists who are now on tour and, and having their 50th year anniversary and they're doing fantastic. Right. But the hamster wheel is that they have to stay on tour. Okay. And for some legacy artists, that may be what they're used to and that's their thing and they're going to stay on the hamster wheel. So artists really have. The decision to make is where they're going to work hard or where they're going to work smart. We see artists, new artists, regional artists taking advantage of artist communities, whereas some legacy artists maybe just out of rote pattern and what they're familiar with choose to stay on the hamster wheel, right? They have to be out on tour X number of days a year. And that's important. You can't beat analog face to face. I mean, something happens that there's a kinetic bond there on stage, but with artists communities, you have the choice of stepping off that hamster wheel in some really interesting ways, which we'll look at here in just a bit. So those are a few, there's like the first six takeaways The balloon of old beliefs of the legacy record label model.

7. Takeaway number seven is this understanding product types. As you start to build your artist community you'll see if there are new ways, new products to build their digital project products, their physical products. There are experiential products that people can step into and be part of, and there are access products. And we go deep into this. With each artist we work with, but for right now, I just want you to really think about the product types that you currently serve your fans. So that is take away number seven product types take away.

8. Number eight is cadence. Cadence is how often you're going to be meeting. We have found and really learned the hard way that you want to under promise and overdeliver. You don't want to commit an artist to every two weeks being available when really every 60 days is plenty want to kind of protect the artists and their time. That's takeaway. Number eight is. Your cadence, how often will you be connecting the artist with fans and followers?

9. Takeaway number nine is the product stack. So we talked about earlier, there's digital, physical, experiential and access products, but you also want to be super aware of bundles. And we go deep into this. And the productization training in monetizer but you want to think about your bundles as kind of that super product. People will buy 30 percent more if it's in a bundle. You can have product one, product two, product three, but when you put them in a bundle. You get about 30, 30 percent more sales. That's takeaway. Number nine is understanding your product stack.

10. Takeaway number 10 is the both and option. What do I mean by both?Inside our artists communities, we give them the option of joining the community. The monthly community, or they can just buy this single one off product. So instead of getting rid of the single product option, we keep them, we give them options, right? They can buy the widget, the t shirt, the music, the CD, whatever that single product is, or they Can step up and be part of that high touch, high experience product of the super fan community. So that's takeaway number 10 is both and.

11. Takeaway number 11 is the idea of supersize me. And this is something we learned. It took us, geez, probably about a year to figure this out, but there are a certain percentage of fans and followers who will always buy those limited VIP exclusives and fruit. Like the first nine months, we just kind of gave them small, medium. Enlarge. And that was fine. It worked great. But what we found is when we started offering those exclusive VIP products, say 200 products at, you know, and when they're gone, they're gone and price them accordingly we found more and more people wanted those supersize options.So that's takeaway. Number 11 is the supersize.

12. Takeaway number 12 is fulfillment and delivery. Will you fulfill in house or will you print on demand? And there's a bunch of third party print on demand companies that many artists use and having great success with that's takeaway. Number 12 is fulfillment and delivery. You want to kind of. Get clear on what you're committing to and not bury yourself in, you know, packing every two weeks when you can really every quarter. That's takeaway. Number 12 is fulfillment and delivery. So those are a few takeaways on the product side of things. Let's talk about a few takeaways on the financial and revenue side of things.

13. Takeaway number 13 is the idea that MRR matters, monthly reoccurring revenue matters. What does that mean? If you're not familiar with this term, this is You get paid every month as people subscribe say there's a 39 monthly product. You get paid 39 every month from that customer, that buyer. So for an artist, what that means is that they can step off the hamster wheel when they know, okay, Hey, we've got 400 people in our community. Okay. Maybe we don't have to take that show in Wisconsin or that show in the upper. Northwest, right? Maybe they can spend their time building out their community, and that will serve them better in the long run. So some things we've seen is that it means that the artist can focus on actually the music. They can make better music. And we found and we see that it makes for better artists when they're not desperate, when they're not, when they don't have to take that a show in the upper Pacific Northwest with 18 hours each way. MRR matters. Okay. And we talk a lot about that. We'll look at that inside the dashboard here in a minute.

14. Takeaway number 14 is people stay customers forever. When you're watching Netflix, you just watch Netflix each month. And that means you're paying for it each month. The same thing holds true inside a super fan. People stay customers. Forever. They don't want to leave, especially when you handle this well, and you kind of take follow some of our takeaways here. People want to be part of that forever. Sure. Some people will roll off and that's just normal. But what we've seen is that people take away number 14 is huge People stay customers forever.

15. Takeaway number 15 is that it saves SASS costs. We've seen one artist save about 799 time. Dollars monthly and just not using ClickFunnels, Infusionsoft, Patreon, you know, whatever the SaaS tool is. They save a ton of money inside using SuperFan. Takeaway number 15 is save on SaaS costs. So let's look at a few takeaways as it relates to the artist and their mind and their. Spirit in their tone and their energy, right? The artist's mind.

16. Takeaway number 16 is that artists get back to being an artist. We say it all the time that the back office makes the front office possible. So when you have certain automations happening, it allows the artist to be the artist out front. Be in the studio, be recording, be writing the back office makes the front office possible and super fan has been fantastic for really letting the artist get back to being an artist. So that's takeaway. Number 16, the artists can get back to being an artist.

17. Takeaway number 17 is the idea that artists fail at productization. It's not a ding on artists. It's just part of their makeup. They get distracted. And So we just need to own that artists work hard on the initial music part of it. And they kind of check out after that. And that's one of the beautiful things about super fan is that it builds in that productization time that really. Builds out the suite of products around the artist. This is the single product problem that most artists face. They have one product and we say it all the time is that inputs drive outputs. When you have one product, you get maybe one output, but when you have six products, People can buy six different things and they can choose and they can kind of expand up the offer ladder. Takeaway number 17 artists fail at productization. No, nothing against artists. That's just a common trait around artists.

18. Takeaway number 18 is that artists love shiny objects. And these kind of go together. The idea of productization and shiny objects. They are. Distracted. And that's really, that's okay. We expect that from artists. That's part of their makeup. That's part of what makes them powerful and special at the same time. But what that means is that somebody other than the artist, 90 percent of the time has to manage that community. That could be a manager. That could be one of our community managers at super fan depends on your team makeup, right? So that's takeaway. Number 18 is that artists love shiny objects. Takeaway number.

19. Number 19 is the idea of artist buy in. It's important for artists to be in the community, but they don't, we don't want them to be in the community all the time. We want to still protect them and build a little mystique around them. They need buy in, but they don't need to be desperate if that makes sense or too available. Part of this is also the idea of you don't want to be above your fans and look down on them and say, Hey, let them eat cake poo poo on them. You want to look at your fans and be able to talk to them in a real way. And that's a challenge that some of the legacy artists of the past 30 years, they kind of maybe look down on their fans more than they were able to. Look at their fans and talk to their fans. Takeaway number 19 is the idea of artist buy in.

20. Takeaway number 20 is messaging. How and where will you message? And this is the idea of owning your pipes. We say it all the time inside the Hacking Music community that you want to own your pipes. What that means is that you want to Own your mailing list. You want to own access to the people that pay and care most about you. That's your fans and your followers and your friends. You don't want to trust MySpace to own your fans. You don't want to trust LinkedIn to own your fans. You, you want to be able to collect all that information yourself because that is your lifeline and your lifetime. That's your next 20 years told the story before of an artist who has had a 40 year career, won multiple large awards in his genre. And a number of years ago he was doing a project and he didn't have. Any data on his fans sold millions of records over the past 30 years and didn't have a way to speak to them. So we definitely want to own pipes, the access to talk to your fans and that's huge. So how and where will you message it out? Sure. Social media is important, but you don't own your data on social media. You don't own your data on Spotify. You don't own your data on Instagram. So you want to use them kind of at the top of the funnel, but you want to feed them into your pipes. That's takeaway number 20. How and where will you message on your pipe? So those are a few things on kind of the artist's mind and the, the DNA and the spirit of an artist and why. Superfans really strengthens the artist mind. Next, I want to look at a handful of takeaways as it applies to your messaging and your community and the tone and the spirit of your community.

21. The 21st takeaway, gosh, we've got what 30 takeaways here. So takeaway number 21 is the idea that energy travels. When you enter into your community, you are responsible now for the. Tone, the spirit, the vibe of your community. Some people choose to be really high energy and go, go, go protein, protein, protein. Other people choose to be really laid back and transparent. So it really has to be on brand. You want to get this right. In, in the planning stage of your community, but energy travels. So you want to really make sure that's consistent with you and your brand. So that's takeaway. Number 21, energy travels.

22. Takeaway number 22 is VA's? yay!!. So what does that mean? We use virtual assistants all the time, and this is great for some of the tasky things that we want to delegate, whether it's a thumbnail, a design component, or somebody's account, they need their password, or they need to change out a credit card, all that kind of transactional stuff is really great delegated to VAs. And we, we may have a training just on VA's alone because I think that's a really powerful smart part of this. Takeaway number 22 is VA's yay.

23. Takeaway number 23 is the idea of remove friction. We say it all the time that a confused mind never buys. So you want a system. Your technology, you know, in the old days, you may have had a Patreon or Indiegogo or whatever you use, Kajabi, and those are great systems. They still are. A lot of our friends and people still use them. That's great. But you want your fans to experience a frictionless experience. Thing, right? You don't want them. I can't log in here. I have to log in two different places or this is telling me this and this is telling me this and then they're just exhausted. You want to make it easy for them. Takeaway number 23, remove friction. Spaghetti sucks. You don't want to be playing the spaghetti game. That's takeaway number 23, remove friction. Now I want to spend a few minutes talking about a few takeaways on the customers, the fans and the followers and the friends who Buy and subscribe to your community.

24. Takeaway number 24 is the idea that fans are cheerleaders. Some of your fans, sure. They like your music more often than not. They like you and they want to support you. They become cheerleaders and they just want to give, give, buy, buy, buy. We have. Many fans and followers for artists inside super fan who buy every product and then they rebuy every product and what they're doing is they're becoming cheerleaders for you. They're your super fans, right? So that's takeaway number 24 fans or cheerleaders.

25. Takeaway number 25 is an important one. This is the idea of community beats transactions. This is the idea that people love to buy, but hate to be sold to. As you're considering a community or potentially joining the wait list for the super fan. It's not just about sales. It's not just about sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, hit people up. You don't want to use your fans as an ATM. You want the tone and the spirit of your community to be relational, high touch. You don't want to be transactional in. Your community. Sure. They're paying each month and that's fantastic for the artist, but you don't want to be transactional with people in your community. You don't want to use them as an ATM, if that makes sense. So that is takeaway number 25 community is greater than just the transactions. The next takeaway is takeaway.

26. Number 26, a confused mind never buys. So as you think about your, your writing, your copy and how you're messaging out to your followers, you want it to be clean, crisp, coherent, and concise. You don't want to blather on for paragraphs and paragraphs. You want to be able to get to the point. And help them take the next step that you want them to take. Takeaway number 26, a confused mind never buys.

27. And kind of a sister takeaway is takeaway number 27 and that's pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. What does that mean? So that's a common saying inside the business world that says, when you get greedy, you get slaughtered. The hogs get slaughtered, but the pigs, they grow. All right, they get bigger and bigger and bigger. So you don't want to think of your community as an ATM. You don't want to be spamming them every week. Every day with email, some people just get over the top in the sanely twitteria, I think is the word that comes to mind where you're just always spamming people. So less is more. You don't want to think of your community as an ATM. Next, I want to spend a few minutes talking about comms and communications.

28. So takeaway number 28, communication is everything. As artists are often distracted, they will likely not be the point person to communicate with everybody inside their community. We have some that do, but more often than not, it's, it's a manager. It's a band leader. It's one of our community managers who kind of drive the bus inside the community. So that's important. That's takeaway number. 28 communication is everything you want to be clear. You want to be crisp. You want to be concise.

29. Takeaway 29. Just as we're finishing up here, onboarding is huge. What is onboarding? When a new member comes into a community, those next. Three days are super important to that new member to feel clarity, to feel included, to feel special and excited about the community. So you have about 72 hours to make that happen. This is the onboarding process, and we get very specific with each, each new. Artist community that we launched that how we handle this onboarding, that welcome process is massive. An example is for one artist community, we did a welcome graphic for each new member and they felt just super powerful. They felt. They felt heard, they felt special and everybody in the community said, Hey, let's welcome Jimbo Bryson over here. And Jimbo Bryson felt like the coolest guy in the world because he got a graphic made up of him. He felt really special and he felt onboarded and welcomed in a really powerful way. Takeaway number 29 onboarding and welcoming is huge.

30. And the last takeaway 30 is this, the net net of everything we've talked about today is that we have seen inside our business and our artists businesses is that their communities are really the center of gravity for their career going forward.Sure. They're going to be. We're doing shows, writing and recording, but the center of gravity is really that hub, their community hub, where all their fans, followers, and friends can connect with other fans, followers, and friends of that artist in a real powerful experiential way. And I know that language kind of gets squishy. It's important to kind of. Treat this as a, it's not a transaction. This is something greater. Yes, it leads to transactions, but the community aspect of it is super powerful and we see it as the center of gravity for all careers going forward and growing and scaling.

These are the 30 takeaways that we've learned over the past four or five years in growing artists, communities, launching communities for, Some legacy artists and some new regional and local level artists. I hope that helps you.

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