Understanding Your Audience
How truly knowing your audience paves the way to music success.

There’s nothing more frustrating than putting your all into a task and not getting the result you were hoping for. Imagine working hard and rehearsing for days before a live performance only to get pin-drop silence at the end. That would be heart-breaking. You might even start doubting yourself, questioning whether you should be on this path at all. Sometimes, the problem isn’t you. It’s just that you’re in the wrong place.

Imagine taking an avid basketball fan to see a soccer game. They might try to enjoy it but the excitement will never be the same as when they’re courtside for a basketball game. In the same way, taking the right music to the wrong fans will always be like pouring water into a basket. So don’t pay attention only to your music, but also to your audience.

In this article, I’ll explain the basics of understanding your audience. What does it mean to understand your audience? Why do you need to understand your audience? And most importantly, how can you understand your audience? Let’s get right into it…

What

Think of two people in a relationship. To live happily together, they first need to understand what their partner requires from them. Then they find a way to do those things. You're in a similar relationship with your fans. What do they like? How can you give them that? You want to give your fans what they want because that's keeping the relationship going. But don't be a people pleaser.

As with any relationship, when what they want and what you want are too far apart, it's time to find love somewhere else. That's what understanding your audience is all about. You want to know what kind of people are in the crowd so that you know the best way to get them going.

But why should you care?

Why

Better direction

When you've built a decent following, the big question is what next? How can you keep your fans happy and engaged? At first, you're just putting out your content on social media and hoping someone will like it. You didn't have anyone to impress so you just made whatever you wanted to. Once you have a crowd watching, however, the feeling is different. You have someone to impress.

The key to impressing anyone is first knowing what would impress them. What do they want to see? When you understand your audience, that question becomes easy to answer. So you get better direction on what to do and how to do it.

Targeted campaigns

When you understand your audience, you'll know exactly what makes them tick. By extension, you'll know what they're willing to pay for. When you get targeted ads online, it's because the system has tracked your behavior online to help it understand what you're interested in. You can apply the same logic to your audience.

What kind of merch would they be into? Everyone loves hoodies, but some generally prefer more colorful stuff while others prefer simpler color combinations. Everyone would love to attend a live show but older people will prefer a calmer event while younger people will want you to bring your loudest speakers.

Understand your audience so that you can serve them better, thus getting them to open their wallets.

Less effort and more success

If you know exactly what your fans want, you can go straight to the point without wasting time and effort on things they don't care about. The natural way of selecting the best thing to do is trial and error, but that costs so much time, effort, and money. If you already know what needs to be done, you can be more efficient. You'll spend less time, effort, and money to achieve more success because you've switched from working hard to working smart.

Now that you know what you need to understand your audience, it's time to address the elephant in the room. How can you understand your audience?

How

Buyer personas

When creating a product, businesses first try to decide who their product is for. So they design an artificial profile that represents their ideal customer. This fictional profile is called a business persona. You can apply this to your music. When making a song, first ask yourself who you're trying to reach. This gives you an initial idea of your audience before you actually meet them.

So if you're just starting and wondering how to know what your fans want when you don't have any fans, this one's for you. Ask yourself who your music is for ideally, then create a profile of such a person.

Study role models

When an entrepreneur wants to start a business, it's good practice to take a look at an already established business in the same industry to see how they operate. This helps give an idea who your potential customers are, and what you need to run a successful business. The same thing applies in music. Who are your musical mentors?

If you make similar music to Adele, then there's a good chance her fans will like your music. So study them to get an insight into your potential future audience.

Analyze the data

Once you actually start racking in listeners and social media interactions, it's easier to get an idea of who your audience is. Buyer personas are fake and created by you so they're hardly ever accurate, but real data is always accurate because you're analyzing people who have declared interest in your music. So analyze that data.

What age group relates to you more? Which social media seems to be working out better for you? Which of your songs is a bigger hit with your audience and why? Do your fans only engage on social media or are they willing to invest money? Which other artists do your listeners enjoy? Query the data so that you can find information that'll be helpful to you.

Final Thoughts

Understanding your audience is essential if you want to enjoy a long and fruitful career. It never works out when you're just shooting in the dark without any prior intelligence. Learn to approach your music like a business. Study your audience like a business would study potential buyers. It will give you a different perspective on what you need to do.

In an industry full of people shooting in the dark, you can be a sniper with night vision goggles if you understand your audience.