If you haven’t read 37Signals‘s “Getting Real” I highly recommend you pick it up today. You won’t regret it. It highlights the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals, which is a software developer, but these lessons can be applied to many other fields.
A recent chapter I re-read was called “Be Yourself” I thought I’d adapt some sections that ring particularly true for indie artists. A lot of small labels or self-released artists fall into the trap of trying to act like they’re bigger than they are. I can confess to having set up many a false identity for my old band, including Nigel our fake booking agent. Nigel did a great job, he got us some big shows, so I’m not saying this kind of fibbing can’t be beneficial in general, but keeping it real can certainly benefit you just as much, especially when it comes to communication with your audience. What you are trying to develop is a real relationship with your audience that Khoi Vinh stresses should be “lasting and mutually beneficial”. This post strongly relates to yesterdays post on branding. A few ideas on how to implement this quite easily:
- Instead of speaking in corporate language trying to act like you’re a big label, utilize the fact that you have a unique and charming story and are working your butt off by yourself. It’s much more exciting to support a real person than some distant corporate entity.
- When people order a cd, send them a quick note by e-mail or a hand-written one in their package. Not only are you showcasing a human voice to represent yourself, you’ll be endearing yourself to your fans.
- Instead of listing info@yourbandname.com on your website, list your personal e-mail. You can even create a separate one especially for your band or label, like yourname@yourband.com if you want to keep it separate from your truly personal e-mail. Include photos of what you look like on your about us page (working on this myself). Be yourself.