What is your Bands Brand?

What is your brand? What is your value proposition? Picture yourself as a fan, standing and watching your band. The music, the performance, the vibe. Then try answer this question "What does it do for me?" Whatever the answer would be, is your value proposition and that's what determines who you compete against. In the article Who are you competing with I prove it's not bands, but that article is more focussed on why you should reach out to other sources.

Possible options for your value proposition could be "The band..." :-

• entertains me
• energises me
• relaxes me
• makes me feel young

The options are hardly limited to just this list, but it shows what it could be. That's the competition. If your value proposition is one where you energise fans or, alternatively, relax them, then that is what you compete against. What else energises people? What else relaxes them?

Find those out and that's where you will find new fans. Not just one or two, but with the right message, the correct pitch, hundreds of potential fans. This would be a huge step forward for any band, breaking into that segment. But a band can't stop there. You've got your value proposition, your unique selling point, the thing that differentiates you from all the other bands in your local scene. You also don't need to be tied to a sole answer. Look at U2. They entertaining, but they also make the fans socially aware. Their value proposition is both of those things mingled together. It makes it far easier to be distinctive if you're prepared to work with multiple answers tied together.

So you put yourself in the position of a fan. You've answered the question. Good, but you're still only part way there. Grab a handful of fans and ask them. Compare their answers to yours. They'll be more accurate but yours shows where you want to be. You might be there, you might not. If not, you know where you are and can work out the route to take to get to the value proposition you want.

For the sake of this article though, let's say you're there. The fans answers match yours so everything is perfect. Everyone is happy. But does anything match that value proposition? Say you're a band that energises people, great. Does your website reflect that? Does it even mention it? Websites, myspace, facebook, the emails you send, all of these need to show this. Brand reinforcement. People come and see your show, they get energised. You'd be crazy not to mention that or try and provide it everywhere.

If the value proposition is "The band entertains me" you have a lot of work to do. The band website will almost certainly not be there. A smattering of youtube videos, some songs on a player. Informative about the band, sure. Entertaining, not a chance. That said, a band website would hardly work well if you tried to make it Youtube or Newgrounds, but you can make something that does work.

To sum up everything in this article, ask yourself "What do the fans get from us at shows?" and "Does everything we do reflect that?" If you don't know the first answer, find it out as soon as you can. If the second answer is a no, fix it.

© Strum. All Rights Reserved.
Written by Russell Qually
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