Ask Your Fans About Your Big Music Project Before You Commit All Your Resources

If you want to have a very successful music career, it’s important that you make sure you know exactly what your fans are looking for.  Don’t know what your fans are looking for? No worries there is a way to find that out…you ask them.

You should do some testing and market research before you commit your time and money manufacturing, distributing and promoting your music.  If you skip over this important step you can find yourself spending thousands of your hard earned money creating and recording music that key stakeholders in the music industry (like radio stations, labels, and your fans) aren’t interested it.  So why does this matter?  It matters because if key stakeholders in the industry aren’t interested in your music, your music won’t get heard and you’ll likely be a broke musician for years to come.

Here’s some tips to help set you up for success in the music business.

Create, develop, demo, and test your products and services…then test some more

• Get organized and get your music into a presentable form so you can test how it will be perceived by your target audience.  You can e.g. create a demo. Just make sure you don’t rush the process of creating demos and testing your products etc. so you set yourself up for success in the future.
• Also, make sure you test your products and services out on who you believe are your most likely targeted customers.For example: Create surveys to get information on how you should proceed with your upcoming music release. Example question:  On a scale from one to ten do you think this song should be included in my upcoming debut EP?
• You’ll also want to include options for your survey respondents to include more detailed responses too.

You can use free services like SurveyMonkey.com to embed surveys on your website, and provide access to them via social networks and music related forums etc.

The important thing to consider is that you survey unbiased people (not your best friend), and get a lot of results so there is some statistical significance.  In other words, don’t survey 4 people then call it a day and move full steam ahead with your album release plan.

Testing isn’t a one time thing.  Keep at it, and make sure you listen to your fans and key stakeholders.  Learn what they are looking for and how to deliver what they want so you can build a long and successful music career.