How To Really Grow Your Fanbase Like A Boss At Your Show

A big problem I see upcoming Hip Hop artist make when performing live has nothing to do with their stage performance, music selection, or image. The mistake I see upcoming Hip Hop artist make is thinking that a good performance, good music selection, or “raw” clothes is going to make people become loyal fans and support everything they do. It won’t!

See, in this day in age, it doesn’t matter how good your music or performance actually is. People’s attention spans are toothpick short and the level of lazy is at an all time high. Not many people are going to watch you perform, then remember your performance the whole night, then remember your name, then google you and search for a way to connect with you, and then listen to your music. A few might do it, but not enough to make you pumped about doing another show.

What I’m going to show you in this post is how to really grow your fanbase like a boss at your show. I’m going to show you a technique that was used to gain fans and be able to privately contact them at any moment in the future to promote your music, sell tickets to shows, sell merchandise, and more.

How To Really Grow Your Fanbase Like A Boss At Your Show:

Things Needed:

Step 1: Create a Dedicated Sweepstakes Page on your Website

We’re going to add a contest / sweepstakes page to your website. I’d recommend using a url like (yourdomain.com/freeshow). This sweepstakes is what the audience at the show will be entering. This will help you get some email addresses, as well as allow you to engage with the audience after the show.

The prizes for this sweepstakes will be a full reimbursement of the price they paid for their show ticket, as well as a T-Shirt. The show ticket price will depend on the venue, but should be less than $25. The T-Shirt can be made using a website like TeeSpring for around $25 (No need to get a bunch of shirts made for 1 show). With TeeSpring you won’t have to order the shirt until you announce the winner.

Now your total cost so far is around $50. Not bad.

If you’ve been paying attention to anything I’ve been saying, then you should already have your own website created. If not, create one as soon as possible.

If you’ve created your website the way I recommended, this website will help you create a contest page on your website.

Step 2: Create Business Cards

Now, you should have your contest page setup and ready to order business cards. Your business cards will be simple. Put your logo or design on 1 side and then put your rap name, social media info, and the URL to your contest page on the other side.

For this task, you can use a website like Vistaprint.com or Moo.com to create the business cards. I’d estimate that you’d probably get anywhere from 50 to 300 business cards for $25, depending on the design and card quality you choose.

Now you’re total cost is around $75. Still not bad for what you can expect to gain.

Step 3: Tell Your Friend The Plan

During your performance at the show, you’re going to have your friend walk around and pass out your business cards to everyone in the audience that’s even remotely paying attention. If not many people are paying attention, don’t feel bad. It just means you need to work on your stage presence, but it’s all apart of being an artist.

When your friend is passing out the business cards, he needs to inform each person he hands them to, that since they’re at this show, they can enter this contest; The contest winner will have their show ticket paid for and will also receive a free T-Shirt.

Step 4: Remind The Crowd Afterwards

At the end of your performance set, announce on the microphone that anyone interested in entering the contest for the chance to have tonight’s show ticket paid for and get a free T-Shirt, should see your friend (describe him/her by whatever they’re wearing. It makes it easier to identify.)

Step 5: #Winning

Within a few days after the show, you should start seeing name and email submissions. Save that information to your computer and start entering them into a free email management platform like Mailchimp.

About 3 days after the show, pick a winner and email them to notify them that they’ve won. Also, don’t forget to email the other people and let them know that they did not win, but will be notified next time there is another show in the area.

Rinse & Repeat

This strategy can be repeated, over and over again. An added bonus is, the bigger you become as an artist, the more people should in the audience due to inviting your email list to shows, better venues, etc..

The more people in the audience, the more contest submissions you will have.

The more contest submissions you have, the more people you can promote your music to and invite to other shows in the area.

The more people you promote your music to and invite to shows, the bigger you will become as an artist.

It’s like a hamster wheel effect!

Oh yea, and the best part: it can be scaled cheaply. There’s only 1 winner, so your cost doesn’t change much except for ordering more business cards, no matter how many people enter.