A Full Breakdown of Audience and Income Growth Strategy

Here is the text-heavy breakdown on our approach and the marketing theories that uphold it.

Our approach, as mentioned above, is built on Jay Abraham’s three-pronged approach to income growth and on the funnel approach to audience building. This is what we are currently working with based on a standard set of goals:

1. Building a fanbase that is owned outside of social media — meaning artists maintain contact with their fans directly, bypassing the power of major platforms like Instagram.
2. Securing regular income for independent artists that is minimally dictated by rollout cycles.
3. Making sure the gap between the actual income and the potential income (as dictated by fans) is as small as possible.

“The goal of social media is to turn fans into customers, and customers into advocates.”
– Jay Baer, marketing consultant.

(Source: Hug Your Haters)

These goals are built into our strategy at several phases of the funnel approach. While this changes case by case, there are four main stages of the funnel that we use for reference:

1. Building attention: getting your art and brand in front of people who may be interested in what you make but have never heard of you before. This phase emphasises reach on social media.
2. Turning attention into awareness: delivering consistently recognisable imagery to build brand recognition in people at the “attention” stage. This encourages profile visits and social following.
3. Turning awareness into followership: bringing people one step further into being connected to your work. This may mean moving them to YouTube to watch documentaries or to a mailing list so they can stay up to date with shows.
4. Turning followership into fandom: the final stage — creating experiences and content that allow fans to actually support your project. This includes first-time show visitors, merch buyers, and Patreon subscribers.

“Social media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide for you.”
– Matt Goulart, founder of Ignite Digital.

(Source: Ignite Digital Blog)

Each stage of this funnel requires a different set of content — and at every level the content must remain authentic to you and your music. “Authentic” is often wrongly interpreted as handheld, intimate videos, but we do not share that view. Authenticity means you actually like what you are making for social media, and you are proud to share it.

While the funnel secures audience ownership and prepares the foundation for monetisation, it does not complete our three goals alone. As mentioned earlier, our strategy is heavily influenced by the three-pronged approach to income growth described by Jay Abraham in his book Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got. This method defines the three universal ways to increase income in any business:

1. Increase the number of customers— “The easiest way to grow your business is to get more customers.” This can be done through targeted marketing, partnerships, or expanding your reach.
2. Increase the average transaction value— “The profit is in the upsell.” This includes premium products, bundles, or add-ons.
3. Increase the frequency of transactions— “The best customer is the one you already have.” Programs like subscriptions, loyalty rewards, or regular promotions encourage recurring support. For musicians, this relates directly to live show frequency, fan-engagement cycles, and monetising the gaps between releases.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out by email to book a strategy session!

Sources

• Abraham, J. (2000). Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got. Truman Talley Books.
• Baer, J. (2016). Hug Your Haters. Portfolio/Penguin.
• Goulart, M. “Social media is about the people…” Ignite Digital Blog. https://ignitedigital.com/resources/blog/
• Chaffey, D. & Smith, P. (2022). Digital Marketing Excellence. Routledge.