My friend and long-time business partner Chris White coined this observation. “The biggest mistake most artists make is in believing they know their audience when they really don’t.” Here are a couple of examples.
Three years ago, when Chris was working with the Dove Brothers on song selection for a new album, there was a lot of deep discussion about taking a slightly new direction. That discussion centered around him wanting them to cut a “different” kind of song for them — “I Can Pray.” It wasn’t that they didn’t like the song; it was that they were afraid of the song. Afraid that their audience would not like it. They knew they wanted to change direction somewhat but this song was just too scary. They thought they knew their audience. Finally, of course, they did reluctantly cut the song with two results. “Their” audience loved the song and their audience expanded.
A little over a year ago I had almost the same experience when working on material for a new Kingsmen album. Only one person in the group wanted to cut “When God Ran.” The rest were afraid of alienating their audience. The argument was that most of their audience came to hear the traditional Kingsmen do traditional (sounding) Kingsmen songs. I agreed but told them that their (admittedly shrinking) “traditional” audience was the only one they ever saw because everyone else was tired of it and voted by staying away from their concerts. Well, they cut the song under duress and it became their biggest and most successful song in years. They set a slightly new direction and began to grow their audience.
Every group thinks it knows its audience better than anybody. After all, no one else sees them as often. Both of these established groups thought they knew their audience.
Some groups, especially so-called “emerging” groups just cut songs they themselves love. Without taking “their” (potential) audience into account at all. Sometimes these are really good songs. And the group is angry and mystified as to why their song does not end up doing well for them. Especially on radio. “That is a Great Song, way better than some of those at the top of the charts”, they complain. Often they blame the person (or company) promoting the song.
Actually knowing and paying attention to who your “audience” is (or may become) is fundamental. The traditional method for knowing your audience has been what I might call disconnected intuition. It depends on “reading” audience responses and making decisions based on those intuitive “hunches.” Jim Hamill was, of course, the master of this approach. And many times even he “got it wrong” and he would be the first to say that he really misread it.
Today, there are no Jim Hamill’s around. But there is another time-tested method of knowing your audience. I would call it simply conversation. It is hard to define but easy to see. Groups like the Mckameys, Inspirations, and Primitives (love them or not) are always in conversation with their audience. On stage, off stage, around the record table, and even when they’re “off the road” and at home, they are always conversing with their audience. Others would probably say “Well, we do that, too.” But not quite. Many groups do a lot of talking to their audience. The successful ones converse. Which means attentively and honestly listening rather than talking. When a group listens, they learn the audience rather than guessing the audience.
Conversing and listening is and has always been the fundamental concept for understanding your audience. Today there is a growing list of “social media tools” that can help groups converse with their audience on a scale never before even imagined. Unfortunately many groups are now using these tools to “advertise” and “promote” themselves and their activities rather than conversing and, especially, listening. They see a lot of activity and they spend a lot of time working these tools. They believe its a good thing to be doing (everyone else is) but rarely see actual results in audience growth as measured by concert attendance or CD sales.
This is simply because the tools are just tools. To make them really effective, which is possible, you have to learn how to use them to create conversations. This is as much a creative process as arranging songs or performing them. Learning to use these new tools effectively to converse takes time, attention, and study. Like learning to sing. And not understanding the value, a lot groups will probably continue to “guess”, struggle, or worse, think they already know their audience.
And learning how to “know your audience” is important no matter what your enterprise is. It’s not just for artists.
