Leveraging Fandom as a Revenue Stream

As a label or artist manager with a tight or potentially non-existent budget, one of your most important jobs will be helping your artists build their own source of re-investible income. If your artists have started working on building their owned fan community (i.e., access to 1st party data), they have that much more of an ability to leverage those highly dedicated and engaged fans to help them support their career. 

Here, I'll provide a list of some of the specific activities and offerings you can set up in order to earn meaningful revenue, even for artists at the beginning of their journey. 

Direct Fan Engagement Platforms

Platforms such as Patreon, Bandcamp, and Ko-fi allow artists to offer exclusive content, merchandise, and experiences in exchange for financial support. These platforms enable fans to engage directly and supportively, creating a reliable monthly income for artists. Encouraging your artists to interact personally with fans through these platforms can not only generate revenue, but also serve your fans & help build their loyalty. 

Offering Merchandise

Fans love to show their support through merchandise. Offering custom items such as apparel, totes, stickers, etc. can tap into the fans’ desire to collect and display their fandom. Obviously securing order minimums for smaller artists can be difficult, so one potentially useful approach might be starting with a pre-order round and setting a goal for fans to reach in order to realize their prizes. However, another even simpler method would looking into places where you can sell merch on-demand like Printful or Amazon on Demand - the caveat being that these items tend to be more expensive than bulk orders.

Experience-Driven Crowdfunding

Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo can help fund specific projects like album recordings, music videos, and tour support. This method not only raises funds but also builds anticipation and involvement from the fanbase. Furthermore, fans are often willing to pay for experiences such as songwriting sessions, private concerts, or input / brainstorming on creative decisions. These can be offered as high-tier rewards for crowdfunding campaigns.

Hosting Virtual Events

Virtual concerts, livestreams, Q&A sessions, and meet-and-greets have become a viable way to generate revenue while directly engaging the fanbase. Platforms like TikTok actually allow content creators to monetize livestreams based on engagement, however, even without generating revenue directly from the livestreams, virtual events are great places to announce and create powerful calls to action for the strategies we previously covered - fan engagement platforms, merchandise & crowdfunding. 

In conclusion, it can be hard to manage and support artists with limited budgets. However, by empowering artists with the ability to simultaneously bring in revenue via existing and growing fandoms, whilst engaging with & delivering value to their audience, you not only free up more time for their artistry but provide them with an actual budget to help re-invest in their growth.