Okay, I defined my “brand.”  Now I need to zero in on defining my target market.

Target Market:

I now need to figure out who exactly my audience is. It is too idealistic and impractical to think everyone. Again, I need to leave my ego at the door, and zero in as tight as possible on the people I should be focusing on marketing my music to, and in turn, which sponsors are a match for my audience and I.

Demographics:
Hard data like age and gender begins the narrowing down process to figuring out my audience. It is important to mention that, up to this point, I have not marketed to any specific demographic. I have just created accounts like YouTube, which only has promo clips directing my audience to go to Ever Entertainment™ to listen to all of my music free. I just put my music clips up, then see what happens. So any information I obtain about my growing audience up to this point is “organic” or “natural,” — occurring without any targeted marketing. Thanks to online analytics, I know the following about my audience:

Age:
I’m actually surprised at the wide age range listening to my music. Ages 25-34 take the lead with 33%, but ages 18-24 aren’t far behind with 27%. I would have anticipated an older audience with straight-ahead jazz. It’s a delightful discovery!   Ages 35-44 are in third place with 15% and 45-54 just behind that with 13% — still very significant.

Gender:
It is also interesting to see that male (54%) and female (46%) are almost equal! That too is wonderful! That will give me access to a broader selection of brand sponsors.

Visitors Per Month:
I’m currently seeing an average of around 2,000 unique visitors a month across my internet properties & accounts, which, again, is organic — with no specific marketing — just putting my music up. In the scheme of things, even though I want to attract a major brand sponsor, I have to realize that major sponsors expect major audience numbers, and that I have to “Start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can” (Arthur Ashe)! Realistically, as an emerging artist, I may have to start with an emerging brand or several. As my audience grows, so can my sponsorships, until I reach my ultimate goal of just having one major brand sponsor!

Visits Per Month:
Each visitor averages two visits — my visits per visitor are averaging at around 4,000 per month. That my audience returns is pivotal. Retention is as important as growing an audience. I’m very pleased with this number, simply because I’m just starting and don’t have a lot of music or content yet. I’m so grateful! This is also vital to creating long-term brand sponsor relationships.

Location:
Audiences from 165 countries are listening to my music! That is staggering to me. The internet is amazing! While I hope to continue to grow a worldwide audience, I’m thankful that the majority of my audience is in the United States, with 28%, where the majority of the brand sponsors I hope to attract do business.

Audiences from 36 states are listening to my music — more than I’d hoped for! And again, I’m thankful to see states major brand sponsors would be most interested in showing up in my top 15.

Other Demographic Information:
There is quite a bit of demographic information I don’t have.
1) Are they married?
2) Do they have children?
3) What is their income and employment status?
While I don’t have all of the specific data I wish I did, from here I can start extrapolating from general statistics. I can look at the marital status, income and family statistics for the US, for instance, and even for each state, and apply that to my audience as a fairly safe assumption. I know that 100% of my audience has a computer! I can even gather general statistics on computer ownership in the US, and see what other demographics and hopefully psychographics (lifestyle) I can glean from them to apply to my audience.

But that will have to be another day! Gotta go!

DIY Music Sponsorship Journal – 10-13-14.  Eliyora Entertainment LLC.  Ever Entertainment®  © Paradunai LLC.  All international rights reserved.  All trademarks property of Paradunai LLC.  All personas, concepts and original songs created and performed by Sherese Chrétien.