What it Means to Provide Value as EDM Producers/Musicians

For years I’ve talked about how you need to be looking for ways to provide value to your fans or clients as producers. Recently, I realized that a statement like that just feels… too vague.
That’s why I’m jumping into EXACTLY what it means to provide value to fans. What are the fundamentals you need to know?
After this episode, you’ll be more confident in the ways that you should be creating content, standing out, and ultimately how to provide inherent value.
What You’ll Learn:
- What it means to provide value
- What a fan avatar is
- How to build a fan avatar
- Different ways to provide value
- How to determine the value you can provide
- What value adding looks like
and much more!
Episode Links
Mark Rebillet – https://www.marcrebillet.com/
Electronic Dance Money Booklist – https://enviousaudio.com/booklist
Book Links
Contagious: Why Things Catch On affiliate link – https://amzn.to/3qMg0Xb
Automatic Episode Transcript — Please excuse any errors, not reviewed for accuracy
Hey guys, welcome to electronic dance money, your number one business resource for making money as electronic musicians and producers.
What’s up, everyone, welcome back to a brand new episode of electronic dance money. I’m your host, Christian besito. Hope you guys are doing well. It’s about 5pm, no, close to 6pm. And I’m on my second cup of coffee, I got a lot of work, I gotta get done. But first we got to, we got to talk about adding value providing value is artists and producers and musicians. Now this was a topic that I never really thought
I needed to discuss. And you know, I’ve talked about so many times, I’ve said, Oh, you need to add value, you need to add value, and it wasn’t brought to my attention that maybe I have not been making it more clear on what kind of value you you need to add as a producer, even how do you add value to fans, because let’s, let’s be real, when you’re talking about adding value to fans, as a musician, it’s a little bit more tricky than if you’re a business owner. So we’re gonna be taking a look at that today. So we’re gonna be taking a little dive into that topic. So what does it mean to really provide value? Well, there’s a lot of different ways that you can really provide value. And, you know, as a business owner, or really an entrepreneur in general, you have to ultimately find out how it is you can provide value and what value means specifically, not just to you, but also to who your target market is and who your avatar is, for my target market. And avatar, providing value might be a little bit different than yours. More than likely, it’s going to be a lot different within my niche in my industry. Let’s say for instance, with mixing and mastering. There’s a lot of different genres out there that need both mixing and mastering done. And with those genres, and this is outside of electronic music,
you have a lot of different
ways to provide value, or different needs that your target market or your customer avatar has. So let’s first focus on what is our target market? Who is our customer avatar? How do we find that information? And from there, you can start to figure out what it is that your target market or avatar needs. That you can then provide that value for and two.
So step one is obviously going to be creating your customer avatar. So what does a customer avatar look like? We’ve talked about this before in the past, I can’t remember exactly which episodes we’ve talked about this by No, we have. So I’ll go over again Now for those of you who are new, or haven’t listened to that episode.
But in order to create your customer avatar, just you can write this down in a Word document, you can make this into a nice PDF you can do you can create it wherever you want. But you need to answer some very specific questions. And basically, you’re looking at who is your ideal customer? And for you guys, it’s probably going to be a fan Who’s your ideal fan? What do they look like? What’s their name? What’s their age? What’s their occupation? Are they single? Are they married? Do they have a boyfriend? Do they have a girlfriend?
How much money do they make per year?
Now you can also ask questions like what are their dreams? And you know, for fans, it’s gonna be a little bit trickier to answer that. You might be able to ask, what’s their biggest dream within me around music involved with music, you know, maybe maybe their biggest dream is to go to electronic Daisy Carnival, maybe they want to go to Tomorrowland. And you can kind of be more specific about their dream in terms of that light instead of like their life goal. You know, that’s for me. You know, my target market, our EDM producers, your dream maybe to play etc instead of going and that might be your actual life goal. Big Top dream or you know, maybe it’s touring or whatever. For a fan. It’s gonna look a little bit different and
find out what are their pain points in getting what they what it is that they want.
Maybe they want really good music? Well, they don’t know where to find good music, that’s a pain point for them. So how can you solve that? How can you get your really good music to them?
We’re gonna be talking about entertainment value in a minute. But one of their pain points might be that they don’t have enough good entertainment on, let’s say, tick tock, or Instagram or Facebook. So how can you solve that problem? Now we’re getting to the target market. Now we’re looking at how can we provide value. And then lastly, you can do a lot of research on this sort of stuff with how to develop a customer avatar questions to ask about a customer avatar, go ahead and Google that. And you’ll find a million answers for you. This is a very, very common topic, in marketing, in in business and entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur in general, you’re going to find a million resources on this topic. But remember, your some of your answers are going to be a little bit different. Because we’re talking about fans, we’re not talking necessarily about someone’s who purchase someone who’s purchasing an actual product from you. Now obviously, if you’re in the space of selling sound packs, if you’re in the space of selling samples, during mixing and mastering, maybe you’re doing recording, or vocal editing, your answers are going to be more generic to the customer avatar in terms of, well, if you’re doing vocal editing, then they’re probably a vocalist that you’re trying to work with. And so their dream might be to release an album. So that you know that and their pain points might be a little bit different. They need to find a studio to work with, they need to find an affordable person to fix their vocals for them or, or they need to sell their vocals to other producers like those are different pain points for that specific business. And we can go on and on and on. But I want to just give you some examples in terms of what those like pain points look like, as well as what those dreams might look like for different people working in different spaces.
So let’s go back to the basis of you trying to find a fan this could you know, we could call this your your fan avatar instead of customer avatar think of think about it that way. So one of the last things you’re going to want to answer all that I’ve said before are like the most important to answer but one of the very last ones that you want to answer that’s just as important, if not the most important one to pay attention to, in terms in terms of your fan avatar is going to be where do they hang out? The the fishing holes that they’re at?
Where can you go fishing to find these fan avatars? Exactly where are they going to be at they’re probably on Instagram, they’re probably on Tick tock, I’ll tell you right now, those are probably going to be the biggest fishing holes for you to find those people.
So now that you’ve figured out who your fan avatar is, you know where they’re hanging out, you might you probably are you should know some of their pain points in terms of being a fan. So let’s look at it that way instead of like, you know, with a customer avatar in terms of a mixing and mastering studio, the pain point in the dream is going to be a little bit different. But that person is probably a fan of music, they might have some goals and dreams in terms of seeing and enjoying music. So think of it that way. We’re flipping the script to like a subcategory of their life instead of the main goal of their life or their career.
With a fan, you’re working on something smaller within their life, but something that probably plays a big, big part in their life, which is music, enjoying music, from producers like you and DJs like you
keep in mind when you’re working on this fan avatar, make sure you’re looking at it from their perspective, not necessarily your perspective. But their perspective. This is about them we get we’ve talked about the hero’s journey before this needs to be about them, you need to get into the mind of the fan that you want. Once you can get there, you can better understand their needs, you can better understand the value that you need to add. So let’s go through and next talk about some of the different points of value different ways to provide value or I guess you could say all the different topics of value in business. So
I’m gonna save the best one for last for you guys. But the first one we’re going to discuss real quick is service value. Now what what does value look like in the service industry? Or what are some common themes that you might fight fine in terms of a service business that is providing value
Number one, almost always across the board is customer service. If you have great customer service and a service based business that is providing a lot of value, I can name all of the great experiences, or at least all of the companies I’ve had great experiences with and terrible experiences with but not necessarily in the middle didn’t really wasn’t bad wasn’t great, you could probably name all of those two. And so having that, you know, if you have bad customer service that puts a bad taste in people’s mouth is doing the opposite, providing value value, you’re taking value away, and you’re hurting, you know that brands name and ultimately, that customer fan ever wanting to come back. And when you have really great customer service, it makes them want to shop with you more or service with you more do whatever it is that
that they do with that business, they come back, they’re repeat clients, the repeat customers.
Now what that might look like for you guys, as producers, if you’re trying to get fans is, it’s all about connecting with fans, it’s the same thing. You know, providing excellent customer service is or I should say providing excellent fan service is just like providing providing excellent customer service. This is all about how you actually connect with the people who are wanting or are currently supporting you. Are you responding to messages? Are you staying engaged with them? And how can you do that? Maybe that is just replying to Instagram comments or tik tok comments. Regardless, you have this great image of yourself both publicly but also in that person’s mind, who knows that, oh, if I reach out to this person, or if I comment on their stuff, they’re going to reply to me that, you know, they don’t see me as just another number, they see me as an individual, and they want to engage with me, that’s great customer service. And that’s ultimately how you provide great customer service. In general, with any business, you know, when you call a business, if you have to call a support center or support line, you want to feel like the individuals taking care of you that you’re not just in another number that you are wanted, and that they do want to take care of you. And I’m sure many of you feel that way as well. So how can you become more engaged with your fans to provide that type of fan service that we’re talking about, because that is value added. So it’s a very small portion of a, you know, adding value in terms of service. So let’s move on to the next one, which is product value. Now this one’s a little bit more
bare bones, there’s not a lot you can do with it unless you have social clout
held behind your product. Now the best probably the best brand or company I could point to that you might understand why I mean in terms of this is like Nike. Now there’s plenty of other bands, though, that you could you could use this with but Nike is a very, very good example. That is, you know, it’s a it’s a, it’s a product that provides high value to its customers.
Now, what kind of value are we providing here with the product? Well, it’s this
feeling of importance or luxury.
There’s a reason why so many people love Nike. And it’s because celebrities and athletes in the the highest tiers of athletes wear their brand and their logo. So it makes people think, oh, if I wear that, then I’m going to be just as good as that person, that product is adding value to my life, in terms of giving me social clout, or maybe making me better in a sport that I’m wanting to play or just in fashion in general makes me look better the product provides inherent value. Now,
that’s completely besides the point of the service that Nike provides. In terms like the service value they provide you, they might have shitty service value, but people will still buy their products because the products have such big names behind it. So this one’s a little bit trickier and less. You know, you can’t provide great product value unless you have that social clout behind your brand or your name. When you get that social clout. Boom. The brand explodes. People love the value that it brings and they want to purchase more this. Think of it as merge. It’s hard to get people to buy your merge when you’re a nobody. Why would they want your name. Again, we’ve talked about that. I’ve talked about the book contagious.
Which at this point, I’m probably gonna end up doing an entire episode on the book just because there’s so much great stuff in it that you guys can learn about. But social currency is one of them being part of a group, a secret group. That’s why people buy merch, because they love a band. And they want people to recognize that and either go, I’m a part of that group to or who is that I want to be a part of that group. And you get to share your experience about your favorite artists,
or the experience they have when you saw them
at a certain show or a venue. It’s why bands and musicians and artists sell tour gear like in tour merge very, you know, merge very specific to the tour that you can only get at the tour when it comes to your town and why that’s so expensive. Because you’re not going to be able to it’s a one time you get you’ll be able to get it, you won’t get it anywhere else. And there’s limited copies of that high high value for a product, lots of social clout behind the product. So you can get there. It’s just there’s a lot of work that needs to be done before you can start giving product value. But you can definitely start with the service value immediately. That’s how you can start to generate some superfans. But let’s move on to the last one. Which is ultimately, probably the the best place for you to provide value immediately right now start building that social clout and start getting more fans and more superfans, and that’s entertainment value.
What is entertainment value is pretty simple. It’s the ability to be entertained, how are you how, how is something providing you value that you’re being entertained? Could be a TV show that you’re watching a series, there’s high entertainment value behind that series, Game of Thrones was a huge provided huge entertainment value for people. Currently, as as I’m recording this, everyone’s talking about one division. And that show provides a lot of high entertainment value, the entire Marvel series provides lots of entertainment value. So this is where a lot of you guys should be shifting your focus and where you can also play, you know, you can have service value play into entertainment value simultaneously. And at the same time, if you’re doing Twitch streams, which we’ve talked plenty about, you’re inherently providing a service value at this while at the same time providing an entertainment value, or at least you should be, but this is probably where you need to stand out from all of the rest. How can you provide great original entertainment value that are going to get you fans and there’s one person that I can point you to right now?
That blew up in the past two years? Just through Facebook and sharing videos. And that’s Mark Rabelais Mark Rabelais is. I’m sure a lot of you have probably heard him hopefully you have if you haven’t start following him on Instagram. And on Facebook. I will I’ll link to all that stuff in the shownotes Envious audio.com slash Episode 48. But he has blown up because he’s been able to provide crazy amounts of entertainment value through loops. He has a loop machine he creates super original fun music on the fly live his shows are incredible. And he’s sure he’s been working at it for quite some time now. But he’s found a way to create inherent entertainment value that lives on through videos and get shared and they’re hilarious a lot of them are comedy songs to so again going off of contagious those who care share and that plays along with comedy you have you know you have to find these high emotional or high minded arousal emotions like comedy or anger or love.
Sadness is one but it’s not really one you want to play to but like excitement and encouragement those are great ones. comedy is one of the best ones to point to and Mark has found a way to bridge this entertainment world of music and comedy in its fucking genius and this creativity of doing it on the fly with these loot machines is incredible. And it’s caused him to explode as an artist started, like touring like crazy. I think he does a bunch of twitch live streams as well. I’m not 100% sure but there you’ll find a lot of people doing stuff like that on Twitch so you have to find what works for you to provide entertainment the entertainment aspect is going is the biggest one that you need to play into because think about your fan. What is some of their
pain points, it’s probably entertainment. It’s why they’re listening to music and why they want to listen to good music. It’s why they want to go see big artists, because they entertain them why they want to go to EDC, tomorrow, and it’s fun entertaining, it’s a big party. So your job now is to find out that piece of entertainment value that you can provide, and how you can provide it. Without that, you are going to be kind of wandering aimlessly. And you know, the more entertainment value you provide, the more the promotion that you do, the more successful it is, the more successful your promotion is. If you can solve this
question or issue or pain point of how you can provide value, then you’ll start to see so much more success in the work that you do to promote and market your tracks. That’s the one thing that you’re going to like that’s going to be a significant difference from all the other things that you’re doing. So figure out how you can provide entertainment value, while you’re providing that entertainment value, provide good fan service through, you know, values of service. And from that point on, your cloud starts to build. And then you can start generating some product value through merge. You can get you can see how these will all play into each other. But you have to answer that number one, which is the entertainment value. It’s why I left it for the last one, because it’s the most important thing that I really want to point out to you guys.
And that’s it for today’s episode. The next episode is gonna be fucking fantastic. I’ve got another guest coming on in it was one of the best conversations I’ve ever fucking had.
I can’t wait for you guys to check it out. But we talked a lot about providing value in that as well, in ways that you can do that. So that’s gonna you know, keep keep keep an eye out for that episode, because I think that will help out for you guys as well if you’re still trying to figure out how you can provide value but head to Envious audio.com slash Episode 48 to check out the show notes. If you want to check out any of the books that I’ve mentioned in the entire series and you want to support the show, head to Envious audio.com slash book list. You’ll get sent to my book list I’ve created for the entire podcast all the books I’ve mentioned all the ones I’m currently reading and will mention eventually,
you can click the Amazon links, those are all affiliate links. So if you purchase the book, I get a kickback from the show. So that’s one of the best ways to support the show. If you want to continue to support the show as well for free, go ahead and just share it. share this episode with a friend or share the podcast with a friend at Apple podcast and review the show that always helps as well. But in the meantime, take care guys, be safe and I’ll see you next
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