Pickup the phone and call your fansAuthor David Meerman Scott made a honest and realistic quote, “if you want 20,000 fans you must do 2000 different things that each generate 10 fans.” This was my favorite quote from 2010 and I am going to take this on as a challenge for 2011 for an ambitious project to give you 2000 different things you can do to generate 20,000 fans.

Some of these items will apply better for larger acts, some items will work for any act. Some may work for you, some may not… not yet. Some these can be done with little effort, some will take some web development, some might even require some significant development. Some of these have successfully worked for me over the years. The point is to create a list of items that would cover a wide range of acts and abilities.

The end result of all this will hopefully be more Facebook likes, Twitter followers, email list subscriptions, more sales and more traffic to your website… more fans!

View the single list of all 2000 items at this location.

2000 Things to Generate 20,000 Fans Challenge

41. Pickup the Phone and Call Your Fans

Another great idea from MusicPage.com’s David Codr’s presentation Guerrilla Promotions at the Driven Music Conference in Atlanta.

This idea is about gathering emails at live shows. Print up some small postcards that you have fans fill out. Get info like name, email address, Twitter, Facebook AND phone number. Each band member should have a stack of cards with them. Everytime you meet someone get them to fill out a card, on the front of the card write the band member name. On the back write a short note about the fan, what you talked about, their t-shirt, whatever… a memory jog. Here is the cool fan engagement part… if they gave you a phone number, call the fan the next day. Use the memory jog note to give you something to talk about, but thank them for coming to the show, how much you enjoyed meeting them and that when you come to town again you will be sure to let them know. You will win a fan instantly by calling them, who expects the band they just met the night before to ever remember them and give them a call.