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One of the key elements for music marketing that’s often overlooked is retention. Retention can be explained as simply as the ability to hold the attention you generate. While the concept is relatively simple, the practice is often found to be much more challenging. As getting your music discovered or monetized is discussed on music biz blogs constantly, retention is ignored.

So how can you retain interest?

First of all, it has to be easy for people who have just heard your music to find you and connect with you. Whether that’s here on Official.fm, on a Facebook page or on Twitter; it has to be as findable and convenient as possible. Wherever you post your music, make sure people can find their way back to you. This is really basic stuff however, so let’s move on.

Second of all, you should fully integrate the dynamics of the web into your marketing approach. Many artists and labels are communicating one-way or two-way, but this is a dated way of communicating that should have been abandoned in the nineties. The reality of the internet is peer-to-peer communication. For the music business, the most obvious symptom of this reality is peer-to-peer filesharing via torrents or other technologies.

You can look at the dynamic of non-linear peer-to-peer communication as a party and you’re the host. When someone finds out about the party (via your music) and decide to come to the party – you have to keep them entertained, to hold their attention. In the past this always meant grabbing a chair, jumping on top of it and shouting your message down to the party (your fanbase). However what you can do now, is greet all the visitors at the door and introduce them to some of the other people at your party. A host that just uses one-way or two-way communication is like going to a party where everybody’s just standing around by themselves since they all only know the host (we’ve all been to such parties)… After a while, everyone will get bored and leave to go to a better party (or home) as soon as they get the chance.

So what do you do when people start showing up at your party? Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, posted some great advice on his blog back in 2009:

Check out the video that accompanies these points:

This way of retention fully acknowledges and enables the possibilities created by the internet. Soon your party will get so noisy that it starts drawing people from the whole neighbourhood. People who are at other parties get calls and get told they’re mad if they don’t come over to the awesome party that’s  going on right now. True, it’s hard to control a party when it becomes too big and it’s also true that soon the party will not be about you anymore, but we live in a digital age and thinking that you’re in control is an illusion that will shatter the moment you get more popular and successful. If you start the party, you get to make the biggest influence. Control is over. Influence is now. Get the party started.

Make it happen.

Already got your own party going? Get in touch with us – we love to shine a spotlight on successful users, so that others can learn from it. Got questions? Tweet us (@officialfm), drop a comment or email bas@official.fm and we might do a follow-up.