💡✍️ADN #039: Photobooth Magic: The Secret to Engaging With 10,000 Fans

Read Time: 3 minutes.

Hey Friends -

Welcome to the Artist Development Newsletter.

Every Sunday, I send an email providing actionable tips for artists and industry on one area of the music business.

Last week we talked about 3 Ways To Add 100k To Your Tour.

You can re-read last week’s newsletter here if you want to refresh.

Today I want to tell you how a photobooth solved one of my biggest frustrations with touring.

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Touring artists and their teams are always trying to find ways to reach a larger audience and to be able to communicate more directly with future fans.

And going on tour has always been one of the best ways to reach and engage more directly with them.

That said, it can be deflating to play a concert in a city 500 or 1000 miles from home where you have an attentive room full of people, and then when you leave, you have no idea how to reach them again.

This problem has been eating me up for years.

We’ve tried to leave the piece of paper at the merch table in hopes that fans will write their email address down, but a few things always go wrong with this approach.

1. People don’t know it’s there.

2. People scribble something down, but it is hard to decipher.

3. Artists and their teams fail to collect those pieces of paper and transfer the email addresses to an artist’s email list or fan club.

At the beginning of 2023, I got fed up with the idea of being gone from home for another 125 + shows and not having a way to connect with our audience after we left town.

So, here is what I did -

I invested $3000.00 into buying a photo booth run on an iPad, using software that allows us to capture email addresses, phone numbers, geo-targeted location, and more.

We set up the photo booth next to the merch table, and our merch seller encourages fans to take a photo as a keepsake from the show.

I mean, who doesn’t like a photo from a photo booth!?

I know what you’re thinking…

$3000.00 sounds like a hefty expense to get someone’s email address, but let me show you the value of an email address.

(1) captured email can lead to hundreds of dollars or more in future revenue.

Here Is How:

• By providing an email, fans automatically join your FREE fan club.
• When you email them their photo from the photo booth, you also send a welcome email from the fan club and show them all the additional access they can receive by joining your paid fan club (Meet & Greets, Pre-Sale Codes, Fan-Club-Only Content, etc.)
• Once you convert them to your paid fan club, you can offer them “fan club only” offers, exclusive merchandise, monthly subscriptions, and more.
• You also can add them to a pre-sale list in the city they signed up so that you can send them a pre-sale code the next time you return to town.
• And every time you release a new song or album, you can directly reach that fan to let them know!
• One additional bonus tip — Encourage fans to post their photo booth pictures on social media and tag you. Soon you’ll have fans seeking out their photo booth photo at your next show.

Here is an example of some quick math on converting that (1) email address into $ -

• Paid Fan Club = $50 per year
• Exclusive Merch items (4 per year) = $100
• Monthly Subscription (podcast, patch of the month club, etc.) = $10
• Ticket to next concert = $25
• Purchase your next album = $15 or more, depending on the type of product you offer

That gets you to $200 in future revenue from (1) email address, and there is much more potential for profit.

Now let me show you the conversion rate we’ve seen on shows played to emails captured -

• Since purchasing the photo booth, we’ve averaged 80 emails captured per show.
• We’ve played 63 shows in 2023, with 62 to go.
• 80 x 63 = 5040 emails
• 80 x 62 = 4960 emails
• 5040 + 4960 = 10,000 emails
• 10,000 emails x $200 = $2,000,000

You probably won’t convert all 10,000 emails into $200, but it shows the potential power of finding a more effective system for email capture.

Like all aspects of Artist Development, your audience has to come first.

The best way to get your audience to invest in your career is to invest in your audience.

The photo booth GIVES your audience something in return for their email address.

Then, it’s your job to make sure the email you send them about your fan club GIVES them something to deepen your relationship.

With each step, always super-serve your audience.

If you do, you’ll have a career for life and the photos to prove it :)

See you next Sunday!

Neil Mason

Artist Development

Ps — Interested in exploring a photo booth for yourself or your artist?

Please email me: [email protected]

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