Personal branding as an artist — Who's your audience?
Part 2: Who should know you?
Arnold Schwarzenegger once said very aptly in an interview: “You can have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, you have nothing.”
What Arnold wants to tell us is that skills or a good cause alone are not enough to be successful. We need external support to really achieve something. As artists and creatives, we are dependent on our audience. For the individualists among you, this will be a bitter pill to swallow. Because if you thought there was some way you could achieve your goals all by yourself from the comfort of your own home, then I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. You need a target group. And that's exactly what the second article is about.
If you haven't read the first article and want to catch up, you can do so beforehand. It's all about important questions that should stimulate your self-reflection. After all, you are the core of your personal brand.
Personal Branding: Who is your target group?
Personal branding is about becoming a credible and strong personal brand. In addition to a good knowledge of yourself, you also need a very precise idea of your potential target group. Who are the people you want to inspire?
First of all: “everyone” is not a target group. If you think that you, your service or your product could be of interest to everyone, then be sure to read on.
If you have read my first article “Part 1: Who are you?” then you already know that your values play a major role. They already give you the direction of people who could be a good fit for you. Your dream customer will usually be very similar to you. Logical, right? After all, we feel most comfortable with people who are similar to us. So it makes sense to think again about your own values and ask yourself “would I like to work with myself and if so, how would I feel best addressed by my own offer?”.
Overview:
Who should know you?
What are your target group's needs?
Where is your target group?
How do you reach your target group?
Conclusion
1.) Who should know you?
Of course, people who are similar to you are not your only potential target group. It is quite possible that you want to reach a certain group of people who you find exciting and whose interest you would like to arouse. As an artist, for example, gallery owners and art collectors are always exciting. So be sure to ask yourself who should know you so that you can get closer to your goals.
Write down the places where you would like to be present and then use these places to draw conclusions about certain groups of people.
Example: Let's say you really want to perform as a singer-songwriter at a certain festival. Then ask yourself, who is making the line-up? Who is organizing the festival? Your target group in this case would be the agency or the booker. If you know that, you can track them down and plan your contact.
2.) What needs does your target group have?
It would be easy if we could just name our target group. Unfortunately, that's only half the battle. The work is only just beginning at that point. Once you've clarified for yourself what kind of people you want to reach with your art, ask yourself the following:
What needs does my target group have?
What are their sore spots?
How can I support my target group?
As humans, we are fundamentally interested in people we can learn something from. This doesn't necessarily have to be in the classic style of teaching or coaching, it can also be abstract: We would like to be inspired and have the feeling that we are developing positively through another person.
As artists and creative people in particular, we are in a grateful position. Because if we can do one thing, then we can inspire the other.
Example: Let's assume that you are a visual artist and have mastered your craft and/or have completed training. Your target group is not only interested in your pictures, but also in the way you have implemented them. So there is a need to learn more about the technical side of your art. So you have different ways of satisfying this need. If you are good at explaining, you could record videos or podcasts in which you talk about the technical side of your art. Maybe you would also like to pass on your skills to beginners and teach them how to paint. In that case, you could develop a course.
You see, potential offers can be derived from the interests and "problems" of your target group. Basically, it makes sense to ask yourself "how can I offer my target group added value/support them?" Especially when it comes to self-marketing, we often forget that the point is not to stage ourselves and inflate our image, but that there is still something behind it. We have something to say! Personal branding should not be an end in itself, but should serve to make your projects and ideas visible. Without the appropriate quality, it is just empty marketing - and I think that is not in our interest.
3.) Where is your target group?
Now that you know who your target group is and how you can serve them, it's time to address the question of where your target group hangs out. At this point you need to do market research and observe your potential dream customers closely. This is not about finding out every individual quirk, but rather making a kind of categorization. I like to divide it into online and face-to-face.
To name a few potential online places: the Internet, forums, social media, online magazines, classified ads, artist portals (interesting if you want to offer yourself as a musician for events), online galleries or similar.
Offline places would be: events, network meetings, clubs, markets, festivals and much more. Practically any place that suits the life and interests of your target group.
Of course, this is only a very simplified representation. Your target group is not a homogeneous mass that is concentrated in just one single place. It should be clear that you can start from a variety of places. And there will always be individual deviations - from type to type.
Example: If I look at myself personally, then as an artist and mentor for founders in the artistic-creative field, I know that my target group is potentially on social media. However, I also know that my service (mentoring) is not tangible for many people at first. It is absolutely unlikely that someone will look for my support there because they most likely don't even know that I could help them. In my case, I usually have to explain a lot in advance and advertise my service indirectly so that my potential target group even gets wind of my existence. In this respect, I can use social media, but I have to invest a relatively large amount of time and energy. So I have to think about where my target group is outside of SoMe. Local network meetings for new founders, for example, are always a good way to make new contacts and win potential customers.
4.) How do you reach your target group?
Every target group has its own particular preferences when it comes to communication. It is therefore important to find out how your target group wants to be addressed. There are characters who generally avoid direct marketing. So you are at a disadvantage if you try to come straight to such a target group. In the beginning, you will have no choice but to try out various forms of communication to find out which ones are best received by your target group and which ones you feel most comfortable with. Always remember to choose a way of addressing people that suits you. Nothing is worse than an inauthentic marketing strategy when it comes to building your personal brand.
Therefore, ask yourself "what type of communicator am I?", "what type of marketing do I like?", "what goes down well with my target group?". The way you approach your target group is largely responsible for your success. You cannot build a relationship if you communicate past your target group. We all know pushy salespeople who we fob off in frustration simply because of their persistence. The HOW is crucial when it comes to communication.
Example: Let's assume you are introverted and generally have difficulty communicating with people. Before the Internet, you might have had a bad hand. But luckily we live in different times. Today you can build something for yourself professionally without having to do cold calling. By using target group-oriented topics and SEO, you can, for example - like me - use a blog to ensure that your potential target group finds you through search queries and becomes aware of you. So it can definitely be a profitable strategy to run a blog if you know that your target group likes to get information online in advance when they have questions. Content marketing in general is a good option if you are aiming in the long term to position yourself with certain topics and be found by others.
However, I would still recommend combining different marketing strategies and not just limiting myself to creating content or social media. There are simply too many people trying to do just that. Use the fact that your target group is moving around in all sorts of different places to your advantage and try to be present there too. Recently an artist who makes ostentatious jewelry told me that her target group is over 60 and that she is now signing up for senior sports to reach the ladies there. As you can see, the methods can be quite creative.
Conclusion
The goal of personal branding is to make you a credible personal brand with strong values and a brand identity. On the one hand, it is important that you know yourself well and know what your strengths are. On the other hand, you should also have a very good picture of your target group. The better you know them, the more targeted you can be in addressing your offer to them. Targeted questions and market research can help you to categorize your target group and derive a suitable marketing strategy from them.
This was the second of three articles in my personal branding series. The third article will be about the strategy and building of your personal brand.
💛 If you’ve enjoyed this text, feel free to subscribe to the Newsletter on my Website where I share monthly updates about art and business (German/English).
☕ If you feel my work is worth an appreciation, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi.
🎸 Less text, more Rock’n’Roll? Take a look on Patreon!
Thanks for reading ARTISTA BLOG! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work here on Substack!