Bandsintown is giving artists complete control of their audience on the live music discovery platform with the launch of a new suite of tools designed to allow more direct communication with their fanbases.
The Fan Management Suite, which lives on Bandsintown for Artists and is built atop Bandsintown’s existing platform, offers new capabilities including free CRM tools for newsletters; direct messaging with fans; a drag-and-drop email builder for sending custom, targeted email campaigns; widgets and signup forms to gather and own first-party fan data; a dashboard to import, export and manage fan relationships; posts and push notifications to engage fans; and analytics to identify superfans and measure the impact of marketing efforts.
Fabrice Sergent, co-founder and managing partner of Bandsintown, says the new suite – which has been tested out by various acts for roughly six months – is designed to help artists build a sustainable future. Not only does it help artists get discovered by new fans and sell more tickets, it also allows them to “own their own first-party data and build marketing strategies that will help them grow over time,” he says.
Unlike many social media platforms that use algorithms to determine who sees what on their feeds, Bandsintown is allowing artists more targeted communications with their fanbases. In addition to allowing artists to see the data (name, location, contact info) of their followers, they can also upload their own databases to combine and target email blasts, push notifications and more through the platform. Bandsintown’s email builder makes it simple to drag and drop and comes with templates for tour announcements, merch drops, single releases and more.
“Email is one of the most resilient platforms if you think about it,” says Sergent. “There’s not a better place than the inbox to communicate with fans.” The suite also provides tools for artists to reach their fans on social media, even allowing them to retarget ads for Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter and TikTok.
Bandsintown events widgets can also be added to websites to help drive sales and capture data. According to the company, artists participating in tests who used the widget experienced up to a 30x increase in ticket clicks, up to a 7x increase in event saves/RSVPs and up to a 10x increase in followers and subscribers.
One of the acts to test the program early was The Head and the Heart, who have already begun using the suite to launch their 2022 tour. “It allowed us to interact with fans in a new way by collecting emails and phone numbers, which was vital for tour exposure, pre-sale reminders, and first-week ticket sales,” said the band’s manager Matt Shay in a statement. “Bandsintown also helped us run contests that boosted our following and let us collect even more contacts.”
Artists won’t just be given the new suite of tools without instruction. Also launching Tuesday (Aug. 16) is the first of what the company is calling Bandsintown for Artists Playbooks, which provide artists with strategies to grow their audiences and activate their fanbases. The playbooks offer insight on how to use the suite tools for specific purposes, ranging from fan growth to tour promotion, merch sales and more. The first of the playbooks – Fan Growth and Management – is live now.
“This whole industry only exists because there are courageous people who can create art and this is incredibly difficult,” says Sergent. “We don’t see them as clients. We see them as partners. We co-built this platform together and we extract revenue and money elsewhere [in the industry], so we can provide them with the best possible service.”
The Fan Management Suite is available now for all artists using the Bandsintown platform.
