Increasing Fan Engagement isn't achieved by learning a new Facebook or Twitter trick.

It's not a plugin or special new piece of gear that you buy...

Perhaps best of all, to get started doesn't require much more than the desire to do so-along with a writing utensil and something to write on.

To increase Fan Engagement, conversion, and retention, the secret is in the prep work. The key is to clarify your F.E.E. Structure and build a Fan Engagement Elevator for your Music Career.

Your FAN ENGAGEMENT ELEVATOR

Underneath our Music Marketing System, we first blueprint and setup our FEE Structure. F.E.E. is an easy to remember acronym for your Fan Engagement Elevator, and your FEE Structure are the tiers of pricing and access for the levels that each individual member of your fan base chooses to interact with you. An easy way to think about this is that if they want to move to that next level of engagement with us, then they simply have to pay the FEE.

In a moment we'll go over an example of a basic Fan Engagement Elevator that you can begin with and then develop from there.

Increase Fan Engagement with the Fan Engagement Elevator

If your Music Marketing System is the Core Engine for the growth of your Fan Base and Music Business in the Modern world, then your FEE Structure (or Fan Engagement Elevator) is the practical vision and economic blueprints for how you plan to engage with your fans and develop more meaningful and valuable relationships with them.

It is the structural wireframes of your unique music business model. It is where the rubber really meets the road within the entrepreneurial dimension of your career.

It doesn't really matter how you set it up, but what matters is that you develop a FEE Structure that meets the needs and goals you have across all 3 dimensions of your 3D Brand. The primary goal being-to build a sustaining music business that thrives long term and also provides you with the lifestyle and income level that you choose. To be clear, if you want or need "more than most," you won't find a way around having to do more than most. However, in either case-you'll still want to start out with a simple FEE Structure and then add more onto it as your music business and fan base grow in size and sophistication.

Jill Sobule's California Years record was a great example of Creating a Fan Engagement Elevator with unique offers and experience levels that fans could choose from. Although you’ve probably heard of things like this being done with crowdfunding campaigns, but these are a little different than you will be building because both the offers, the system, AND the platform will be assets YOU own and control.

You own the relationships with your Fans… Not itunes, facebook, any of them… YOU. The Artist.

...and where do you store that relationship again…?

That’s right. Your Relationship Database! See, you’ll have this down in no time.

• $10 - Unpolished Rock (but with potential) Level: A free digital download of the album, when it's released.

• $25 - Polished Rock Level: An advance copy of the CD. Weeks before the masses.

• $50 - Pewter Level: An advance copy and a "Thank You" on the CD.

• $100 - Copper Level: All the above, plus a T-shirt saying you're a junior executive producer on the album.

• $200 - Bronze Level: Free admission to my shows for 2008.

• $250 - Silver Level: All the above, plus a membership to the "Secret Society Producer's Club," which means you'll get a secret password to a website where I'll post some rough tracks, or... something worthwhile.

• $500 - Gold Level: This is where it gets good! At the end of my CD, I'll do a fun instrumental track where I'll mention your name and maybe rhyme with it. And if you don't want your name used, you can give me a loved one's instead. What a great gift!

• $750 - Gold Doubloons Level: Exactly like the gold level, but you give me more money.

• $1,000 - Platinum Level: How would you like to have a theme song written for you? I'll have a song you can put on your answering machine and show off. Again, this could be a gift.

• $2,500 - Emerald Level: Mentioned as an executive producer of the album -- whoop-di-doo!

• $5,000 — Diamond Level: I will come and do a house concert for you. Invite your friends, serve some drinks, bring me out and I sing. Actually, this level is a smart choice economically. I've played many house concerts where the host has charged his guests and made his money back. I'd go for this if I were you.

• $10,000 - Weapons-Grade Plutonium Level: You get to come and sing on my CD. Don't worry if you can't sing - we can fix that on our end. Also, you can always play the cowbell.

Trent Reznor, the man behind the band Nine Inch Nails, has done so many experiments that show how this model works that it's difficult to describe them all. He's become a true leader in showing how this model works in a way that has earned him millions while making fans happy, rather than turning them into the enemy.

Make sense? An ascending set of levels with creative offerings available at the price tags and interactivity you choose. You can setup your FEE, the way you want it! As an Artist you play your GAME, your way. :-)

Illustrated below is a Simple Fan Engagement Elevator that i'd recommend most independent artists and musicians start out with, for most music careers and fan bases. As you can see level 1 is a Guest Pass for new Potential Fans, which can consist of multiple Engagement Sequences and then elevates up to level 2- the Backstage Pass which very nicely transitions a Potential fan into a New Fan and then continuously syncs and up-levels with the Fan Life-Cycle accordingly.

As you can see there are 4 levels of engagement for fans to enjoy progressively deeper/greater access and unique experiences with you and your content.

As you'll recall from The Fan Engagement Cycle, each one of these engagement levels is a complete Fan Experience Pathway.

Fan Experience Pathways: Artistic Expressions of Your Brand Experience

Although I want to encourage and support those who've begun to embrace and build up their database... I also want to make it a point to remind you that you are an Artist. You are a Multi-Media Content Creator. You share your stories, your observations, your perspective, your messages across platforms.

The tools and technology require your creativity to work effectively. If every new experience a Potential Fan has with an Artist/band feels like a lifeless, generic template, how engaged do you think that person will be with your content, and how excited do you think they will be to hear from them?

The average person is CRAVING something new, exciting, something/someone that they CONNECT to, lead them or to shake things up for them and let see from another fresh perspective, come into another interesting world, to share their journey and truly bond with an Artist like you!

The next level of the GAME is what you're learning, and though we will be taking baby steps to get there, when you can think without the technology as a hindrance or obstacle, and merely as extension for multi-media storytelling and 3D creation, then you are beginning to actualize your power and harness the Tools of the Modern Creator. Start small, craft the experience of your content for one specific person and then go and see how they respond to it and connect with them. Keep doing that and you’ll have a strong group of core fans.

See what I’m getting at here?

You can take those individual fan experiences you are creating for one or a few people and then you can use technology to automate the delivery of it and now you’ve got an asset that can connect with people who resonate with that particular message/story/experience/sound from all over the world… Just a bunch of niches and virtual neighborhoods like the following you’re building in your local community that can 10x your fan base and still remain as personalized and intimate as you choose.

This is the Grassroots way to be authentic and savvy with the technology available in the modern music business. Fundamentals, and integrating both sides-is the name of the G.A.M.E. (Grassroots Authentic Music Experience)

Let’s take a look at what things may look like for your fans when they try to check you out now, and then let’s compare that to an example of what perhaps would be closer to the experience they’d like to have, AND you’d like them to have, with your content.

Fan Experience Pathways that WOW.

Have you ever been to a Party where you didn’t know the person, but someone invited you and you were interested to go because your friend told you it was definitely a good time?

At first you’re probably thinking, hey no problem sounds good.

Now let’s say you pull up to the address your friend gave you, at the time he said he’d be there, and you walk up to the door, swing the giant metal doorbell and then lean back to look around casually as you wait...

10 seconds pass, you knock again. 20, 30 seconds-one more time. This time louder and slightly irritated your smile turns into an annoyed scoff and you step off the porch and start to go investigate because perhaps their out in the back yard...

Is this the right place?

Maybe i’m just supposed to walk right in?

I’ll try that...

Locked. Damn.

Where the heck is everyone?

What a drag...

Frustrated and confused you verify the address, which was as he had written it, you lift your hands up in the air and decide to call it a day.

I’m not going to work this hard to go and enjoy myself-you might say!

What if this was how many of your Potential Fans, supporters, partners and sponsors feel when they get the referral (through what source) to come check you out?

Why make it so difficult!?

Imagine the ideal experience, and what that might look like...

As you roll up to a clearly labeled estate-you are greeted by a valet, and then escorted through the foyer as the guide lays out the inside information and details of the locations for the evenings main attractions including the grid coordinates for that killer guacamole.

Informed and smiling you're warmly greeted by the friend who invited you and introduced you to everyone, handed a beer and instantly notice the suggestively playful and interested eye contact from a few of the parties finest females/male counterparts.

Now THAT’S a memorable, engaging experience that definitely gets things off on the right foot!

This is what technology can and should be doing for you. It should be welcoming visitors, curious onlookers, random passers-by strolling down the sidewalk in front of your home... It should be greeting and picking right up where you left off with the last connection you made with a local fan with open arms, gently guiding them into your plush, air-conditioned

golf cart, escorting them through the foyer, fixing them a refreshment and then seating them on their favorite style sofa recliner and entertaining them in an authentic and engaging way as you unveil your story and some of your best content.

Your Music Marketing System

At the end of the day, which of the two parties would you be most likely to remember, talk about, and recommend to other people?

Definitely. You want an initial connection that’ll not only greet your visitors at the door, but will take their coat, get them seated, mix them a drink, and while relaxing into the comfortable, unique nature of your world and what you’re all about. They will be pleasantly surprised with the valuable, genuine content you share with them for free and start an authentic relationship off right from the get go.

Your Music Marketing System is just an authentically designed series of those experiences, what we call Fan Experience Pathways.