This interview is with Kevin Brown, CEO, FanCircles.com.
How did your path through A&R, artist management, and digital marketing lead you to build FanCircles and champion direct-to-fan models?
My journey began after exiting my previous company, Awin, which is an affiliate network. There’s an interesting story there. I had a party to celebrate the sale of the company and invited a band to play in my garden. Before I knew it, I was on tour with them, and then, from there, within a matter of months, I was managing them and took them from small venues up to arenas, including 120 shows per year around the world, in venues such as Red Rocks in Colorado and the O2 in London.
FanCircles grew out of the understanding that the artists I was managing had no control over their audience data, which I found extremely frustrating. What other business doesn’t know who their customers are? That was the simple question I asked. To be successful at growing an audience, first-party data and understanding who the fan was were critical.
You often say “own your audience.” Practically, what does an owned-audience stack look like today for a mid-tier artist or brand, and what’s the lowest-lift first step to start?
For a mid-tier artist, an owned audience means ensuring that you can reach them without the influence of social media algorithms. This is where PushPass, our digital wallet loyalty platform, comes into play.
It’s a very simple product. In essence, it’s a pass that sits in your wallet, alongside your credit cards and loyalty cards. Think of it as a VIP membership to a club. Once this is installed, with one click into a fan’s wallet, it allows push notifications to be sent directly to fans without any algorithms in the way, serving as a permanent reminder of their fandom.
Sitting in the digital wallet, push notifications are essential for VIP wallet passes. When these two elements coexist, combined with the ability to add loyalty points for actions taken, it creates a powerful CRM solution that allows creators to:
- Segment their audience
- Understand which notifications they click
- Identify which websites they prefer to visit
If you were launching a new fan club from scratch, what would your 30/60/90-day plan look like to drive engagement and build brand loyalty?
There are a few key learnings from launching fan clubs:
The most critical is that fan clubs aren’t monthly subscription services; they’re yearly.
There’s far too much pressure on the creator and expectations from fans for them to produce constant content.
Yearly memberships have been the traditional way fan clubs have operated and still do.
Bundle this with a physical item such as an exclusive t-shirt or a signed album, and you have the perfect fan club solution. One recent example was an artist who charged $65 per year for a membership, including a patch exclusive to fan club members. This gained 8,000 subscribers in 48 hours, totaling $510,000.
This is not an outlier. This is typical of a fan club for an artist who sells out venues of 10,000 people or more per night. It also works for smaller artists. We often see artists who play 1,000-capacity rooms generate $50,000-$100,000 per year.
How do you segment fans by behavior (not just purchases) using wallet passes and action tracking, and what’s one segment-specific activation that delivered standout results?
Awarding loyalty points is the key to measuring fan activity and ultimately segmenting them. Fans are rewarded for the actions they take, for example, clicking a notification to open a new song on Spotify, visiting the store, or purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster, among other activities.
All of these actions contribute to a clear picture of how committed the fan is. These actions elevate them through the ranks, for example: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum, giving fans a clear indication of where they stand in the tiers and also providing the artist with insight as fans rank up.
These results allow you to clearly identify who your biggest fans are, as well as the least engaged fans and what they are interested in.
Push notifications can boost or break retention—what cadence, timing, and value principles have you found keep opt-outs low while increasing repeat engagement?
Push notifications for opt-in VIP clubs are already initiated by the fan. Of course, like any form of communication, they shouldn’t be overused, but they can be utilized much more frequently than email. Opting out is very simple: just delete the pass.
You don’t always need an action; they can simply be messages to your fans, a combination of informational and action-based notifications, built on a strong relationship with your fan base. Nobody likes to be sold to all the time, so keep that in mind when sending notifications.
Bridging online and offline, how do you combine location-based triggers, live events, and simple referral or affiliate incentives to turn casual followers into loyal, repeat buyers?
This is more of a brand-based question. Simply put, a merchandise desk at the venue is the best way to reward loyal fans during an event. Affiliate incentives can be used when linking to purchase physical albums on Amazon and again in your own merchandise store. Each can earn reward points based on either visiting the store or the value of the purchase.
When designing a first-party data strategy for fan clubs, how do you balance personalization with consent so fans feel in control while you still get measurable outcomes?
When it comes to fan clubs, fans subscribe only if they want to stay informed about the creator. I actively want personalization, as with any form of marketing. We are based in the UK and fully comply with GDPR, which is very strict. If a fan is no longer interested in the creator, they simply unsubscribe, and that’s the end of the relationship.
Looking ahead, where do blockchain, NFTs, and interoperable wallet passes realistically fit into fan clubs over the next 12–24 months, and what pragmatic pilot would you run now?
At the moment, any blockchain or NFT technology is on hold until the market accepts it as a pragmatic approach. It’s always in the back of my mind, but it’s just not the right time for it.