Getting attention in a noisy market – 5 Things we learnt from the Music Artist, Fave

Multi-talented and multi-genre crooner, Fave has been a sensation in the Nigerian music space and even beyond. With a growth that’s well deserved, she has not only risen in the industry, she has also grown in the hearts of her customers/listeners.

Having started singing early, she began getting inspired by established artists after which she started making deliberate efforts to evolve & promote her brand and paying attention to her skills, craft and her entire career.

In March 2020, Fave hit a goldmine when she made a freestyle to a free beat she found on social media, a freestyle that she recorded earlier. That singular act got more people to know her, relate with her content and encourage her to do more. After the big break, she kept on posting different content on social media which further increased awareness and got people to engage more with her unique brand.

The highlight of her career was when her song(s) got on TikTok and right then, her story changed, the growing sensation has become a household name with one of the songs (Baby Riddim) garnering over 27.5M views which include covers amongst other forms of appreciation for the crooner.

So, how did this happen? How did bedroom freestyles become songs widely known all over the world in such a short time? What kind of marketing strategies were put in place?

1. Build your product 

Your dream to establish a product or service doesn’t really get you there, it depends on how much value you have been able to gather over time and how good your output is.

Your products or services must be able to truly deliver what you say it will, in an efficient manner that a customer can consider favourable. This and only this will determine what and how your brand is interacted with, and if anyone will ever take you seriously.

Take time out, hone your craft, get that insight, and create something for the market that is truly worth noticing.

What is your brand offering, what difference can you make? Why should the market care? Answer these questions and you would have taken the first step of a very important journey.

2. Make it different

The first thing you’ll notice on Fave’s Instagram is the bio that reads “ I HAVE NO GENRE”. In the music realities we know, that is a contradiction. To choose to function in that field without the most fundamental components that define your art; a genre. Fave took a bold and risky angle to define herself, and the market paid attention. Could it have failed? Absolutely, but she took the chance.

That chance you must take, in deciding in clear terms how you will do yours differently. At the risk of being misunderstood, let your product or brand be different from the crowd, then you will have increased your chances of cutting through the noise.

3. Connect with the market

The only market limit of a great product is the owner’s decision not to sell it If that product was originally intended for human customers and not your store, then you need to start promoting it.

Our discovery of the amazing musician Fave will never have been possible if she didn’t put herself out there; that unique voice and amazing songwriting prowess would never have mattered in the scheme of things if she never got herself to click the ‘upload’ button.

If you are as good as you think, back it with action. At the risk of failing, take the important step of putting your product, service or skill to the test. Your ego cannot have a part in this; prepare your offer and present it to the market.

Upload that song on Spotify, post that video on Tiktok, publish that book; put what you have in the face of those that need them. What if you fail? You will have lost nothing!

The intelligence you need to improve your product will come from these real-world engagements with the market. Reviews, surveys and feedback are not just important, they are the very building blocks you’ll need to create market success, so put your product in a position to receive those.

4. Leverage on community

Social media offers a massive opportunity for a new brand or product to quickly cut through even the noisiest of markets, and create a niche for itself; the power of community.

The success of the hit song Baby Riddim can be traced to this powerful effect. Call it the Domino Effect; where action sets other similar actions into motion. One Tiktok video leads to fifty others, using a sound clip from the same song, and those fifty causes the next one thousand to follow suit.

‘Community’ could mean your email list of users, close friends, a profiled segment of your target audience, or your social media audience. Whatever it means to you, it is important to position your brand, art, services or products for visibility at this level.

Create special access offers, involve them in your process, share your vulnerabilities, ask their opinions, seek to build true connections with a community you will eventually be able to call your own.

This organic impact will doubtless get people talking about your brand; some of the feedback will be meaningful, some will be plain hate while some others will forge strong bonds with the brand and will be the mechanism of amplification through which your message will be echoed to larger audiences

5. It will take more than one hit

The consistent effort of this uber-talented singer to put out good work cannot go without notice. The breakout hit song was not the first; there was a visible continuous effort to produce quality output as part of the process of getting noticed.

The chances that your market success will come from one moment of magic is rather slim, however, you can create your own magic piece by piece, one effort after the other. Beyond the credibility you get from consistency as a brand, you may need to try out varieties of your product or idea before you are able to identify your winning formula. You must be ready to do it over and over and over until the world sees you.

This of course will not apply to every brand but if and when you can, endeavour to give the market options.

The noise can be deafening, and in fact, intimidating, but with the right positioning and approach, you can take any product, however small, from total obscurity to market success.