Music As an Avenue Towards Community Building: Making Your Retail Business ‘The Right Place’

“Most marketers have heard the term ‘community building’ at some point in the recent past,” began an article from last summer in an issue of Rolling Stone. “It’s not just a trend; it’s a revolution that’s taking over multiple industries and for good reason. Community building is all about creating a space where people feel connected, engaged and part of something bigger than themselves. It’s a powerful tool that works because it taps into our inherent need to belong and share experiences. This strategy is particularly beneficial in the music industry because it offers a genuine human touch in a world that’s becoming increasingly digital and impersonal.”

This very well-written opening salvo (shout-out to the author, Kim Pham) elegantly and effectively sums up what most of us involved in music – be it creation, commerce, distribution, journalism, and beyond – are well aware: “community building” does your own business model, bottom line, and wallet good because it does a person’s soul good. Anyone who’s played music with and for others, or who’s really connected as an audience member at a performance, knows that feeling of inclusion and brotherhood.

Whatever you’re “selling” – your store, a guitar, tickets to your band’s next gig, clarinet reeds, copies of your new solo vinyl 7”, an electronic drum kit, your business philosophy – getting your audience, customers, or teammates to feel part of your commodity is key to lasting success. You want your customers to feel engaged and connected with your business – to not feel like “just” a consumer. Happily, forging that connection is something that music and the culture of music-making does very well and very naturally, almost easily.

There’s an annual event in my hometown of Boston, “The Rock n’ Roll Rumble,” that is, in essence, a glorified “battle of the bands.” Over the decades it’s featured a number of bands that went on to become big (or big-ish), had even bigger guest-hosts and performers, and been sponsored by a number of local radio stations, arts newspapers and magazines, and various corporate brands. And every year, when they announce the new crop of participants/contestants, I (being a sarcastic, cynical grouch) roll my eyes at the entire concept. Transforming the act of playing music – a joyful, personal, artistic expression of the purest sort – into a game, a competition… I imagine it’s akin to how Bourdain felt about competitive cooking shows like “Top Chef” or “Beat Bobby Flay”: What are you people even doing?!?! You’ve got the wrong end of the stick! You’re doing it wrong!!!*

And yet, nearly every year, I wind up attending at least one of the shows, either because a friend’s band is in the Rumble, or one of mine is (No, I’ve never won. We tapped out in the semi-finals once, which is absolutely fine by me since that’s as far as Bullet LaVolta – the best live band I’ve ever seen and one of my favorite groups ever – got in 1988, but I digress…). What I inevitably wind up re-realizing each time is that it’s not about the absurd concept or conceit of the Rumble or events like it, but that very palpable, convivial sense of musical community that pervades the entire occasion. Each year, that communal vibe sells me 100 percent and I am all-in. This year I’m an “official judge” for one of the Rumble nights and I already know I’ll start out discretely rolling my eyes only to wind up thrashing along and pumping my fists with everyone else in the crowd moments later. I’m in “my place” – I’m in the right place.

That’s the natural “community building” of music at work. If that feeling can sell an inherently silly battle of the bands to a negative creep like me, it can sell some ukuleles or synths at your store if you’ve got decent game.

Menzie Pittman knows first-hand – the dude’s a successful, award-winning MI retailer and educator – what music’s community-building might can achieve, and he talks about it in this months “Small Business Matters” column. “Local music stores must have a unique vibe, born from a genuine depth of knowledge,” he advices. “That one simple quality allows all potential customers to know that they have picked the right place.”

Any business owner should ask him- or herself, “Am I doing enough to make my customers and potential customers feel, when they walk into the store, that they’ve picked the right place? Could I do more?”

I know from talking with many of you over the years and visiting countless dealers across the country and around the world that the vast majority of you are, always have been, and will continue to do precisely that. It never hurts, though, to remember music’s unique ability to make others feel that powerful connection that comes from a sense of belonging.

And, hey – if “amplifying your brand through community building” results in more foot-traffic and sales, that’s not so bad either!

*I, for one, actually really enjoy watching “Beat Bobby Flay,” so don’t come at me looking for consistency in messaging…