Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Beth Perry.
Sarah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in Nashville and was constantly surrounded by music. My sister and I were typical fangirls going to concerts, waiting in lines, and meeting up with other fans; this is where my love for fan engagement was born. I have always loved being a super fan and dreamed about how I could help create a community within fandoms.
My dad and stepdad are entrepreneurs, so I never thought starting a business was such an unconventional path. I started attending Belmont University in 2015 with a double major in Music Business and Entrepreneurship. While in college, I worked at CMA, a publishing company, a management company, and in digital artist strategy.
After gaining industry experience, I realized there was an opportunity to create better relationships between artists and their fans, and that is when With the Band was born!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Most entrepreneur journeys are never a straight or easy road; mine is no exception! Starting my company as a young female founder in a male-dominated industry was a big challenge for me.
I had to learn that my ideas could be just as valuable even though I was younger or seen as the newbie in the room. After jumping from intern to CEO in the same year, I had to work on growing my confidence in myself and my company.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
With the Band is a fan engagement company that enables fans and artists to feel a part of something bigger than themselves.
Fan activations are one-off campaigns we create to help artists promote music through the community. Each campaign we create is fully customized to enhance the artist and their brand. Fan activations make fans feel seen and valued while promoting new singles, albums, tour dates, etc. Previously, we created viral fan activations for artists like the Jonas Brothers and Kacey Musgraves. Benefits of Fan Activation include press from major outlets, incredible content capture, trending topics on social media, and converting regular fans into super fans (high spenders).
Fan clubs have created a community amongst fan bases for decades, but the technology behind them has not improved to meet today’s digital demands. With the Band is solving that problem with a turnkey solution for artists to manage and monetize their fan bases through their new Fan Crew platform – a modern-day version of a fan club.
Through fan memberships, artists can offer their fans exclusive content, live streams, polls, virtual meet & greets, and more. An artist’s team can see comprehensive and detailed analytics about their Fan Crew, including audience demographics, fan data, revenue splits, and more. This is all at a zero start-up cost to the artist.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Of course! Covid-19 really put a bump in our road because we were doing live events with arenas full of fans! Over Covid-19, our most significant pain point was transitioning from in-person fan engagement events to this new digital fan engagement platform.
We went into deep research mode in March and April of 2020 to figure out how we and the music industry could survive without concerts. We put together a focus group of 15 artists’ managers to help us build the perfect fan engagement tool for them.
However, we are a hard-working team and built our new Fan Crew platform, which I am incredibly proud of. We started Fan Crews to enable artists to manage and monetize their fan bases as well as interact with their fans via posts, private messaging, virtual meet & greets, live streams, exclusive content, special giveaways, and so much more.
Covid-19 really taught me the power of adapting and being open to moving your company’s position depending on world events and trends.
Pricing:
- Dylan Scott’s Fan Crew Membership: $25/year
- Maggie Rose’s Fan Crew Memberships: $5/month, $25/month, or $100/month.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.withtheband.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/withthebandvip
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withthebandvip
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/withthebandvip
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy95z83VBUbL32og_e5duhw
- Other: https://app.withtheband.co/explore
Image Credits
Cynthia Parkhurst, Jamie Wendt, and Grace Ann Perry
