The Only Fans That Make You Money (And How to Find Them)

Most artists are chasing followers instead of fans—and that’s why they’re broke. Streams don’t pay. Likes don’t last. And if you don’t know the difference between a browser, a supporter, and a fanatic, you’ll keep giving your gift away to people who were never gonna buy. In this video, I’m breaking down the only fans that matter—and how to build a business around them.

If you've been having trouble building your fanbase in the past, it's only because you don't know the types of people it consists of, and the only group that takes care of everybody. Rest assured, you're in the right place because nobody has explained it the way I will today.

This video is for everybody because every artist, seasoned or new, needs to understand their customer base on a clear microscopic level.

My goal is to help you understand that 20% of your base will pay for 100% of your entire operation.

I've never been a recording artist, but in order to build a customer base — otherwise known as a fanbase to you — I built my channel, and as I've said in the past, we're all influencers, so we're just alike on a lot of playing fields. But it wasn't until I got some paying customers and repeat customers that I realized the paying customers were different from those who watched YouTube, and those who spent even more with me ($1,000 or more) were in another ballpark, never mind the same playing field. I began to separate these people, and the ones paying the most, I began to cater to them a bit more, and I also depended on them for my monthly revenue. It was at this point that I realized not all fans are the same, and some take care of everything for you. So we've got to break them down into three groups: Browsers, Supporters, and Fanatics. That way, you can see where you need to devote your time as you grow.

Browsers – The Curious Strangers

In the beginning, everyone is curious about you. Every potential fan starts here. Your problem is that you tend to stay here serving these customers as more and more followers come on board.

The main reason most artists get stuck at this level is that they haven't created an offer to allow potential fans to move up to the next level that we'll talk about in a bit.

When I started my channel, I was creating content on Facebook, going live every week, and then I moved to YouTube, dropping a show a week. I wasn't making any money because I hadn't reached my watch time hours yet, and at the rate I was going, it was going to take me a while unless I went viral. I eventually did but the point is even before I hit monetization, a $10 product made me $20K in a year—because I stopped waiting on platforms and made something for the people already watching.”

I say that to say you may be on Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify peddling content and getting people to stream, but you're not going to start making money until you craft a direct-to-consumer offer that can generate an 80% profit margin for the base that you've built.

The people at this level will not pay for anything. They are top-of-funnel dwellers just hanging out on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify watching, scrolling, sampling, and once in a while clicking. What they need is ****quick, clear content that hooks their attention. However 40% are ready to buy if you give them an offer to buy. If you stay at this level, it will be a long climb to the top because, as I’ve had difficulty with my watch hours, you will have difficulty with your streams unless you have a great record that has viral quality to it.

Once you make this change after you've built a small following for yourself, you can start monetizing that base with as little as 5-10k followers and a small D2C offering, and this will start your fan funnel journey.

You may think you need to create something big, but you only need one product — make it about the music first; you're not at the merch level yet.

Supporters – The Fans in Training

Many artists can't wait to get here because this is where they start making money! I mean real money — however, it's not exactly where they get rich; it's actually fool's gold. This is where you can stall out or press on.

It's all because the money feels good—but if you treat it like a finish line, you’ll end up back at zero. And even though we have to go through this process with every song or album we create, we should never lose momentum and start over.

This happened to me, but I didn't trigger it — inflation did. And because what we do is consumer discretionary, customers had to choose between rent, food, and my products. They are doing the same thing with your music.

Create the $10 product, but the key to getting it sold is to offer a view into the creation process, plus its credentials, so people can gain more insight into the creation of what they already love. This creates an experience that people will want to pay for, and it shows that you have answered a need they already had — to get more information about the person they have already become fond of.

These people hang out in your comment sections and DMs, and they need emotional connection, consistent conversation, and value. That's why this is necessary. These people will pay 10,000× more than what Spotify will pay you for a stream. We're talking about moving from $0.0038 cents to $38 dollars — talk about a leap in revenue!

So once you do this, it will generate the capital you need and create a semi-self-powering fanbase that will keep allowing you to grow in followers, customers, and revenue.

I don't really remember how I got to this level. I just knew that it was taking too long to make money, and I saw other people were selling information — and essentially, that's what album credits are: information. So sell it.

Again, keep it on the music and it won't be so hard.

So far, we've covered browsers and supporters — but this next part is where most artists and their teams drop the ball, and that is catering to the fanatics, aka the fans. So, stay with me. And if you need a strong business foundation to run your record label with funding, grab my 60-day record label system, complete with my funding partners to fund some of these products you're going to create.

Fanatics – The Ones Who Pay for Everyone.

The fanatics in your fanbase start to develop with as little as 1,000 followers. However, if you’re just starting, you're in the space where you don't know if what you're doing will work out or not, so you can't cater to them. That's the reason why we can't monetize too early. But the big mistake is to blow them off; however, as you grow, you'll want to keep an eye on the frequent emailers, DMs, and purchasers because those are the fans.

Here's the flipside of it going well: let's say you have over 40k followers. Your fans are sitting there, and at this point, you're making money, but you're also missing money because you haven't created an experience for these people. This causes you to get stuck at level 2, not knowing what to do, and only selling a small digital album.

When I started catering to my fanatics, I sold access to me through consultation calls. I shut those down due to overwhelming demand and built a community to handle the load. These are people who have already purchased, and they will be on your email lists, so marketing to them will be done behind the scenes.

Give them access to you, bragging rights because they are part of your culture (this is where the merch comes in), and acknowledge them just like I do with the Music Money Makers in my community. Once you do this, we're talking about 10×ing that $38 to $380 and beyond — and we haven't done one show yet.

I created more access with my course community. But you can do the same with a Patreon, premium number, Discord, or whatever community is much appreciated, especially if you're going to be active with your fans.

Again, you don't need a lot. You just need one small D2C project, a community with your fans (you can start with email and work your way up), a merch product, and an experience — live or digital — for three figures and up.

Here’s what you can do!

Take 10 minutes right now to map out where your audience actually stands—Browsers, Supporters, or Fanatics. Start by looking at your follower count and subtracting 90%—because most of them aren’t active or even seeing your posts. Of the remaining 10%, break it down: 80% are likely Browsers, 19% are Supporters, and only 1% are true Fanatics. If you’ve got an email list, you can segment all 100% of it the same way.

Now write down how many people are actually engaging with you at each level—and then choose one move you’ll make this week to level them up. What will turn a Browser into a Supporter? What would make a Supporter go fanatic?

Bonus challenge: write down 3 product or experience ideas just for your Fanatics. These should make them feel recognized, rewarded, and ready to ride for you. Because this is what building a real fan base looks like.

And the question isn’t “Should you do this?”—it’s “How much longer can you afford not to?”

If you want help designing your fan growth and monetization strategy, join us every Monday at 7 PM EST for live group strategy calls inside the Music Money Makers community. Click below to join now.

Back off the cliff

Now, if you’re thinking, “But what if I do all this and nobody buys?”

You’re not wrong for thinking that. Maybe you've been burned before. You’ve dropped music, created content, and got ghosted by the people you thought were fans.

But here’s the truth:

It’s not your music. It’s not your skills. It’s your system—or lack of one.

If you don’t have a way to sort, serve, and sell to your real fans, then of course it feels like nothing works.

You don’t need a huge following. You need a real filter—and this 3-part framework is the one.

Start with who’s watching, identify who’s ready, and start building for the ones who already believe.

What’s it going to cost to keep doing it your way?

You can keep chasing followers and praying for streams—but it’s costing you more than you think. Physically, you’re draining your time and creativity trying to please people who were never going to pay you anyway. Plus, every time you release something and get silence, it chips away at your confidence and belief in what you do. This ultimately gets you stuck in a trap—believing that more content will fix everything, when the truth is, clarity beats quantity every time. You can either keep entertaining everyone and getting nothing in return, or you can focus on serving the right fans and start building the future you actually want.

At the End of the Day

If you were struggling with:

1. Understanding why your fanbase won’t buy,

2. Building real momentum beyond likes and streams,

3. Knowing what to offer or who to offer it to...

Now you know exactly how to fix it.

From Browsers to Supporters to Fanatics—your fanbase has levels.

And once you learn how to move people through them, everything changes.

You’re not just an artist. You’re a strategist. A builder. A Music Money Maker.

Music Money Makers: if you make music, you should always make money. Log on to musicmoneymakeover.com, grab the 60-Day Record Label System complete with funding, join the Music Money Makers Community, grab the free stuff, and watch this next video right here! Peace!