From 0 to 26 Album Sales Per Day, Using MMM
In the latest episode of the Music Marketing Manifesto Podcast we are going to speak with Kevin Goetz from the metal band, Mute Prophet. Kevin is a Music Marketing Manifesto member who I have watched over the last few years as he (along with other members of his band) took Mute Prophet from obscurity and turned them into an incredible indie success story.
When the band’s first album was released they initially sold less then ten copies. Things didn’t look great for this symphonic metal band. However, Kevin is one of those guys that doesn’t give up, and he worked diligently over the last few years to master the art of direct to fan marketing. He has asked smart questions and has stuck with it for the last few years, and that hard work is really paying off!
These days Mute Prophet sees an average of 26 album sales per day, all on their own terms, and without touring!
In this episode Kevin pulls back the curtain on his band’s success and shares EVERYTHING. He walks you through his entire marketing process and shares the precise numbers. This is one you won’t want to miss.
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I went to their page to see what ads for music look like but the page isn’t running any ads. This makes me feel skeptical of the entire story.
Hi Carolyn,
That’s interesting I see the same thing you see, but I’m certain that they have run ads and their story is true because I’ve seen proof of the ads and the campaigns along the way. I’ve reached out to Kevin to ask the question though and will let you know what he says.
Hi Carolyn,
Spoke to Kevin and verified everything. I looked into it and it appears that there is a bug in page transparency. If you look at the ad history of Music Marketing Manifesto you’ll also see that there is no history. I have been advertising on the platform for a decade and am running ads right now. This is documented all over the place in my programs. All I can really say is that I can assure you that Kevin’s story is factual.
Hi John,
absolutely great and inspiring episode, thanks a lot for this interview!
One question: Kevin mentiones setting a timer for the LTO that expires after a certain number of days. How would I set up a timer like that? All the ones I found are running until a certain date, which works for holiday sales and such, but none that work for each recipient individually. Hope this makes sense.
Oh and something else, do you have a number, how much ad spend/day works best for 1000 or 10.000 audience respectively?
Thanks you!
Tobias
Hi Tobias,
I use this plugin. It allows you to create authentic limited time offers that work based on the user as well as timers that expire on a specific date.
I would limit your ad spend to $1 per 10,000 in your audience if that audience is cold. And you can push that ratio to $1 for every 1000 if the audience is warm or if you are advertising something relevant to a local audience.
Hi John, thanks a bunch! I’m using WIX, not wordpress. Do you happen to know of a free timer plug in that runs individually for each visitor?
Hi Tobias,
I would think that one would exist, but I unfortunately do not know of one for Wix.
Hey John, great episode. I have a question relating to charting. How do artists who are mainly doing direct-to-fan sales qualify for chart positions? Is there some kind of organisation you have to verify your sales with?
At the moment the only way to do it without a distributor is to use Shopify as your payment processor, along with an app called “Singles”. Here is a podcast episode on exactly this topic: https://www.mmmanifesto.com/how-to-report-sales-from-your-own-website-to-soundscan/
All the best!
This is motivating. Listening to both of you made me realize how lazy I was with my campaigns. I need to treat it as a job, experiment until it works out, just like anything else in life. Thank you. John & Steve, see you in two weeks in the FBads program. Cheers everyone
Hi Marilou,
Glad you enjoyed the episode. It’s true. It really is a job. Musicians have a tendency to think that being creative is enough. But most of us would agree that it would be crazy if a traditional business stopped their marketing altogether if the first ad they took out didn’t generate a profit. There are definitely people who get lucky and have success right out of the gate, but it usually takes a fair bit of testing and tweaking until we dial things in. Kevin has done a great job and it was fun to share his story.
Cool Podcast….how much music should you have already available before you start using these kinds of marketing methods?
Hi Sherman,
Great question. To start building a subscriber list, you only need a song or two to offer on a squeeze page in exchange for people signing up. However you’re definitely going to want to have something to sell at the end of your funnel. This is especially true if you plan on running any kind of paid promotion, like Facebook ads.
Let me know if I can ever help with anything else.
Awesome podcast! As someone who is often discouraged but still never gives up, this is great to hear and installs hope. Thanks guys 🙂
Glad to hear that it instilled some confidence in the path your on. Keep at it and let me know if I can help with anything along the way.
Thanks so much, John!! Always looking for tip and tricks from successful Artists!! Really liked the decoy strategy you discussed!! I will try that going forward. Getting 25% email sign up conversions from facebook but completely failing on automated series and sales pitch!
Hi Phil,
Nice to hear that you’re seeing a consistently manageable sign up rate. That’s good news. I really appreciate you checking out this episode!
Hi John, Great episode. Can you share a screen cap of Mute Prophet’s squeeze page? I would love to see but I don’t want to mess with his conversion rate.
Hey Phil,
He has many, I’m sure, but here is the one he sent me when I asked for an example for you. I believe it’s his current primary squeeze page.
https://www.mmmanifesto.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/kevin-squeeze.png
What I would be curious to see, is how they went about their FB ads. Did they just ‘increase reach’ (or whatever FB calls it). Or use some clever analytical way of determining how / where to run ads.
Hey Robin,
He mentions this a bit in the interview. It was a series of trial and error with lookalike audiences but he ultimately created a lookalike from customers who purchased via a cold offer and that is where his conversion rate shot way up, and it’s what he has relied on for scaling so far. At least to my knowledge.
Ah, I missed that bit somehow. Thanks very much to Kevin and yourself for taking the time to put this together 🙂
Anytime!
I missed that bit too, was a section accidentally cut? Anyhow, thanks John.
These guys are selling 26 albums a day with 63 monthly listeners and 532 followers on Spotify? That’s impressive!
Hey Corby,
The MMM model does not rely on streaming at all. It is a sales driven model. So, while it is still recommended that you have a presence on the streaming platforms, and while some artists also choose to pursue streaming strategies in addition to sales strategies, it is common that MMM artists will put all of their marketing into their funnel and will see big sales numbers with low streaming numbers.
This is what I’m thinking. Having just finished a website it makes sense to funnel everything through there, with maybe an incidental streaming presence.
Sounds good Nick. There is nothing wrong with streaming, but in my experience, the average indie artists stands a far better chance of making a significant amount of money from a sales model then they do from a streaming model, which is why I focus on sales. And doing so does not prohibit you from also pushing a streaming catalog, I would just recommend that you not stream the majority of the music you are also selling, if you do plan to pursue both strategies.
Love this John. Definitely makes me feel hopeful about my band’s chances out there. And a big thank you to Kevin for sharing all of their details.
Thanks Allan! Glad you enjoyed the episode.