Hi Michael,

Like Steve said, it works well for both physical and digital. The process would be the same, regardless of how you are delivering the music.

Some artists convert better with digital and others convert better with physical.

Hi Michael,

My apologies, let me clarify...

It's true, as a stand alone strategy, the Emergency LTO is not really something that is going to deliver big results for an artist who has a very small existing audience.

However, in the recent podcast I released, in which I talked about the same strategy, the focus was more on the fact that we are in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, and in this is the best way to generate some sales fast, regardless of list size (which is also true). You just won't see that many sales if your list as small. So my suggestion that you should go for it, is more one of suggesting that if an artist would like to generate some fast sales (if for no other reason than to see how well direct response marketing can work), than this is a great approach.

However, if you don't feel the need to put in the energy, knowing that financial results won't be large due to list size, then building a funnel is a better long term strategy.

In terms of pushing a video in the hopes that t goes viral, I would not rely on your list at all, and instead I would just use ads to target an audience you believe is likely to like the song/video, and hope that the push the ads give it, kick in the viral activity you are looking for. If nothing else, you can retarget the people that watch more than 75% of the video with a link to your squeeze page.

My apologies Michael, I was responding to a different question in teh wrong place. I had two windows open at once and got my answers mixed up.

So let me re-answer that. What I said in the lesson is correct, a Record Release strategy makes little sense for an artist with no audience to sell the album to. Your sales will be in direct proportion to the size of your list.

When an artist is starting out, I typically recommend they grow their list first, before shooting for a big public release.

My answer for the music video stands.

What I would do if I was just starting out is to do like you are outlining and sell it as a sort of soft release or pre-order, via an automated MMM-style funnel. That way you can grow your list and hopefully cover your costs with advertising, or at least come close. Then, when you feel your list is large enough, you can release the album more publicly. Or, as some do, you could even wait until the next album is ready before more publicly releasing something.

There is no real right or wrong way of doing this, and it's all pretty flexible. But it is important to know that if you have a small list, you can't expect to sell a lot of music. It's obvious, but often ignored.

How long it will take you, and what constitutes a "big enough" list, is also relative to your goals.

I usually try to get leads for under $1. Sometimes that is not possible. But if you can hit that target then you might hope to grow your list by 300 people per month, give or take.

If I was personally managing a band, I would likely take an EP, and use that to grow the list and make a few dollars. I'd release one or two of the songs to Spotify, overtime. Then, when I felt my list was big enough to make a dent, I would release a full album (even if some of the songs were also on the album, and release one or two more songs to the streaming platforms, over time. Always holding enough back that I could still sell. From there I would update the funnel to sell the entire album, and I would keep recording ad releasing full length albums every 1 - 2 years.

Hope that helps.

Hi Michael,

Really glad to hear that you are getting a lot out of the IC.

1. It's really hard to say what you might expect to see. The numbers can be all over the place. The average that I see is about 4% - 6% of the total list buys the album. Retargeting or not. 10% isn't out of the question, but it's higher than average. The highest I've seen is 30%, but that was with a list that included a lot of people who signed up at live shows, so it was a very high quality list.

You should also be able to bring in subs for less than $2, even with testing. $2 is pretty high.

Have you watched this lesson yet? https://www.mmmanifesto.com/in.....etization/

That lesson goes over how a musician can pretty consistently make the numbers work. 

Hi Michael,

I'm not 100% sure I'm following what you are asking here, but I would personally not do any of that aside from the Facebook ads to email list. That is almost certainly where you will get the best ROI. But if you don't mind the financial risk, you can try all of it. It's always possible you will get better results with some of the other approaches.

1. I do agree that the redundancy is ok. If they are paying so close attention that they email you to tell you they have already seen the video, then you are doing things right.

2. As mentioned above, I would not personally do most of what you've outlined. Instead I would be focusing on building subscribers and then getting them to engage with your content on the other platforms such as Youtube and Spotify.

Hope that helps.

Sounds good then. I assumed you were going to use ads on most of it.

My overriding point is just that if we apply the 80/20 principle here, I believe that the straight forward funnel will be the 20% of your effort that gets you 80% of your results. But if there is no risk, and you have the time, then there is no harm at all in trying all of it. You may very well find that you have a talent for attracting engagement in your own unique way, or on one of the other platforms.

Keep us posted!