This is one of the most important lessons I teach…
I spend a lot of time here at Breakthrough Marketing Secrets teaching the principles, strategies, and how-to tactics of direct response marketing.
I know I speak mainly to the converted, but there’s an important point that often comes up while teaching these principles.
A question, really…
“But will that work for my business?”
Or the more confrontational statement…
“Sure, that works THERE, with THOSE kind of business. But it’d NEVER work for MY business.”
And I often tell folks that they’re just flat-out wrong, and the only way to prove it is to try it for themselves.
But then occasionally I run into an example that’s a complete and utter success AND completely unexpected…
That just goes to show how effective the principles of direct response can be when applied just about ANYWHERE.
And it’s one of those examples I’d like to share with you today…
Independent music… The last place you’d expect direct response marketing to be flourishing…
It’s no joke that the music industry is in turmoil.
The old “major label” model is dying… Digital distribution and illegal downloading have completely changed the game…
And yet new opportunities have sprung up… With laptop-based recording studios and rapid advancement in music tech, the opportunities for creation (and even very high-quality creation) are everywhere…
Plus the internet, social media, and services like Soundcloud offer artists an unprecedented opportunity to be heard and to reach true fans in every corner of the globe…
It’s completely changed the music game.
Now, if you’re a regular reader you might know one of my pastimes is making electronic music. I was a DJ in college, playing clubs and underground parties. And while I don’t DJ much anymore, I still do a fair amount of music production. So I keep my finger on the pulse of the industry.
Amazing true story: Famous musician gets dropped from contract, discovers internet marketing secret, makes millions!
And that’s how I ran into John Oszajca…
(His last name is pronounced similar to “Jacques” in the song “Frere Jacques.”)
John was a darling of the major labels right around the turn of the century, deep into the 11th hour of their reign…
Landing record deals with Interscope, Universal, and Warner Brothers Records… Including one of the largest new artist record deals of all time.
Naturally, the expectations were sky-high.
When his album sales fell short (even though he was having tremendous success by his measure, and rapidly building a national fan base), he got dropped.
Distraught and without a record contract, he turned elsewhere for income…
He got a “day job.” Well, kinda…
He decided it was time to learn the world of internet business…
And along the way, he discovered how folks were applying the principles of direct response marketing to creating successful internet businesses from home.
As he tells it, he’s generated well over $2 million from his multiple internet businesses in the last couple years.
Which gave him incredible freedom to do what he really wanted to do…
Back to the music…
With all this freedom, he dove back into his music.
But with a new understanding of business, he had a thought…
“What if I apply all these principles I’ve been learning about direct marketing on the internet to building a business around my music?”
And so he tried a few things…
Giving away free songs to build an email list…
One of the main strategies he tried and succeeded with was a simple list-building offer.
If you give me your email address, I’ll let you download a couple of my most popular songs for free.
This allowed him to send a bunch of traffic to his website (free and paid)…
And get a large percentage of them to…
1. Listen to and consume his music…
AND…
2. Give him permission to contact them again with more info about his music.
And so he started building a list of fans.
He also started making offers…
The traditional music offer is an album. Or maybe concert tickets.
And yes, John offered those things. But he started engaging more with his fans, and for his most rabid fans, offering more.
Album bundles became an obvious next step.
Not only that, but private house shows. He’d pre-arrange a bunch of shows, and go on a tour of fans’ houses where he’d offer private shows.
Anything he could do to serve his true fans and do it while making a reasonable profit allowed him to grow.
He started to build a direct response business…
He set up systems for lead generation… For conversion… For customer value optimization…
Everything a good direct response business does…
But all built around what he wanted to be doing in the first place — making and performing music!
And by going direct to his fans (instead of through a record label)…
He was able to make more income from a smaller fan base…
He was able to control the fan experience and give them what they really wanted…
AND he was able to build and nurture relationships with his most-devoted and highest-value fans.
Not only that, he was tracking everything…
John recognized that he could calculate things like the average value of a new subscriber to his free email list…
Like the expected 6-month, 1-year, and lifetime value of a fan who just bought their first of his albums…
And a whole lot more.
He knew that if on average he could get $2 in revenue for every new email subscriber to his list (as an example) he could afford to spend $1 or more on getting those subscribers.
And he hit on what he’s called the “holy grail” of an independent artist.
The ability to “buy” fans through paid advertising.
He experimented with targeting similar and complimentary bands’ fans through Facebook and other online advertising…
Essentially saying, “If you like that kind of music, you might like this kind of music… And you can give it a try, free.”
Which allowed him to reach out and build an audience fast.
Rapidly increasing his music business, without touring (the primary way most independent artists get fans now).
Plus, he was developing this all as a repeatable system.
John recognized that there was nothing special about his music that made it work with this direct-to-fan model.
That if he could do it, so many other independent artists could, too.
And so he created a system almost four years ago for others to repeat his success.
The Music Marketing Manifesto.
He doesn’t necessarily call it “direct marketing” or “direct response marketing” when teaching it to musicians.
He doesn’t have to.
He just says it’s what works. And shows the proof. Not only in his own music career. But in the careers of his thousands of students who’ve applied these same principles to building their own financial success with their music.
He even has a really cool free video to introduce you to the method, called the Music Marketing Blueprint. You can watch the blueprint video here.
I’ve become a student…
I haven’t actively promoted my music as a moneymaking thing since I was getting paid $50-$100 per gig to DJ in college.
But recently I realized my production has hit a point where I think I’d like to start turning it into more of a business.
And even though I could probably almost teach the course, I decided to become a student.
And perhaps I’ll have some results to share with you at some point.
In the mean time, he’s also doing one more thing RIGHT NOW that I thought you might be interested in…
If you use Facebook advertising (or want to) you must watch his just-released video…
In short, John drives most of his traffic to his music site through Facebook. But not “social” stuff — paid advertising.
It’s the best place right now to reach people based on what they’re interested in (not just what they’re searching for).
And John has created a four-pillar approach to Facebook advertising that he’s teaching to his music students.
But here’s the thing… It doesn’t matter if you’re using this to reach new customers to sell music… Golf stuff… Financial products… Business information… Whatever…
This thing is based on universal principles for getting customers off Facebook.
He’s doing a special four-week internet training course. For a ridiculously low fee (he suffers from the “they’re artists so they won’t spend as much” bug)…
But even if you don’t do the full training course, the first 10 minutes of his video promotion for it are must-watch…
It lays out a rock-solid foundation for your Facebook advertising strategy.
It describes the four-pillar approach, and why it works so well…
Plus what each of the pillars is good for — what to use to get opt-ins, what works to drive sales, how to stay in front of your best customers, and how to hyper-target certain segments of your audience for special events.
This is rock-solid stuff from applying proven direct response principles in the trenches of an industry where most would think it wouldn’t even work.
I’m publishing this on Friday, August 22, 2014. I talked to John, and he has a hard cutoff at 500 students. Even if he doesn’t reach that, he’s shutting down registrations on Monday, August 25th. And this will not be sold after that date. If you’re really interested, you should know these limitations.
(The Music Marketing Manifesto links above will take you to his flagship product that explains the full system and those should continue to be available for the foreseeable future.)
Like I said, I’m a student. Of both Music Marketing Manifesto and this ads workshop. I’m looking forward to everything John has to share. Then applying it not only to selling my music, but to what I’m doing to grow Breakthrough Marketing Secrets, my clients’ projects, and a whole lot more…
I’m feeling the breakthroughs coming on!
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
