How MMM Differs For Metal Artists

For anyone not familiar with me, I was the guy who did the "video view boomerang" lesson. My symphonic metal band, Mute Prophet, has been running profitable MMM funnels for quite some time now, and I just wanted to collect and share some of the things that have been working for me, in case anyone else here can benefit. Disclaimer, some of this does deviate from John's recommendations, so test things to be sure. 

1 - In Defense of Videos

So. In my experience and from my data, there's a certain context in which video will actually outperform images in a typical conversion ad. That is, if there's something visually impressive about your video (and your song, more importantly) within the first 15 seconds. These are more like "playthrough" videos, no special effects, no changes in background, just you and the band in the studio playing your instruments. If you have a stunning guitar riff, lots of finger movement and stuff like that, people will take notice. Any unusual twists on your subgenre will also work. Just remember, videos start with the sound off, so you need that visual - something that makes people go, "Oh that looked cool, I really want to hear what that sounded like." 

Now here's the thing - as far as conversions, the difference between video and image is negligible. You might save 10 to 20 cents per conversion. HOWEVER, much more importantly, video gets me same-day sales at a rate much higher than images. These are completely organic, people are going to my home page, navigating from there to my Shopify store, finding my 3-CD bundle there, and buying, all on their own. Funnel engagement is also noticeably higher with video than with images. 

I think the difference here is that with an image and copy, we're letting their imagination take over and fill in the blanks about our sound, so they sign up on the squeeze page to sate curiosity. With a video, we're leaving nothing to the imagination, so there's less curiosity. Normally, this would hurt our conversions. But with metal, there's such an elitist culture, and such veneration of virtuoso musicians, that if we can demonstrate through a video that we're "good enough," we've already won them over and they'll still convert just fine. And they'll be much more enamored with us from the start. 

And best of all, because Facebook's algorithm will seek more people within our audience who will convert in the same way for the same reasons, we're leveraging its machine learning to find us people who are guaranteed to like our music. And as you run this ad, you'll accumulate views on your video. I'm using a full-length music video, clocking in at around 4 minutes. So it's extremely significant when people watch 75% of this video, which is a metric we can later use to create a lookalike audience. Since metal audiences are often extremely small, creating a lookalike of 2 million people is practically essential if we want to start scaling up how much we're spending once profitability is achieved. My 75% view lookalike is sometimes even more valuable than my customers lookalike.

2. CDs Are King

Literally 90% of all my sales are CDs. If you're a metal artist, you NEED to be offering CDs. Set this up using the "creating product options" lesson in the Insider Circle. It's okay if you don't have the budget to print CDs - I use a drop-shipping, print-on-demand service called Kunaki. I'm based in the US, and shipping CDs internationally is actually cheaper this way than if I were to mail it physically. No idea how that's possible, but it's nice. 

You can also create "signed" CDs using Kunaki. Load up the art file for your CD's back cover (or wherever you want to sign it) in Photoshop, and use a tablet pen to autograph it digitally. Signed CDs will always sell better, 100% of the time, based on my data. 

3. Creating A Bond

Metal is EXTREMELY tribal. It's a culture formed out of being counter-culture. "Us against them" runs rampant in this community, and we need to convey that we understand that. Fans want drama and theatricality. They want to hear about how metal literally changed our lives. How coming into contact with this amazing underground art form was like a meeting with destiny itself. You can't be a dabbler or a weekend warrior, you have to live and breathe this music. Convey that in your blog posts. 

For example, our "blog post of a lifetime" is a story by our singer. She talks about how joining this band and becoming a singer legitimately saved her life - and that's not an exaggeration, it really did. 

For the second email, I've found that a studio vlog works best. A collection of clips , 4 to 10 minutes in length, from your recording and songwriting sessions, preferably providing a mixture of sick metal and comedy. Dragonforce, Children of Bodom - and more recently, Periphery - set a standard for this kind of thing. People love seeing metal bands being ridiculous clowns in the studio while playing their music. There was a clip from years ago that my band recorded - our DAW crashed mid-recording, I screamed at the computer, then our other guitarist told me to throw a table, and I did. And it became a meme that our fanbase has never forgotten. A collection of clips like this, split about 50/50 with riffs and solos and other virtuoso moments that you think represent awesome visual highlights, will perform GREAT for you. 

I've tested this vlog idea against things like a second blog post, or pretty much any number of other things. It always wins.

4. The Art of the LTO

LTOs seem to work a little bit differently as well. Discounts seem to under-perform for me. What people in metal seem to prefer is exclusivity. So, for me, this is a discount, plus exclusive signed CDs, plus bonus songs not normally available, plus access to behind-the-scenes content. You can also experiment with a 2-for-1 bundle, I've sometimes found that to work even better than a discount. 

But again, most importantly, CDs are king. Downloads just won't work for metal. 

Conclusion

There are a few other stipulations here. For instance, it seems that metal artists are more able to still sell music despite being on Spotify than most other genres. However, I still personally recommend only having like three singles from each album on Spotify, rather than full albums. Sales are definitely still higher with the full albums unavailable. 

Shirts, also, are much more sellable for us than they are in other genres. Wearing band shirts is much more of a way of life than it is for fans of most other kinds of music. Personally, I use Printify integrated with Shopify to create shirt designs that are print-on-demand, the profit margins are still quite respectable. I price my shirts at $25 and make about $10 in profit. 

I hope this helps some of the metal artists here! Feel free to post any followup questions.