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QuoteThis is something I've found myself really struggling with. At this point I can get cheap conversions, I have a profitable funnel, but one area where I still need a lot of improvement is how to convey the experience of my music rather than just describing its sound, and in the interest of setting the expectations of my new listeners, I really feel I need to improve there. I've never been a big believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," so I really want to keep optimizing my skills even if I'm technically profitable.
A bit of background first: My band's genre is extremely specific - symphonic metal. The term itself has become a little broad, with different schools of thought on what makes a symphonic metal band. Some are basically female-fronted pop rock with heavy riffs and synths, some are essentially celtic folk with occasional electric guitars, some are more about the full choirs, orchestras, etc. and the actual "band" takes a backseat pretty often.
And my band's USP falls somewhere on this spectrum that's, as far as I know, 100% unique, adding more progressive metal elements, weird time signatures, heavy riffs, atypical song structures, constant shredding solos, but keeping all those things constrained within a slightly more mainstream framework so it still appeals to fans of the symphonic metal genre. Plus our frontwoman is capable of singing rock, opera AND death metal growls, so we like to emphasize her skill there as well up-front. Some fans of the softer variants of symphonic metal get turned off by growling and screaming, so we have to almost give a disclaimer there in the headline somewhere.
So what I've found works best, in the interest of the "shortcut to the mind" concept, is to reference a specific band, and then reference the USP. The symphonic metal band we sound closest to, by far, is a band called Nightwish, the biggest and most easily-recognizable band in the genre, and one we've been compared to quite a bit. We even had a pretty famous metal magazine essentially refer to us as "the next Nightwish," so I definitely want to capitalize on the sonic similarities, but also emphasize through our "twist" that we are absolutely not just a clone. There have been a LOT of clones over the years, so that's the fine line I'm walking here.
So I've been running with headlines like: "Nightwish-esque symphonic metal, crossed with jaw-dropping guitars and a soprano who growls as well as she sings!" and "Nostalgically reminiscent of classic Nightwish, but with some of the heaviest riffs and shreddiest solos in all of symphonic metal!" And these DO work - my conversion rates are routinely around 50%.
I had a very solid "experience-driven" headline that I really loved that worked well for a while: "With crushing riffs, blazing solos, epic orchestrations and the voice of a siren, Mute Prophet is the soundtrack to a moonlit night and a turbulent sea!" The problem with this approach - other than it being a little wordy - is that it fails to mention the growls from our singer, and a frustratingly high percentage of my leads were put off by those. The word "siren" implies something very specific to fans of this genre, and it's certainly not the heavy side of things. And by adding more description to alleviate that, the headline I think got too lengthy and my conversion rate started to drop as a result with mobile users.
So I guess where I'm hitting some writer's block is, I can't quite manage saying everything I need to say to convey our sound in a "show-don't-tell" experience-driven style. I'm really having trouble imagining what our equivalent of "kick off your boots, pour yourself a whiskey" would be. Not a literal equivalent obviously, just...those experiential feelings that people can relate to within the genre.
Sorry for the absurdly long post! Do you have any advice for a situation like this?
Hey Kevin,
It's a tough one for me because I don't know what that ideal experience is for your crowd. When I think of the kind of metal (I believe) you make, I think of words like storm, vikings, black, clouds, cold, violence, ancient, etc. But I'm so NOT tapped into symphonic metal. I'd need to research it to see what others are saying about the genre, and I'd need to listen to more of it.
But I think the word cloud exercise can really help. Sometimes you just look at the word cloud and the copy is almost written for you.
That said, I would tend to agree that if it ain't broke, you don't need to fix it. once you have a profitable funnel, I think the best way to focus your energy is on scaling profitably. You can really grind and grind to increase your revenue on the funnel by 10%, or you can just drive 10% more traffic. The latter is usually much easier.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Dude, I gotcha!
Reading your post I thought to myself you probably sound like nightwish & then you said it! How did I know this? Well my family is in Finland and as you probably know, metal.. symphonic metal etc is huge there.
My cousin(female) doesn't really care for it but the dudes there are into Nightwish, HIM etc you know the scene, anyhow I would go with the DARK & SEXY vibe, two major parts of the culture. In fact, GG Allin's song "drink fight & *uck" really sums it up.
Dark and sexy... I will keep it top of mind & shoot you some lines...
\m/
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Hey John,
Some of that is right I think, but some is a bit off. In general this subgenre is much more somber and takes itself very seriously emotionally-speaking. Less of the cheesier metal elements I'd tend to associate with the viking kinda aesthetic. Lyrics tend to be very poetic, deep and emotion-driven, such as:
"If you read this line
Remember not the hand that wrote it
Remember only the verse
Songmaker's cry, the one without tears
For I've given this its strength
And it has become my only strength
Comforting home, mother's lap, chance for immortality
Where being wanted became a thrill I never knew
The sweet piano writing down my life"
Gotchya, I probably should have done some research before writing. Like I mentioned, I really don't know the genre. But to my mind, I would simply describe the experience and then add a tag line that said something like "in the tradition of bands like ....." to let people know what you sound like, while still being respectful of the other bands you are mentioning. You will get more knowitalls that either love the bands you mentioned, or hate them, and want to tell you how you could never live up to them or that they suck, but it's a pretty minor consequence, and the approach has worked well for me.
For example, with viseMenn I used the headline "VISEMÈNN IS A NORWEIGEN ROCK BAND WHO SPECIALIZE IN A LOUD, ATMOSPHERIC BRAND OF “PHILOSOPHER ROCK” IN THE TRADITION OF BANDS LIKE RADIOHEAD AND MEW…"
Might an approach like that allow you to get the point across without spending unnecessary time describing the sounds. But also keep in mind that if describing the sound also connects a listener to the experience, then there is nothing wrong with that.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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