Log In
Members
Home
Add Reply
Add Topic
Topic RSS
10:59 am
September 29, 2015
Offline
QuoteOk, so here’s my question! I am just getting back into the business of music creation after a 13 year hiatus. I’m beginning to go through the MMM 3.0 process and starting to build my squeeze page. Since I have not been doing all of this for quite a while I am just building my library of songs and do not have an album worth of material ready. What my thought was, and this was suggested by another educator in the business of music, was to release a single in the beginning giving away one song, side B, then directing them to buy the whole single for $0.99. What the other educator suggested is that the way people now consume music it might not be wise to wait until you have an album, releasing an album once a year or every other year, but to release singles every few months to retain the interest of the consumer of music. Otherwise one might lose their interest if they have to wait a long time between releases. But after the last coaching call I heard John telling one of the members that he didn’t feel it wise to try to sell a product at only $0.99 and should try to sell a larger product, like a album for $9.99. What I was hoping to do was to sell a single in the beginning and then release another in two months increasing the squeeze page now from a single to a small EP and then in a couple of more months release a third single, again increasing the squeeze page to a larger EP and so on… Eventually turning all of this into a full album, one single at a time. I know this has been kind of a long question but I really felt I need to explain my thought process and see what others could suggest. I would really love to hear from someone and get some suggestions as to how to kickstart this whole process. Thanks for listening.
8:43 pm
June 7, 2011
Offline
Hey Allen,
I've hear from quite a few musicians who have heard the same advice regarding singles. There are many different ways to approach a career and I respect everyone's opinion on how to go about it. But I personally don't believe that releasing a series of singles over a period of time is a good way to go.
My opinion as someone who has sold a LOT of stuff online is that selling is the art of overcoming resistance. There is very little difference in the price resistance of .99 cents as compared to $9.99. While I don't have a case study on this, I'd bet that if you ran a promotion to a list and sold an entire album for .99 cents, you'd only see small fraction of additional sales as compared to promoting the same album for $9.99 to the very same list. And yet the loss of income would be significant if selling for a smaller amount.
The real resistance you need to overcome is getting people to care. And getting them to care enough to pull out their credit card 10 times a year, for the same amount of money you would make asking them to do so once, sounds like a losing proposition to me.
I do agree that it's important to keep people engaged between releases, but you can do this more effectively with free content then with asking them to buy things over and over again.
But again, my whole focus is on direct to fan sales, so that's where my perspective is coming from. Someone else who is advising differently may have a different model.
If you want to get out there and start selling while you create an album, one idea might be to create a membership site. You could ask people to spend $10 (or even a lot more), and get one song a month, along with a bunch of other cool members only content. You could make it fun for the fan, but also really make it clear that they are helping to make your album a reality. If you charged more you could even send them a physical album at the end of the year (perhaps with their name in the thank you section). Another benefit would be that each time you had a new song you would have a new promotional tool to get people to purchase. So you could constantly be driving people into your funnel and selling the package over the course of the year, while you record and drip feed the album.
That's just one possible idea mind you. There are many ways you could go about it.
Hope that helps.
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.
1 Guest(s)
