Hey Peter,

There are really a lot of different ways you can slice things. Some people are profitable with just an album. Others need a decent upsell, still others have no upsell but make their money with promotions down the rack. You can add things like house concerts to really beef up your profit potential, or keep it simple with lower end items. And then there is the membership or even Patreon model.

It really comes down to what you think your fans will actually want and your ability to convey the value in what you are offering. It can be tricky, but that's the reality of it. Feel free to post ideas or copy here in the forum for feedback.

Hi Peter,

Steve here.  Is there any particular reason why you are leading with an EP offer, rather than a full-length album?  That way you're making a bigger sale off the top, but then you could bundle the EP with the second album as an upsell and still  likely charge close to the $15 you originally proposed.  You might be able to make the numbers work in this scenario.

Hi Peter,

Sorry for the slow response. I've been traveling. My answer is sort of the same. It really depends on the variables of your campaign. It will definitely be tough to be profitable initially when you work with those kind of margins. But if you slide your conversion numbers up a bit, or if you bring down your conversion costs, you are suddenly profitable. For example, if you cut your subscriber acquisition costs down to .75 you would be profitable with the numbers above. Likewise, if you brought your sales up you would be profitable. But I'm not going to pretend that either will be easy.

To my mind you would be better off expecting to run your initial funnel at a slight loss, but plan to run additional promotions a little further down the line. For example, if three months down the line you ran a house concert promo, a membership drive, or even a Patreon campaign, that campaign that ran at a loss could suddenly be quite lucrative.

Alternatively, you could create new products with the aim of increasing the price point of your initial funnel. If it was me, I would take a small budget that you can afford to lose (say $5/day) and look at it as an investment in your career. Start driving traffic, tweak your funnel, get a sense of your numbers, and you can then project from there. In the meantime you WILL be building your audience and gaining some momentum. 

Hope that helps.