This #MakingTheAlbum series is all about documenting my real-life process of not only creating an album, but everything else that goes along with being a musician during that time. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be real, right? Life doesn’t pause to let us focus on one thing at a time, so we have to manage the best we can.
#MakingTheAlbum Week 2
<<< Watch #MakingTheAlbum Week 1 Watch #MakingTheAlbum Week 3 >>>>
This week is an example of one of those weeks where I got a little sidetracked from creating my album to deal with other parts of my music business. Among those are preparing for an opportunity to play at a European music festival, and offering a last minute Cyber Monday promotion to my fans!
You can watch the video above for the full details, but here I’m going to outline three main points:
- How I am responding to a promoter’s invitation to play at a European music festival by running specific Facebook ads
- How I generated $1,600 from a (very) last-minute Cyber Monday promotion to my fans
- How I am using adult colouring books to give me a mental release and a creative boost for writing lyrics
First, let’s get into the European music festival.
As you know, I’m not a touring musician (yet). We have a young family and I am a stay-at-home mom of five kids that we homeschool. However, I am strategically building my fanbase online so that one day I can tour and play to sold-out shows. For this reason, I at least listen when a promoter asks me about playing somewhere such as a music festival in Europe.
Long story short, I was asked about my fanbase in the regions of Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. I’m able to determine about how many fans I have in particular areas because of the data and analytics provided by online marketing reports from Facebook. Turns out, I didn’t have as many fans there as I thought. So I created an ad!
I made a Facebook ad that specifically is shown to people in those regions, and because I know my fans super well and I know what I’m doing with ads (I’ve put a LOT of time and energy into this skill), I instantly began getting results. It took me two hours to make an ad, and now every day I’m getting dozens of new fans in that region and they’re already writing me emails about how they love the music! Super easy.
Now I am growing my fanbase while I’m creating my album, AND in a region that will possibly create demand for me to play in a music festival there at a later date. 🙂
Next up: Cyber Monday (last minute) sale
OK, I forgot about doing a Black Friday sale, but luckily on Sunday I hadn’t missed out on Cyber Monday. So I figured I better get my butt in gear and come up with a mini-promotion.
I sent one email that night because some of my fans are in a different time zone, so they would have received it on the Monday. I gave them a heads up and I said, “I’m going to be sending you a promotion email with this discount, so watch your email” (so it’s not completely unexpected).
Essentially, I sent them two emails on Cyber Monday, letting them know that the sale is open (here’s the code; here you can get the merchandise), and another one just a few hours before it closed. In a period of 24-36 hours, I made about $1600, which is awesome for basically a couple hours’ worth of work. When was the last time that you went to work for a couple hours and made $1600? That is the power of having an email list, that’s the power of copywriting and being able to write subject lines that make people actually open their emails, even on Black Friday when people are inundated with stuff. That they still actually opened the email, read it, and bought something, is incredible.
BE prepared. Make a plan for the year so you don’t forget those holidays. It’s a great time to promote your stuff on social media and email. I go way more into depth about that in my programs and really spell out for you what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.
Lastly, how I am using colouring books for a mental release and a creative boost…
Going into this season of songwriting, I’ve been struggling with writer’s block, so a friend recommended a book and I read it in a day. There’s a specific technique to engage your subconscious creative brain. Part of that process involves doing an activity that takes your mind OFF the problem or idea you’re trying to come up with. It needs to be an activity that allows you to “zone out.”
So I decided I’m going to spend about 20 minutes each morning relaxing my brain by colouring in an adult colouring book. It feels extremely counter-intuitive to what I think I should be doing!
The point is to give your brain a rest and allow the ideas that are already in the back-burner of your mind to bubble up. Using The MacGyver Secret book techniques, I can come up with a bunch of new ideas. I’m excited to try that this week with a new colouring book. I’ll report back and let you know how that worked.
That is the gist of what I’ve been doing this week. Next week I plan on focusing on writing some new material, new songs, and I’ll be sharing with you more as I go. That’s it for now. See you later.
XOX,
LEAH
P.S. Make sure to click here for weekly “Making The Album” updates! I’ll send them straight to your inbox.
Also, make sure to join me on Facebook, and Instagram. I’ll be posting little nuggets there throughout the weeks that might not make it to the blog. 🙂 I won’t always be wearing makeup. I won’t always have good things to say as I struggle with all the things us musicians face. Things are about to get REAL.
