00:21 CJ: Welcome to the savvy musician show the premiere podcast for music marketing. If you’re ready to get your music career off the ground, you have found a way, by utilizing the powerful tools of digital marketing you can create your own music career, your own little empire of superfans that are excited about you, love following you, share the cultural experience with you that your music also speaks to, buy your music and all the wonderful things that you create around it. That’s all possible for you, ladies and gentlemen, and to talk about this very important topic. I’ve brought in the premier expert on music marketing. Of course, you know her already, Leah McHenry. Good to see you, Leah.

01:06 Leah: Good to see you. And good to be here and have all of you listening.

01:10 CJ: Good stuff is happening here at SMA, Savvy Musician Academy. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. But before we get started today, Leah, let me share this brief student spotlight from one of our TOM students. TOM is the acronym for The Online Musician program. Shorthand is TOM. This is by Annissa Mlhns and she writes, “#win. I’m really happy to share my first big win. I’ve now reached 10,000 likes on my Facebook page, made of highly-targeted potential fans. Thank you, SMA for everything you’ve taught me and I’m looking forward to my next win”. Leah, do you remember your first little victory like that?

01:54 Leah: I do. And it was… It’s just the fuel that continues to light the fire to keep you going. Like these wins are massive.

02:04 CJ: They’re really important. And I think we’ve said before nothing… I know, I can speak for myself when I say that, nothing motivates me like results. Having some little breakthrough. And sometimes you can feel super tired and that breakthrough can come late at night. You’re ready to go to bed and give up. And all of a sudden you crack the code, or whatever it is you were working on. And isn’t it amazing how instantly energy comes, and motivation comes and now you’re staying up till three in the morning?

Well, just goes to show you that you’ve got all the energy and motivation you need. All’s you need to know is how. How do you create your music career? How do you solve your problem? How do you get followers on Facebook? How do you get people on an email list? How do you market your record? How do you do an album launch?

All of these, how questions that musicians have, they’re trying to get answered. Leah like we’ve before on YouTube and Podcasts and pieced together something to try and figure out, decode someone like yourself and how you do things. And they get more frustrated because it’s not the way necessarily forward. Which is obviously what something like a Savvy Musician Academy is here for to help them do that.

But there’s no getting around the fact that once you just have that little breakthrough and you feel that motivation and energy. Like she said, “I’m looking forward to my next win”. Because it’s addictive. There’s a certain euphoria that comes with this and you will get addicted to these breakthroughs. But this is someone here who’s having this breakthrough online. Getting Facebook followers, who’d have ever thought that we would be talking about Facebook followers as a means to building a music business.

But things like social media are like, Leah, the internet contained, right? Because people have to sign up for them, have accounts. They have to share their interest in things. And so Facebook tracks these and these become ways that skillful marketers can use to target. Like she was just describing highly targeted potential fans. Well, this is an online approach, which is why we talk about The Online Musician.

And something that you and I talked about of just a couple of months or so ago. It came out in one of the latest issues of guitar world magazine. And it was an interview with Billy Corgan, who’s the frontman of The Smashing Pumpkins. A very popular band out of the 90s. But he was talking about today’s struggling musician and what you should focus on. And he said, “Forget playing down the street”. He said… This is literally what he said.

He said, “If I was going to give you 60 seconds of advice, I would put your whole focus into reaching people through the internet”.

05:09 Leah: I love it.

05:11 CJ: So this is somebody who’s made their money, you know what I mean? Touring and the whole millions of dollars and all of that. They said if they had… If he had to give a piece of advice, he had 60 seconds to tell them something they could do. Right now it would be to focus on the internet. Wow.

05:27 Leah: Mic drop. We can just end the podcast now.

05:30 CJ: That’s it. That’s it right there. So this is somebody which I appreciate about Billy, is that he understands where things are. He understands where the industry is. He knows. He’s been on the stage for the Grammys. He’s been in TV and film. He’s done it all. And he would say, if you’re going to be a musician in today’s music industry, he said, “Put your whole-

05:56 Leah: Focus.

05:57 CJ: …focus through the internet”. Now, as we described in some of our recent episodes, there are bad ways you can do that. For example, you’ve alluded to oftentimes vanity metrics, right? So when we say online we’re not talking about just getting a bunch of YouTube views, are we?

06:17 Leah: No, and I think that’s what we need to distinguish is the difference between what is a valuable metric in a vanity metric. Two Vs, wow. Vanity and valuable. And we shared in a previous podcast episode a few episodes ago about, what are some of the marketing metrics you need to know and those are far more valuable in terms of running a real business that’s profitable, sustainable, scalable, all of those things and just merely building an audience or not even an audience, really just getting followers.

You are going to find online… When you decide to focus on this, you’re going to run into a whole lot of more scammy things. If you’re not skeptical enough already. There’s a whole bunch of scammy things out there. There are apps and bots and things out there that’s like, “Sign up for this thing and get 10,000 Instagram followers”.

And they’ll do this… There’s automated bots that will like a whole bunch of profiles and then hope that they follow you back. And then unfollow the ones that didn’t follow you. There’s all this kind of stuff that’s just vanity. Then really, are these people really going to buy your music? Most likely no.

07:31 CJ: You’re right.

07:32 Leah: And there’s all kinds of stuff. So you need to distinguish between vanity metrics and valuable metrics. And when we say putting your online focus or whole focus on in reaching people through the internet, we’re a hundred percent behind Billy Corgan. Billy Corgan, I hope you listen to this podcast. If don’t… Maybe someone knows you who will forward this and you’ll become a… I would love to have him as guest. That’d be amazing.

07:59 CJ: Yeah it would be amazing.

08:00 Leah: We should get him.

08:00 CJ: Yeah. I mean it’s… When you say online or internet, obviously like you said, that’s a broad term. And what think what’s important for people to understand is first that the internet being a vehicle for reaching people. And don’t make it more than that. It’s not mysterious. That’s really all it is. And so like we alluded to in the student spotlight, there are ideal superfans for you.

And so the key to the online effect is that by, especially with social media, you can use these powerful tools. Like the Facebook Ad Manager, the Facebook algorithm, which is keeping track of what people’s interest and likes are. Even their taste in music. And so if you can determine who you are as an artist. What you’re about. And who your superfan is, what they listened to, what they love, what they’re excited about, then this is information, right? That you can put into this powerful marketing tool called the Facebook Ad Manager and begin to actually reach those specific people. And not anybody else.

Just the people who are excited about music that is just like yours of the genre, the culture that you particularly fit in now. And when you do that, then like Leah said, you get followers. And followers, but followers who care about you. Followers who care about the stuff that you play, they enjoy that particular lifestyle, music and culture. And then from there you can begin to utilize all the other powerful online marketing tools such as video and email marketing, and then creating eCommerce sites. All the stuff that we talk about.

But I think you’ve got to have this fundamental thing in place, right? Leah, that you understand that there’s a reason why he would say focus 100% here. That doesn’t mean you’ll never play a live gig.

10:00 Leah: Right.

10:02 CJ: That comes after, right? Because you’ve got to establish this first.

10:06 Leah: Yeah, and that’s why I’ve always said the way my career worked, and I know I understand how I approach things is completely different from other people. And my way’s not the only way. Because of my circumstance with having the kids at home and them being very young and everything. I figured this was exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to put all my focus into reaching people through the internet, do my best to build an audience around the world without having left my house.

And that way when I do want a tour, anything I want to do, I’ll already have the audience. And so it’s really an audience first priority. Audience first and then my niche. You can even do it the other way around. You can figure out your niche, but audience has to be top priority. And how am I going to do that, if not through the internet? Yeah, you can play live gigs and shake one hand at a time. That’s very inefficient.

It may be, it may be rewarding and satisfying to do that in person, but it’s not efficient. And you have the leverage and the power of reaching tens of thousands, millions potentially. The Facebook platform alone has 2.5 billion active monthly users. Don’t tell me your audience isn’t there. I run into this all the time they’re like, “Oh no, my audience isn’t there”.

11:26 CJ: They are.

11:26 Leah: Out of 2.5 billion people, your audience isn’t there? Are you kidding? You are delusional. You have no idea.

11:35 CJ: No, that’s right. Because I like we’ve said in a recent episode, you can confuse what’s needed. If you think, for example, that getting discovered on a Spotify or a YouTube is the online approach, then, like you said, you’re getting into the vanity metric. You think that by just having people like something or something going viral that somehow that’s going to materialize into success. Whereas no, that’s not a business approach that’s popularity. It’s like being popular in high school. But sometimes the people who were popular in high school failed once they got out of high school.

12:15 Leah: Let’s talk about all the singers from American Idol and The Voice. Who make even to the finalists, who have zero career after the fact. And they’d been on national television in front of millions of people. I once met a guy in person, had quite an extensive conversation with him about this. He was a finalist on The Voice, talked to him in person.

And he said that exact thing. He’s like most singers and vocalists and these talented people who are on these shows, after the fact, they get totally depressed. Because they think all this exposure is going to get me the career. I’m going to get signed or someone will discover me. Even after being on TV. Exposed to millions of people. All of the executives in the world are watching this. And yet, maybe a few of them do get a deal, but most of them fall through. This guy now makes a living just gigging full time.

So he used the show as a catalyst to just play full time. But he is… I mean he’s working his tail off to do that. And so he has like a work ethic. Unbelievable. But that’s how he’s making his living now. He’s playing full time. Like doing weddings and all different kinds of things. Because he does like an acoustic thing. But so many people think that “Oh just because I was popular on a television show, now I have it made”. And yet the second they are off that show it’s game over.

It’s like everything goes away. In fact, I could probably come up with a coaching program just for these people. These poor people who have had their worlds just come down on them just crashing after these shows. And they haven’t the slightest clue even about who they are or where they really want to do too.

Because also in these shows there they’re being… Well, the way the shows work is you’re doing all these cover songs of all these other artists. And you’re not really singing your own thing. You’re not… It’s not about developing you yet. It’s about show us how you sound singing everybody else’s songs. I always think like that’s… I don’t know, I never want to build that kind of career. And then it just goes to show that when it’s all said and done those opportunities are gone.

They have nothing they… And I’m not trying to be mean. But that’s their reality. That’s what I’ve been told about this. And it’s like they’re starting at ground zero. It’s just like those people who go to Berkeley, who spent all this money and at the end of the day, they don’t even know who they are. What they’re trying to do yet. So it’s very sad. And that’s why.

14:54 CJ: Yeah. So if you’re relying on the industry, you’re relying on something that’s a very unsure foundation. As opposed to saying, “No, I’m going to create my marketplace and I’m going to reach people on my own. And I’m going to sell my music to the people who care about my music”. And the only thing that’s standing in the way between you and doing that is knowledge. Is knowing how that’s achieved. Knowing how you do the marketing. And so, again, it’s a general statement for Billy Corgan to say focus on the internet. But what he’s saying is you have to reach people. By yourself, right?

15:37 Leah: Mm-hmm.

15:37 CJ: And the best way to do that is not playing your local gig. And it’s not waiting on a record label. You have this huge door that you can go through called the internet and utilize these tools and reach the exact people that you want to reach and then get your music in front of them.

So if you think, for example, that being on The Voice or American Idol like Leah alluded to, is going to get you there. Or getting a bunch of features on playlists on Spotify or having a million views on a YouTube video. If you think that’s going to be it, no. Because you’re not getting any of that data. So a smart business person is going to do something where they’re going to get some data back about the people that are watching that are engaging with their music.

And so something like Facebook, right? Leah is going to give them that information. And to have it then you can do just give them a little taste of some of the things they could do just off of what a single music video can do on Facebook.

16:46 Leah: Oh gosh, if you have a music video, or is this my little marketing plan for it? Or just like the potential…

16:54 CJ: Yeah, just some of the things. Because, if they get a bunch of views on Facebook… A bunch of views on YouTube, not much.

17:00 Leah: YouTube, yeah. Now there are some advanced things. It’s a completely different beast. So I won’t go there. But Facebook is very easy and it’s amazing. Most people don’t know that. Everybody who watches your video is tracked and basically put into an audience of people who have watched that video. So Facebook tracks someone who watched it, even what percentage of the video they watched.

So if someone watched three seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute, however long percentage, 90%, 95% of your video. Facebook knows everything about who watched that. And you can even segment those people into groups. So I’m going to put everybody who only watched five seconds of my video in one group. I want to put everybody who watched 95% of my video in another group. It’s called a custom audience, right? It’s an audience that’s customized for a specific thing you want to group them in.

And then you can show those people ads or a more videos or an opt, in your email list. You can do anything. You have a variety of options which you can do with that. But the point is that you can do it. You can do it and it’s very inexpensive, very inexpensive. When you consider what the cost of advertising used to be back in the day. Where it’s like hey, you can do a newspaper ad, you can do a billboard, you can do television, you can do like phone book or whatever. Like this is, you’re talking pennies.

18:28 CJ: Yeah, literally like two to four cents for a video view. And if let’s say like you just said you, you’ll see you sent out one video and you just let it run for a couple of months or so. When you got 100,000 views to a highly targeted audience, right? You put into Facebook ad manager, all similar artists to you and you sent your video out to them and it reached 100,000 people. And then you see that, okay, you can ask Facebook, “Hey, give me a list of all the people who watched 90% of my video”.

Not the three-second people, but 90%. And let’s say you find out that it’s 15,000 okay. So you make, like you just said, Facebook will make for you a little custom audience just for you. Of those 15,000 people. Now let’s just say for grins and giggles, you had another music video and you say, you know what? I’m going to send this music video to that same 15,000 people. And it goes through that and you realize that of them, 8,000 people watched 90%. That 8,000 people right there, just them alone could finance the next five years of your life.

19:40 Leah: Oh my gosh, yeah. So valuable. What do you think the odds are that they might want to buy something from you in terms of music or merchandise or tickets or something? It’s so very high. And then so many other cool things you can do on Facebook is you can take that little custom audience of really valuable viewers. And first thing that you always want to do is get those people on your email list.

20:05 CJ: Get them on your list.

20:06 Leah: Get them on your email list, but you could do cool things like say, “Facebook, I want you to take these 8,000 people who are highly engaged and super interested in my content and I want you to create me another audience that is similar to this audience”. It’s not these people, they’re complete strangers, but the Facebook calls it a look-a-like audience. So it’s an audience that looks like these people.

So they have already identified your behaviors, likes and dislikes on Facebook based on the things you click on, the things you like, the things you shared, the things you save. All your behaviors are tracked, okay? And so based on other people’s similar interests and stuff, they can match that up with the people who were already watching your video. So now I can go from an audience of 8,000 I create a lookalike audience to say just a United States, for example.

Suddenly it’s going to open that up and the targeting just widened to 4.5 million people based on that 8,000. So now and now it’s going to start showing that same ad, that’s still very highly targeted, but now it’s gone to a much, much broader audience. And Facebook right now likes very big audiences. Because the algorithm is so technologically advanced that it knows what to do.

So a big audience like that works so well. So and very quickly in Facebook too there’s a learning phase. It figures out very quickly who to show it to and who not to show it to. So it has a learning phase when you launch a campaign. And it can take three to five days. It just depends on how much budget you have going, where it’ll sort out really quickly. Hey, “This group of people we thought was good, but it’s not”.

So they’re trying to get you a good result. So anyway, that’s all to say. There’s so much you can do with one little video, one little video clip. And a dang it, now that we’re talking about this makes me want to relaunch some mild lyric videos and stuff.

22:10 CJ: Yeah. Because again, it’s these fundamental things when you realize… Because like you said, you can just keep expanding. Because if you do the lookalike audience, based on a model it, after that 8,000 people who went 90% on two videos creates a lookalike audience. And that jumps you, let’s say 4.5 million. Like you said, to have similar people that you are now… And then out of the results from that to the 4.5 million, you can create more custom audiences. And it’s just on and on, and on and on. So-

22:43 Leah: And people wonder how is Leah doing it? So easy you guys.

22:48 CJ: Yeah, so this is how it is. Yeah. This is how it’s done. It’s if you know who you are if you know what your music is and you know who you’re trying to target, then… Yeah, there’s a lot more to it. Sure there is. There is copywriting. You want to make sure we write, the right things and we teach that a lot obviously in the Savvy Musician Academy. How to write, how to do it right. 

So you can get the best results for your video view ads. You can get the best results for your, opt-in ads. In other words, someone is signing up to be on your email list. But once you understand what the internet, when he says focus on the internet, this is what we’re talking about. To get you… So you don’t need a record label now.

You don’t need the voice. You don’t need American idol. You don’t need mainstream airplay. You don’t need necessarily YouTube. You don’t necessarily need Spotify. You can use all of those things. But all based the center that you have of you reaching a highly-targeted list of superfans that you are regularly engaged with. Who wants to hear more from you. Who want to listen to your music. Who will buy your music. Who will buy your merchandise, all your cool stuff that you make built around your musical brand. That is how it’s done.

And that’s why this is the new frontier. This is the new gold rush for musicians, is to get out there and start to carve out their little niche. You don’t need to be everything to everyone. Have you ever sent… I mean, I just started watch my… I’ve had it and I haven’t used it. But I just started watching one of the TV series on Apple TV Plus. My son has Disney Plus, where we had watched the-

24:39 Leah: Mandalorian?

24:39 CJ: …Mandalorian series. And of course, I’ve already got Netflix and Prime Video and Hulu and all of this sort of stuff. Okay. But I looked at just the series that they do on Amazon, the series they do on Netflix, the series they do on Hulu and Disney Plus and all this original new programming with major actors and actresses in them. I’m thinking none of this is on TV. And so there are people who are never going to see, and probably some of these series on Amazon are incredible. On Apple plus are incredible, on Disney are incredible. But only a target audience is ever going to see them.

25:22 Leah: That’s a really good point.

25:24 CJ: It’s just the new way all media is going to be distributed. You don’t need the whole world. You just need your little pocket and it’s enough to sustain it. If it’s enough to sustain all the major actors, it’s going to be enough to sustain you.

25:38 Leah: Yeah, such a good point. Amen and amen.

25:43 CJ: Well, I mean again, I think what for people it’s where they blow a gasket is, or should I say where they get their wires crossed, is because one of the biggest challenges right now is to lose the old mentality. It’s hard to see the opportunities. It’s hard to grasp this because you’re still thinking through the old way of thinking. And so we’re in this middle period where you spend… Like the Israelites, that 490 years in slavery. And as I said it, they had that 40 year period in the wilderness just to get to their next destination, whatever.

But the saying was, “They left Egypt overnight, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of them”. You know what I mean? When you’ve lived like a slave or a cog in a machine for decades and decades. It’s hard to lose that mentality and feel empowered and see opportunity.

26:51 Leah: I come across this all the time. And it’s funny in a lot of my webinars that I teach, I bring up, it’s now on one of my official slides, is a comment from a real Facebook person when we were running an ad for something to do with Savvy Musician Academy and this person didn’t believe that you could make money online. And they said, “No, no, no. All of that’s BS. Here’s how you create a career. You have to eat, sleep, and breathe music 24/7. Play as many gigs as possible for 10 to 15 years and maybe you’ll get noticed after that. And anything else is BS”. Is what he said. Now that’s become an official slide in my webinars because I’m like, hey dude, like I understand, that’s how it used to be, that was the old way I get it.

But if you continue to think that way, you’re only limiting yourself. Like you’re not limiting me or my business or anything. You’re just limiting yourself. And it just shows that you’re just not awake yet to what the reality is. You’re not with the times my friend. And I mean that with all sincerity. And without any malice in my heart at all. Even though he was kind of rude and stuff, I just think that it explains the majority of where people are at.

And one day this will be old news and anybody… My prediction is in the next 10 years, all of these will… All of these podcast episodes will pretty much be outdated because everybody will be doing this. Every musician will know I have to have an online presence. Of course, I do online presence and I… Of course, I have to have a Shopify.

Of course, I’m running advertising. Of course, I’m doing all of these things. Who isn’t? Who isn’t doing that? And that will become the majority. That’s what we’re working towards and we’re trying to help people do is turn the tide. And so it goes from a very top-down model of label-artist model to a bottom-up structure, right?

Where it’s everybody’s taking responsibility for themselves and their results and they’re learning the skills they’ve got to learn to do it. And they’re not… Their future isn’t determined by anybody at the top at all. It’s all determined by what you do and what you put into practice and the end of the story live happily ever after.

29:13 CJ: Well, and it is literally as simple as that. And that the limitations that we impose upon ourselves, and I see this even in my motivational stuff, people, they just can’t believe that you can make something out of a broken life. They don’t believe that there’s opportunity out there. They’re just so dog-trained, to think a certain way and it’s limiting them and they don’t realize it. So guys, when we say the internet focusing on the internet, we’re not talking about just a lot of playlists on Spotify.

We’re not just talking about having a viral video on YouTube, and we’re not just talking about setting up a Facebook page for your band where you can post your next event. That’s not what we mean when we say online. It’s something much, much more sophisticated. And you may not be familiar with it, but just because you’re not familiar with it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. And that people fear the unknown, right?

That’s the child… All our fears today are just nothing more than a grownup version of a child’s fear of the dark. You’re just afraid of what’s in front of you because you can’t see. Turn on the lights. And that’s why you got to have the nightlight for the kid. That’s why you got to keep the door open for the kid. So they can see what’s ahead of them. They can see what’s around them. And because people can’t see, they hear your particular testimony Leah, of success marketing your music online and they see it’s dark to them that they can’t see how it’s done.

So all they can do is attack it. All they can do is throw things at it, right? Because they don’t know how to respond to possibility. And that’s what we share here on this podcast. Is possibility, possibility thinking, removing the limits and seeing how powerful these tools are in front of you and what you can do to utilize them to create your particular music career.

Now like we said, this is a bit more sophisticated than just simply saying focusing a hundred percent online. But that’s why we have The Online Musician course. Just as an example here. And as we said in the last episode, that’s something we’re gearing up for. Leah, you’ve been working now tirelessly on the 3.0 version-

31:23 Leah: Heck yes.

31:24 CJ: … Of The Online Musician filling it with lots of added good stuff. In fact, you said, something I couldn’t believe, it stopped me when you said it. But you were saying that this new version that’s going to come out really soon, we’ll talk more about it in ensuing podcasts, but you said you were going to automatically upgrade the 2.0 students to the 3.0-

31:47 Leah: We’re nice like that.

31:50 CJ: You got to say thank you when people do that, ladies and gentlemen. Somebody does something nice for you, you say thank you. That’s very, very generous. So if you are a 2.0 student, it’s going to be awesome that you get to be upgraded. Now I’m working with some of the actual content on the production side of it. So I’m seeing what’s involved in it. And guys, this really is a major upgrade to this program because as you guys know stuff in the technology and the social media, man, things change quickly. It’s always advancing new things being done. And so, Leah, who keeps up to speed with all of this stuff is included a lot of that.

So that’s actually coming really, really soon. Just the next couple of months are going to be announcing that a whole new way of releasing. It’s going to be at a different price point and all of that, but the value is going to blow your mind. So I really want to encourage you guys to keep that in mind. 

32:43 Leah: Yeah, and actually, there are some new modules that I’ve decided to include that I am seeing, it’s not like there was big holes before, but I as a course creator, mentor, coach type person, and when working with higher, more… I will say more advanced students, later on down the line who have gone through that, there are some key critical things that I feel that you really should come out of that program being extremely prepared for. Which wasn’t in the previous iteration.

So I’ve added some extensive stuff. One being an entire module just on mindset and that’s the first thing you’re going to go through. Is an entire module mindset. It just is so critical. And people are always asking for more of it. And I’ve also realized, if you don’t get that straight, nothing else, it won’t really go well. There’s some other things like that I won’t mention just yet cause I want to keep up the anticipation here and as we’re dialling in all the details.

But I can tell you it’s a major upgrade and I’m very proud of it and it’s something I think is going to help so many people. And for those of you, if you’ve never taken a course from the Savvy Musician Academy before, or The Online Musician anything like that, you can actually go to explodeyourfanbase.com and sign up for the waiting list. And then you… When you do that, you’ll just be notified when we’re ready to open the doors for that. And we’ll be doing some live events and stuff surrounding it, that you’ll definitely want to be there for.

34:16 Leah: So go to explodeyourfanbase.com sign up for the waitlist for The Online Musician 3.0 and we’ll let you know all the details.

34:24 CJ: Awesome. This is exciting guys. I’m telling you, The Online Musician is the first major thing to bring about a significant change in this technological revolution and its impact on the music industry. You can have a music career, so do that. Go to explodeyourfanbase.com. Sign up, get on the waiting list. We’ll let you know. Leah, thank you once again.

34:46 Leah: Thank you CJ and thanks to everyone who was listening. I hope you found it valuable. I’d love to read your review.

34:52 CJ: We’ll see you soon.

34:53 Leah: Bye.