Introducing...
The Independent Musician’s Complete Guide to Email Marketing
Level-up your music business by creating more buzz, broader awareness of your brand, bigger album launches, and year-round revenue with SFS Email Marketing!
Already decided you want to get started?
After building two separate multi-million dollar companies in different industries, and building a multiple six-figure music business (without touring), I’m giving you my exact list-building & email marketing strategies that are DIRECTLY responsible for this kind of success!
Leah McHenry
Founder of Savvy
Musician Academy
Savvy Musician Academy has trained over 10,000 musicians (and growing) in cutting-edge digital marketing. We specialize in tailoring timeless, principle-based marketing practices for independent musicians in the 21st century. We get you results when you do the work!
Let me guess, you’ve been at this a while, and yet you’re STILL struggling to make a full-time income with your music. Does any of this sound familiar?
What do you want first:
The Good News or the Bad News?
The Bad News
Right now thousands of musicians are embracing online marketing and are willing to learn whatever it takes to succeed so they can make a living. That means they currently have an edge on you.
Every day you’re not actively building your email list and marketing to your new subscribers is money left on the table that could’ve helped you make a full-time living as an independent musician.
The Good News
You’re in the right place.
We have experience training thousands of musicians in online marketing practices that are relevant and effective right now!
SMA has the experience and know-how to help you navigate even the trickiest parts of email marketing, which is a huge foundational piece of building any multi-6 and 7-figure business -- especially a music business!
These are the exact email marketing techniques used by millionaires today we’re going to use them to build YOU a 6-figure Superfan System that runs on autopilot!
Listen to how SMA student Ben McGarvey used automated email marketing to create more revenue for his music business.
In our first flagship program, The Online Musician, you built a solid foundation using our Artist Identity Infrastructure framework.
You carved out a niche for your music, you’ve established your brand, your music culture, your social media presence, and several streams of income.
Now it's time to go to the next level...
In The Superfan System: Email Marketing, we teach you a unique framework to get you results.
You will ATTRACT new fans at a rapid pace through our unique organic and paid traffic methods.
You will BUILD your email list around the clock and around the world, using a marketing and email system that works for you on autopilot.
You will CONVERT your new potential fans into raving superfans and repeat customers.
When you use our SFS system to build a high-quality and sizable email list, here’s what you can do!
-
Bigger & More Successful Album Launches
The bigger your targeted email list is, the bigger the launch (cha-ching!)
-
Bigger Crowdfunding Campaigns
Want better outcomes for your crowdfunding? Easy, build your list!
There are several ways we do this.
-
Build Your Monthly Recurring Revenue with Subscriptions & Fan Clubs
Do you use Patreon, Bandcamp, or another fan club service?
The fastest way to build up your monthly recurring revenue is through marketing your offer to your email subscribers!
-
Automated Music & Merchandise Sales—Daily!
You’ll have a pre-written email series that prompts your new and existing fans to purchase music & merchandise regularly.
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Profitable Merchandise Drops
Have a new t-shirt to sell?
Every time you drop a new item you’ll email your list about it for an instant cash boost.
-
Sell Out Your Live or Online Events
Anytime you want to host a live streaming event or live gig, you’ll easily be able to sell it out when you have a huge list of hungry superfans!
You get to decide what to do with your new valuable business asset!
(The possibilities are endless.)
Contrary to popular opinion, email Marketing is NOT dead! In fact, it’s alive and kicking!
Did You Know?
Fun Facts about Email Marketing
Email alone is responsible for 30% or more of all online sales.
For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you could expect a $43 return on average
49% of consumers said they would like to receive PROMO emails from their favorite brands every week!
59% of consumers say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions
Emails with personalized subject lines
generate 50% higher open rates!
81% of small & mid-size businesses rely on EMAIL as their primary way of getting new customers and keeping them!
MORE REASONS YOU NEED TO USE EMAIL MARKETING IF YOU WANT TO INCREASE YOUR MUSIC BUSINESS REVENUE AND GROW YOUR BRAND
1
You don’t own any contact information of your followers on social media platforms, which means if anything happens to your account or the algorithms change, or you get censored, you will have NO WAY to contact your followers!
2
Building an email list is a valuable business asset. It increases the valuation of any business when they have an active list (think: Shark Tank).
3
Email is crucial because it’s the best way to build real authentic relationships with your fans. It’s not a quick tweet, it’s far more intimate and they will come to love and trust you more.
Marketing Experts Across All Industries Understand the Power of Email Marketing!
Neil Patel
Co-Founder of KISSmetrics, CrazyEgg, and QuickSprout
“Out of all the channels I tested as a marketer, email continually outperforms most of them. Not only does it have a high conversion rate, but as you build up your list you can continually monetize it by pitching multiple products. Just look at ecommerce sites like Amazon, one way they get you to continually buy more products from them is by emailing you offers on a regular basis.
And if you aren’t selling any products, you should still collect emails so you can get people back to your site on a continual basis. For example, if you have a blog, every time you publish a new post, you can notify your list, which will help increase repeat traffic.”
”After you wake up what is one of the first things you do in the morning?
I know for me it’s checking my email; it’s like Christmas morning when all these wonderful communications have been piling up over night. Some of them are annoying, but this is the preferred method of effective communication now and in the future.
When you give up communication to your customers through Facebook or Twitter you are now at the mercy of them allowing you to talk to your customers. When you email it gets in your customers inboxes. Then it’s up to you to make sure you are sending things your customers want to receive.
Email is the most scalable way to make sales with new customers and build deeper relationship with deeper customers.
Let me give you a specific example:
AppSumo.com is a 7-figure business and 90%+ of our revenue comes from emails. Too many companies don’t ask website visitors / customers for their email address. Why are you doing amnesia marketing? Make it easy for yourself.
Let your customers know when new products come out.
Let your customers see what you go through in building your business.
Feature your customers to your other customers.
Your customers WANT to hear more from you than you realize.
I’m not saying email is the end-all be-all but it’s been our magic ticket for the past few years. I encourage you to try it out and see the results for yourselves.”
Noah Kagan
Founder of SumoMe
Hey, I’m Leah McHenry, and you probably know me as the founder of Savvy Musician Academy.
Many of you know of my success as a non-touring artist, but the truth is it hasn’t been all fairies and unicorns. Before I understood how online marketing really works in an online music business…
I spent a ton of time trying to get noticed on social media platforms, including Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and many others.
I spent an embarrassing amount of energy uploading my music to places like Soundcloud and ReverbNation, for nothing in return.
I spent way too much money on gimmicky “websites for artists”, licensing websites that promised you placements, and countless other “methods” that got me absolutely nowhere.
The Odds Were Not In My Favor
My family was a single-income household, so I didn’t have much to invest into music marketing.
I had ZERO fans and absolutely no one knew who I was.
I had ZERO music industry contacts.
I had NEVER started a business before.
I had FIVE kids at home I was raising, so touring was never an option for me.
After many, many attempts to get my music “discovered” by following the current popular music advice from Google (and getting NOWHERE with it), I had to take a step back and consider that maybe the marketing advice out there didn’t work if you aren’t a touring artist.
It was a painful experience because I knew my music was meant to be heard around the world, and I knew I wanted to make a real living for myself, but I didn’t have the tools, the training, or the mentor to show me HOW.
I made a decision that would affect the rest of my life.
I decided that I would succeed no matter what. That I would learn whatever I needed to, for as long as it would take...
...In order to achieve my vision of becoming a full-time recording artist that doesn’t have to tour.
It wasn’t until I stopped paying attention to all the music business “gurus” out there, and I STARTED studying what works for e-commerce businesses that it LITERALLY CHANGED MY LIFE AND EVERYTHING I WAS DOING FOREVER.
When I combined the knowledge & skills of building my email list, marketing to my new fans, and releasing new products and music on a regular basis, that’s when everything CLICKED and things became extremely exciting!!!
Once I understood the ABC method Everything Changed
With a small list I launched my very first fan club and paid off all our family debts.
Having an email list literally saved my family from financial disaster & bankruptcy.
With a list of less than 5000 people I launched my first successful crowdfunding campaign.
My very first big crowdfunding campaign brought in $34,000 Canadian Dollars which absolutely shocked me. I couldn’t pick my jaw up off the floor. How did that happen? I had built a nice sized email list! I then polled them to see if they would be interested in participating in my crowdfunding campaign and they all said YES. So I launched it, and they came through for me.
My second big crowdfunding campaign blew my mind! At the same time, it wasn’t as big of a shock since I had already learned the power of having an email list! This time, I reached nearly $100,000 which covered the costs of my entire album, marketing, and the merchandise bundles fans purchased, and it put me into profit zone before I had even launched!
Do you understand what a DREAM this kind of business model is?
Don’t forget that most signed artists go into huge DEBT to the labels that pay for everything, and then expect your soul in return, with little profit for you.
I went on to do another crowdfunding campaign, hosted on my own website for a little Christmas album, and raised another $70,000 from my fans!
This was more risky for me because it wasn’t a typical metal album that my fans were used to. This was me veering outside the normal niche… but it STILL had a great outcome!
It’s a good thing I had my email list because there were some significant changes to the algorithms on Instagram & Facebook where even LESS people would see your posts.
YAY for superfans on my email list!
But this isn’t just limited to crowdfunding campaigns, or selling music…
Imagine being able to do OTHER things with these skills!
In 2020, I decided to launch a sister brand to my music, which was hand-poured candles -- all in the same theme as my music. I called it Mythologie Candles.
In order to build this business, I used the EXACT SAME principles I teach in The Superfan System Email Marketing program.
My very first goal before I launched this new brand was to build my email list to 1000 people. I knew that my launch would really take off, and I could validate my concept and my product if I had an audience to launch to. So that’s what I did.
I launched a PRE-ORDER to only 999 people on my list and made $14,000 in 2 weeks.
From $14,000 in a month...
...to $60,000 in a day!
I didn’t even have the product made yet! These new testers literally paid for my supplies and validated my product. This is my “bootstrapping” method. How cool is that!
Now that I’ve built up our list to over 30,000+ raving fans of my new brand (most of these fans don’t even know about my music!), we can do crazy things like send one email and make over $60,000 in a SINGLE DAY!
This brand is just 12 months old and has already crossed 1.98 million in sales.
That's Nuts!
Imagine if I hadn't started this sister brand or used email marketing as my launch pad to start this new brand!?! What if I had only tried to tell friends and family? What if I had only tried to use social media and nothing else? Different results!
“Wait a minute, Leah, you make this sound so easy, but is it really….”
I know I make this all sound like a piece of cake, but my students who really know me will tell you I’m the first to give it to you straight and not BS.
Here’s the deal: Learning the SFS Email Marketing system is going to take some work, and possibly a steep learning curve.
You’re going to need to be determined and focused!
There are PLENTY of mistakes that could slow you down as well, such as…
There’s a ton more that could go wrong or slow you down!
But you’re a smart musician, which is why you’re with Savvy Musician Academy. You already have the right mindset, that YOU DON’T NEED TO REINVENT THE WHEEL!
Just follow the system EXACTLY as I’ve designed it -- and you will see results!
Are You Ready?
So, are you finally ready to build a huge email list of superfans so you can have even bigger album launches, sell out your events, raise tons of superfan money for crowdfunding, grow your monthly recurring revenue with your fanclubs, and automate your music & merch sales?!
Introducing the World’s Best Email Marketing Program for Independent Musicians
What is it?
A go-at-your-own-pace 6 module course designed to help you master building your list and email marketing!
Why we created this
Because you want bigger album launches, more awareness of your brand, bigger crowdfunding campaigns, and consistent revenue all year long.
Who is it for?
Musicians who have already gone through The Online Musician.
What stage of music marketing should you be at?
You already have a strong foundation: You understand your niche, your brand identity, your music culture, and have started 1 or more of the 5 streams of income.
Where does it happen?
This class is 100% virtual on our course platform.
How does it work?
Each module is delivered to you on a weekly bases so you won’t get overwhelmed! Included are all the lessons, audios, worksheets, cheatsheets, and more.
When does it start and end?
You get immediate access to SFS Email Marketing as soon as you enroll! And it’s go-at-your-own-pace so you won’t get behind. We recommend setting aside at least 30 minutes a day in your calendar if you are serious about results.
What kind of support will I get?
You have access to our support team anytime, as well as our Facebook community. Leah and the SMA coaches will be reading your comments inside the course to help you if you get stuck!
Inside Superfan System: Email Marketing
By the end of this program, you will have the tools, the know-how, and the skillset to build a profitable email list, increase your year-round revenue, and produce bigger and bigger album & crowdfunding launches -- just with email marketing!
Here’s how we’re going to do that together:
Module 1
The Assets
In this module, we'll begin by gathering all the powerful assets you need in order to create a POWERFUL and LUCRATIVE email marketing funnel! From your hook, to data-mining your fans to make it extremely easy to know exactly what they want, to the creative graphics you'll need to make your superfan system work flawlessly!
Module 2
The Copy
Copywriting is the art and science of persuasive messaging. We will use this in all forms of communication with our fans, and especially whenever we are selling anything from music, merchandise, events, or crowdfunding perks. It’s been said that if you learn the skill of copywriting you will never go hungry. Learn Leah’s exact framework for effective copywriting in music marketing.
Module 3
The Emails
The next step in our System is all about relationship-building through email! Social media platforms come and go, but email is here to stay. We're about to build your entire sequence together! We give you exact templates, tools, content ideas and suggestions that are almost guaranteed to give you an ROI as soon as you implement them!
Module 4
The Fan Magnet
The next most important asset to have in place after writing our amazing emails is our opt-in page where new potential fans will say YES to getting to know you better and begin their fan journey with your music. We’ll cover how to build a high-converting landing page and how to even create a self-liquidating offer (SLO) on the thank-you page! This one module alone could not only make all your advertising free, but could potentially put you into profit zone before you even try to scale.
Module 5
The Facebook Ads
In our final module, we will guide you through setting up your business manager and Facebook ad account to be fully ready for business. You will build out your first ads, and learn the most important and exciting numbers to aim and watch for! Most importantly, you’ll know exactly how & when to tweak your ads to help them perform better. The awesome thing about learning this skill is when you go to launch an album, crowdfunding campaign, or new merch item, you’ll already be a pro and will know exactly what to do!
What it includes
Complete Superfan System: Email Marketing program
30+ training videos, tutorials, walk-throughs
Cheatsheets, Checklists, Worksheets to help you DO STUFF that MATTERS
Email swipe files & examples (copy/paste & customize for your brand)
Latest changes & updates to Facebook ads & business manager
Free & paid tool recommendations that Leah uses in her music & ecom business
100% online &
mobile-friendly course
Plus
Bonus Module
When You Join Today:
Leah’s past crowdfunding campaign videos that have produced $200,000+ in revenue
Bonus Module 6
Video Ads
Do you plan on launching a new album or crowdfunding campaign anytime soon? When you sign up today we will include this bonus module! In this special bonus we’ll teach you how to create a compelling sales video that’s NOT salesy, but gets you the results you’re looking for. Everything from your script, to your gear, and live-streaming tips! You can use these ads for your email marketing funnels or anything you’re promoting!
I'm Ready!
Sign Me Up
11 Possible Outcomes When You Implement This Program
You’ll be more business-minded than ever before (which will only COMPLIMENT your art)
You’ll know exactly WHAT to say to your fans and WHEN.
You’ll stop wasting time on tactics and gimmicky advice and start using strategies that actually move the needle.
You’ll build a massive email list 🙂
Your next EP, album, or crowdfunding campaign will be 50-100% bigger than the last one.
You’ll finally understand how to SELL without feeling or sounding salesy.
You’ll feel like a marketing pro!
You’ll have an edge on the other artists, bands, and white noise because you’ll be TOP OF MIND for your potential and new fans.
You’ll know how to data-mine any audience and get them to tell you exactly what they want you to sell them.
You’ll grow a recurring monthly revenue from memberships that covers all your bills and more.
You’ll know the exact formula for scaling your music business anytime you want.
Total Value: $16,185
Get it all for only $3,997
All you have to do is sell 40 fans a merch or music item for $25 to completely pay for this program! This program can potentially bring you an endless ROI.
“Leah. This is UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t put enough exclamation marks at the end of that. You are UNBELIEVABLE. THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is the BEST MONEY I have ever spent. Mic drop.”
Axel Lindy (SFS Student)
When you say YES today and pay in full, we’ll give you this bonus, worth $1997 on it’s own!
Pay in Full Bonus
Special Email Deliverability Workshop
Unless you know these tech-workarounds, your emails might end up in spam! But there are several things you can do to increase your email deliverability! This workshop will walk you through what most people would think is a tech nightmare - and well show you the EASY and FAST way to make sure people actually RECEIVE your emails.
This bonus goes away forever after you leave this page!
Ready to fast-track your growth and finally get the recognition you deserve!?
Total Value: $16,185
Get it all for only $3,997
Single Payment of $3,997
Total Value: $16,185
Zero Risk Guarantee
Our 365 Day Guarantee
We have one of the best refund policies bar-none, because we believe it takes TIME to implement our programs thoroughly and for you to truly level-up in your skillset. That can’t be done in 14 or 30 days like most programs offer. We believe our program works because we use these same systems ourselves. If you’re not THRILLED with your results after completing the course and the assignments, we’ll give you a full refund.
Hear from some of our students!
Brian Judy
Brian followed the SFS method and learned how to create what we call a “Self-Liquidating Offer” -- in other words, as you’re building your email list, the ads will pay for themselves, virtually making it free.
Ty Richards
Ty Richards is a long-time student of SMA and by following SFS along with our other courses, he has opened up all kinds of unexpected opportunities as a positive side effect of the system!
Kandice Bell
GENERAL ENDORSEMENT
Kandice is a Contemporary Christian artist who is using SMA’s methods to build her audience through Facebook ads!
Who this is for & not for
This program is PERFECT for people who...
Independent musicians looking to make their music business BIGGER than ever
Want to build and grow a REAL music business
Can’t tour or want more online sources of revenue
Feel totally overwhelmed and unfocused with how to build their list and make it profitable
Are open-minded, coachable, and like a SPONGE for learning new things that will make them successful
Value their time and understand that investing in a proven system will save them time and money and get them results faster
Haven’t figured out how to make email marketing successful or profitable yet but can’t wait to finally crack the code!
Are not yet making consistent revenue from email marketing in their music business
This program is NOT for people who...
Are only looking to make music a hobby
Don’t want to invest leveling-up their skillset
Believe email marketing is dead
Think the old music industry is how things should still be done
Aren’t open to learning new ways to work and say things like: “that won’t work for me” or “I already know that”
Prefer to Google everything, piecing together random bits of information and do things the hard way with crappy results
Blame courses, teachers, and others whenever they don’t get XYZ result overnight
Are consistently making 6 or more figures per year with their music business using email marketing as a primary avenue
Frequently Asked Questions
We give you one module per week to work through. At a minimum, this program is 5-6 weeks long, depending on how immersed you decide you want to be (you can take as long as you need, there’s no rush). We recommend spending at least 30 minutes per day to work on this. Many of our students prefer to time-block and spend a whole afternoon or a weekend diving in deep. Either way, you’ll get a LOT done in a few hours per week.
