Music Marketing Manifesto Review

John Oszajca
Cover of John Oszajca

The Music Marketing Manifesto training for helping musicians build and grow their audience so they can sell more of their music is perhaps the longest-living training of its kind geared specifically to musicians online.

It hinges squarely upon direct response marketing fundamentals of targeting a specific audience and making an offer to establish those who are interested in what you have to offer them.

The first goal is to collect an email address, something that shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve studied any good online music marketing blog posts since 2009 or so. But John was doing this first, and many of his cohort have since disappeared or moved onto a non-music focus; while it’s John Oszajca who remains going stronger than ever.

Starting with direct response marketing fundamentals, adapting online marketing strategies and then applying them (originally through trial and error) is where John found success marketing his own music online.

John also has the distinction of being perhaps the only notable music marketing teacher who not only shows you how to build a sustainable music career with his music marketing techniques, but was also successful enough in the end-days of the music industry to have been signed to a major label record deal and to even have performed at Woodstock ’99.

But enough about John, you’re reading this because you want to know if The Music Marketing Manifesto will help you reach your own definition of success.

Before I answer that, let’s get a few things out of the way about what the Music Marketing Manifesto isn’t. It’s not:

  • A magic silver bullet – this does require work and  possibly a significant mindset shift for the typical musician.
  • It involves collecting emails from potential audience members and getting them to respond in some way to offers to subscribe and buy your music.
  • It involves money. The course isn’t cheap and if you plan to truly execute on what you learn you can expect to pay for a website, web hosting and an email service provider as your minimal start up costs. To truly get the type of results that John’s best students get you’ll also need to invest money into advertising on sites like Facebook.

But enough about that, let’s talk about what you get with The Music Marketing Manifesto.

The Music Marketing Manifesto is about getting your music out in front of your audience and inspiring them to take action of some kind; either in the form of giving you an email address in exchange for some free music or by paying you in response to persuasive offers to buy your music.

If you buy this training, you’re going to get a crash course in digital marketing and everything you need to know to make it work.

From writing engaging copy, advertising, generating traffic, social media and website essentials to how to instill a sense of urgency and scarcity into your offerings so that the right audience is more likely to buy from you.

Having said that, it’s about as far away as you can go from focusing on the creative side of being a musician.

However, if you’re frustrated by your lack of progress and truly want to grow an audience who appreciates what you do (and is willing to pay money for it) then the Music Marketing Manifesto will ultimately serve you very well indeed.

Currently in its third incarnation, the Music Marketing Manifesto course focuses on the essentials that you need to succeed. John has refined his training over the years after working with thousands of musicians.

One change he now offers is a custom WordPress theme that allows you to easily build a squeeze page rather than having to build one in an html editor as in earlier versions of the course.

As I mentioned earlier, The Music Marketing Manifesto isn’t cheap but is worth every penny if you’re truly willing to apply what you learn and put in some effort. In the end, it’s a very small price to pay to build the foundation of a music career that could potentially build an audience that can sustain a musician for years down the road.

John knows his stuff and is still passionately teaching it to help musicians succeed with selling their music when most of his contemporaries have moved on to non-music industries.

The fact that his system allows him and his students to sell music online at a profit while paying for advertising is virtually mind-blowing; music is selective and undervalued. The entire industry has been turned upside down due to piracy and the MP3.

Yet John has managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat many times by successfully promoting music to audiences who are willing the pay at a profit.

I have every confidence that if you follow John’s teachings, your music career will grow or stabilize into a much better version than it was when you started.

I’ll say again that this training is definitely not for everybody. Most will lose their determination when they truly understand that nobody owes them a living, and that you have to work at anything if you want to taste success.

I recommend you watch John’s Music Marketing Manifesto video to see if what he says resonates with you and make up your own mind.

Music Marketing Review Bonuses

If you do decide to give MMM a try, I’ve decided to put together a bonus valued at $27 that complements what you’ll learn in his training. All you need to do is 1) Buy the Music Marketing Manifesto by clicking my affiliate link 2) email me your receipt and I’ll hook you up.

I put together a special bonus page here that gives you all the details on what you get for free if you decide to buy the Music Marketing Manifesto – who doesn’t like free right?

John’s been doing this longer than most and his training is second to none. I’ve been recommending his training for almost five years and if anything – it’s only gotten better over time. John takes the time to respond to emails and answer questions in the comment area of of his training. He has a customer support team and runs a solid business all the way around.

I don’t hesitate to recommend the Music Marketing Manifesto for these reasons. It will take work, but at last you’ll have a real strategy that works to make significant progress in your music career.

So if you truly ready to make your music career a reality, dive head first into The Music Marketing Manifesto and don’t look back.

 

The original Music Marketing Manifesto 1.0 review follows below.

I finally had the chance to check out a copy of the Music Marketing Manifesto by John Oszajca and thought you may want to know what my thoughts were on it.

There is definitely some solid information in this ebook, but at the same time I have to say that it since it was released in 2008 – it’s a little dated. In that time Twitter has grown and Myspace has declined, so you definitely have to factor that in when you go through the material. Plus this is a straight ebook – there’s no audio or video recordings to be seen. This is also an indication of how technology has progressed in the last few years.

However, none of this is John’s fault and he’s working on the next version of the manifesto which will feature video training along with other updates. As it sits, the manifesto is a great introduction to marketing your music online for those who are new – getting this book will certainly save you a lot of time as you learn the basics of internet marketing with a music industry slant to it.

However, if you’ve been reading up daily on all the music blogs – and you know about stuff like email marketing and squeeze pages – you’ll probably already have a good handle on what John reveals in this book. Personally, I was hoping that John would reveal a little more behind his success. He’s one of the few people offering this kind of training that has actually been on major labels and then switched over to a successful indie career. Yet, I’m left wondering how much of his success comes from his music career versus teaching others how to have an internet music career?

That is the thin line that musicians walk when they learn about internet music marketing – do they do just enough to remain mainly full time musicians or do they become seduced by the marketing and end up as marketers that also do music?  That’s something I’m wrestling with myself as I spend more time in front of a monitor and keyboard than playing my bass guitar these days!

So, my take on the Music Marketing Manifesto is this – if you’re new to online marketing and you want to jump in and learn the fundamentals in one place – buy the book. However, if you want current information and more video content, you’ll either have to wait for John’s Music Marketing Manifesto update – Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0, or you may want to check out Greg Rollet’s New Music Economy training instead (note – this product is now off the market).

I like what John reveals in this book and look forward to his video update. He has a unique perspective to offer and I hope he chooses to include as much of that as possible in version 2! Hopefully I’ll also get the chance to review it when it comes out!

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