Module 2 · Conversion Campaigns - What and Why? Lesson 5 of 30
Why should I run a conversion campaign?
Before you spend a dollar on ads, Zack makes the case for why you'd bother: engaged listenership can trigger algorithmic playlist placement and hands you real demographic data. But the lesson turns quickly to a harder question, why do you personally want to market your music, since streams, listeners, and followers don't count as an answer on their own.
He walks through his own who, what, where, why, and when, then has you do the exercise with pen and paper before reading his own answer out loud. It's for anyone spending money on ads without a clear reason why.
Read the transcript
0:01 What running a conversion campaign gets you
Why would I run a conversion campaign? The answer you want: to drive intentional listenership on Spotify, duh. The answer you want continued: get yummy side effects on social. The benefits of engaged listenership include triggering algorithmic playlist placements, and providing important information about your audience to you, for example demographic information, like what cities your music is popping off in so you can figure out where to tour, or even just age and gender stuff.
0:44 Why Spotify needs the data too
It gives important information about your audience to Spotify's algorithm too, this is super important because Spotify needs to know who to show your stuff to, so you've got to tell it. It makes you feel good, feeling good is important. It increases visibility and maintains your relevance as an artist to have your stuff being listened to, and it shows credibility, for example if your numbers are good, that can be helpful. Not my favorite thing in the world, but it's just true. If you're a producer and you've got lots of streams, people are going to like that. If you're a touring artist, they're going to want to see that, venues want to know you're getting numbers.
1:09 The real question: why do you want it
The answer you actually need is another question: why do you want to drive intentional listenership on Spotify? It's really important that you know your reasons, and get those yummy side effects on social. So why, not why do you create music, but why do you want to market it? This is super important, if you're going to be marketing it and you don't know why you're doing it, it's impossible to know how well you're doing, and you're just going to burn a lot of money. It's not for me to tell you why, I just want you to actually ask yourself, because I won't feel good about teaching this stuff if people are aimlessly throwing money at Meta and Spotify. That sucks, it's not good for everybody, it's not good for music, it's not good for you.
1:56 Reframing marketing as connection, not ROI
So I want you to know why you're doing it so you can get the most out of it. Let's consider marketing as connecting with your audience however you want, for whatever reason you want, way better than trying to maximize your ROI or whatever the f**k. So why do you want to reach your audience? I want to expound on this, because these are the questions you actually need to answer to create your conversion campaign, the questions you have to answer in the design of your campaign for them to even operate: who are you trying to reach, what are you going to reach them with, meaning the content, the music, the video, and so on, where are you going to reach them, which includes what cities and countries, really important, why, of course the number one most important thing, and when are you going to do it.
2:44 Zack's own who, what, where, why, and when
Here's an example of mine. My who: fans of folk rock, indie music, independent musicians, producers, engineers, et cetera, you actually have to define this in your audience when you create your campaigns. My what: my workshops and my music, sometimes I'm advertising my workshops or this course, you may have seen this from an advertisement, but we're going to focus on music here, specifically playlists and new singles when they come out, also album campaigns. My where: mostly Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, global for me, we'll talk about this. My why: to build community to support the new class of unrepresented artists, the ecosystem for independent musicians, that's what Magic Nothing's all about, also to sustain my artistic practice, I'm an artist and I want to have an audience, it helps me keep going, that's really important to me. My when: whenever I announce a new course and whenever I release new music, and always, because this is how I make my living.
3:38 The exercise: write down your why
So we're going to do an exercise. Given that marketing is connecting with your audience however you want for whatever reason you want, why do you want to market your music, why are you here, why did you pay money to take this course? For this exercise, more streams, listeners, and followers do not count as a why, why do you want more streams, listeners, and followers, let's go deeper. For a moment I actually want you to silence your phone, turn away from your computer, find some pen and paper, take a deep breath, and take three minutes to consider why you're doing this course, why you want to connect with an audience, why you spent money to learn how to do it at scale.
4:19 Extra credit: do it honestly, with a friend
I also want you to consider that this is a free write, so everything you write down, especially your first thoughts, is really important. Extra credit, do it with a friend, share your thoughts, and discuss, honestly keeping yourself honest here is really important, doing this with somebody else can be really impactful because it kind of forces you to think about it, it's not just 'I want more listeners because then I'll be famous,' which is maybe true, but think about how this can benefit you and how you can use it, and it will make it way more useful to you. I really mean that, you don't have to do these assignments, but the people who do will just get more out of this.
4:56 Zack reads his own why out loud
So I'm going to take a little pause, just pause the recording and try this, and then come back and we'll discuss. All right, here's my why that I wrote down: I want to market my music to build my fan base so I can play more fun, meaningful, impactful, and financially feasible shows. I also want to keep making records and would like to afford that lifestyle through music-related work. Lastly, marketing builds credibility around the courses and workshops and content I share online, and I want to practice what I preach and keep up with what is and isn't working. That's my why. I hope this was a useful exercise for you, and let's keep going.
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