147 – How to Hypercharge Your Music Career with Funnels – with John Oszajca of Music Marketing Manifesto

John Oszajca is in the house! Do you know what funnels are? Are you using them to promote your music? What level of success have your achieved with your marketing funnels? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, you’ll learn about this timely and vital topic from the best of the best – John Oszajca of Music Marketing Manifesto. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:11 – Four record deals!? – John’s story 07:16 – What led to your breakthrough? 16:50 – Trying and failing – finding a winning formula 20:56 – What type of results do musicians achieve with your method? 28:07 – What are the main upsides of using funnels to build an audience? 31:50 – Are there any hiccups or downsides to the method? 35:20 – What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur? 38:15 – What’s the biggest victory you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur? 43:47 – Are there any books or other resources that have helped you on your journey? 47:29 – Is there anything else I should have asked? Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today, I'm chatting with the creator of Music Marketing Manifesto and singer/songwriter John Oszajca. How are you today, John? John Oszajca: I'm great. Thanks for having me on your show. David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. And on that note, I know that in the space of music marketing, we can sometimes become precious about our ideas and methods but always find it such a joy to talk and share with experts like you. I always learn a lot. The more I dig into this niche, the more I find that there's probably only a few dozen of us or maybe a hundred of us out there doing this kind of thing. So, I want to thank you for your willingness to come on the show, and also for the important work you're doing for artists. John Oszajca: Thanks. Yeah, my pleasure. David Andrew Wiebe: So, I've done a bit of reading about you. One of the things I found interesting is that you had four different record deals, none of which really benefited you in the way you hoped it would. John Oszajca: I did. David Andrew Wiebe: So, what happened there? John Oszajca: Well. Yeah, so I can't say none of them benefited me financially, you know, particularly the first deal was very successful. That set much of my life in motion. So, I don't regret any of the experiences but certainly, when you're a young, aspiring musician, and we all dream of getting record deals, the idea is not just that you're going to fill your bank account, it's that you're going to go on to have a meaningful career and become a household name. So, cut me off if I go into too much detail, but the sort of short version is that, you know, like a lot of young musicians... I'm from Hawaii. I left my small town and moved to [unclear 02:01]. I went to Seattle first, later to Los Angeles in pursuit of success as an artist. I eventually, after a lot of hard work, a lot of, you know, I really hustled. I was one of those guys that really worked my butt off. I promoted clubs and pursued every opportunity I could to find success. I eventually did land a record deal after many demo deals and a lot of struggles. I signed with Interscope. The trade paper said it was the largest new artists signing in history. It looked very good for a moment. I had one of those deals where I was on a soundtrack and my song became the single for that soundtrack. It started taking off all over the United States. That song did. And I had no record deal but was getting heavy rotation on the biggest stations in the country. That's what sort of kicked by this big bidding war. But there was no album and by the time the album actually got finished, and by the time... I had Jimmy Iovine as my A&R rep, you know, the Head of Interscope, which sounded fantastic, but all it actually turned out to mean is that I had the busiest guy at the label as my A&R rep. And so, there was a lot of confusion. Music changed a lot at this time. This is back in like 2000 when there was that shift from alternative to sort of active rock, if you remember that. This is like when the No Doubt, Bex, and Sugar Rays of the world were supplanted by that Metallica, Korn, and Limp Biscuits. And so, by the time my album came out, it didn't really fit in the alternative world so it got ultimately put out on pop and hot AC. So, my album came out the same week as Madonna and 98 degrees. It was nothing like that music. I don't know. I had a few things stacked against me but at the end of the day, you know, I had a fantastic experience. I toured and had song/music on the radio across the country and was on MTV and all that kind of stuff, but I just didn't sell enough records. With no conversation about it, it was dropped. You just kind of get a letter to your lawyer. When some board makes a decision, or some, you know, not literally a board, but some... what's their committee that makes a decision. And was sort of back at the drawing board. I had a weird thing that's sort of a double-edged sword. I had this blessing of this massive publishing deal as well, where we're talking about a half a million dollars per album. The first one is even a bit more, but I was half a million on the second album but I needed the album to come out on a major label in order to trigger the advance. So, rather than just going back to doing what I did before I got that deal and going back to hustling, I was more of one of these... I don't know what you'd call it, but you know, I was... Not a studio musician but I was living in this industry bubble just trying to get another deal. So, years passed, frankly, I did eventually. I got a deal with Universal. That triggered half the advance as it got closer to release. Some shifts around there. They decided not to put it out. Then, I got a deal with a Warner Brothers sub called the Record Collection. They put it out as a one off, and that triggered the publishing but they did very little to promote it. And then a third album came out... sorry, a fourth deal, third album came out on an indie and it just sort of seemed to go worse and worse and worse, to be honest. But yeah, I wouldn't categorize it as a regretful experience. As I say, I still feel quite good about the things, the accomplishments that I had during that time. And you know, the albums did come out and I toured to support them and you know, had a blast. But yeah, it didn't... The people that promised they were going to do a lot of things on my behalf, in the end didn't do a lot of those things. I kept being, you know. At one point I was more or less put myself on a hiatus as I turned to try to figure out ways to make money without having to get a traditional job. I don't want to keep riffing and rambling on into the story. But that was chapter one. That was basically the sum total of those initial record deal experiences. David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah. And I'm sure there will be some benefit to any record deal, even if it's just a lesson that you learn along the way, which it sounds like you did. I'm just wondering, like, obviously, your music did not belong with new metal but was there any advantage to being placed with pop? John Oszajca: No, not for me. I don't think so. No. I don't think I really ever stood much of a chance in that genre. We really needed to come out when I had that initial radio success before the album was done. It was right for that moment and we missed the moment, I think. But I don't even know that that was necessarily it. I think anyone at the label at the time would tell you there was just a lot of confusion surrounding the album. Nobody was really shepherding the project, and I think that was probably my biggest downfall on that first album. David Andrew Wiebe: Seems like a common story with many of my favorite artists. I know that They Might Be Giants went through a similar thing where the label they were working with knew what they were about and how to market them. And then suddenly they were working with people that didn't know. They went independent from there. So, I can definitely understand where you're coming from. And I'm really interested in hearing about, you know, this is what led to the creation of Music Marketing Manifesto. I'm kind of fast forwarding but I'm wondering what sort of researching and digging you were doing at the time that ultimately led to that breakthrough. John Oszajca: Well, so where it actually started, and I always sort of neglect to mention this when talking about it is in the album number three that came out on indie, which basically meant I did everything to try to market it. And I knew nothing about marketing at this time. I want to say and actually I have to check the back of the album. I want to say this is 2005-ish, 2006 maybe. I don't know. But if you remember... I don't know how old you are but in the days of Myspace... David Andrew Wiebe: I remember MySpace. John Oszajca: Yeah. We all jumped on Myspace and bought these bots and spam the hell out of everyone saying, you know, "Click on this link." and send them to iTunes or CD Baby or wherever and hope that they'd buy our music because it was all we knew how to do. I did it too and the bots would always break because Myspace would change the way their sites work so the bots couldn't do what they did. And we'd all jump in or many of us anyway would jump in the support forums and start asking questions. I'd see all these other people in the forums that were using these bots to do other things to clearly make money online. It had nothing to do with music. And that was what first kind of made me go, "What's this? What's this make money online thing all about?" I did not jump into buying Myspace bots and spamming the world to try to make money but I started reading. John Oszajca: Actually,