Introducing: Personalised Music Messages

Are you a customer looking to create a Personalised Music Message? Browse musicians here.

The UK at the moment is filled with people stuck at home unable to celebrate occasions with their friends and family. On Encore we have hundreds of brilliant musicians now unable to perform live due to the pandemic.

Personalised Music Messages help connect these two groups by providing a quick and easy platform for customers to purchase a unique music video from you to celebrate a special occasion. 

It might be a recording of a first dance song for a wedding anniversary, or a happy birthday message for a grandma isolated in her house. It could even be recording your mate’s favourite song with corona-inspired lyrics to cheer them up! With this feature, we’re in the business of spreading the joy and comfort of music at a time when people need it most. 

Read on to learn how you can add this new service to your Encore offering and begin earning more while you’re stuck at home.

Contents

1. Useful links
2. How it works
3. Pricing
4. Getting set up
5. Marketing your music messages service

Useful links

Come to this page looking for some specific guidance on PMM? Here’s a list of handy links. If you’re here for the first time – feel free to skip this section!

• Video: How to film a PMM
• Video: Great example videos from Thom and Sam
• Video Webinar: How to get the most from PMM
• Link: The client-facing landing page
• Link: Your PMM dashboard
• Article: How to earn £1000 from PMM with Sam Burkey

• The PMM Marketing Playbook [PDF]
• Article: Template marketing messages for social media
• Video: How to email your past customers about PMM

How it works

1. Share your link. You share your unique music message URL* with your potential customers via email mailing lists and social channels. We recommend you include an explainer and example video in your marketing to increase your chances of people purchasing (see below).  
2. Customer completes form. The customer clicks on the link and is taken to a form where they enter all the information they need to create the video
3. Create the video. You receive an email notification with all the info you need to create the video. You complete the video within 48 hours and email it to [email protected] with the subject: “Personalised Music Message”.
4. Get paid. We send the client the video and take their payment. £2.50 from every booking goes to NHS charities to help support our health care workers through this time of crisis. 

*Your unique music message URL should have been sent to you in an email. In future, we will add a button to your profile with this link.

Pricing

Based on a survey of 515 potential customers we conducted, we’ve decided to begin with a low price point of £20 for a short basic video. This breaks down as £15 going to you, £4 going to Encore, and £1 going to NHS Charities. We understand this is not much, but our survey results suggest that this is the average price potential customers would want to pay. We’re also battling against a market which isn’t feeling like spending money right now.  

Some customers may want to pay you more, so to help you earn as much as possible from these videos, we’ve added the option for clients to add a tip to your fee once they receive the video. When discussing pricing with our beta testers they responded positively, citing the connection to charity and the opportunity to market to past clients are two other benefits:

• “Pricing was fine. I was concerned about it the other day but if this is the length of effort – 30 mins for net profit of £10 then that’s fine. For the level of investment and effort, the price was OK. No real hassle to do it.”
• “In terms of nice little gift for someone I can’t really ask for more than 15 quid.  It is personalising and if people asked for more songs you could put the price up. I thought the fee with the little bit to charity was perfectly reasonable”
• “The pricing doesn’t really matter. The endpoint is trying to get bookings – whether I get £10, £20, £30, £40 it doesn’t matter – it’s about trying to get scale and then get a band gig – that’s the end number, that’s the end game for me. It’s more of a lead gen activity for bookings. It reminds people of who I am, what I do and puts that into believable context rather than just saying “Hi, it’s me – have you got another party I can perform at?” – it reminds people in a nice way.”

How to get set up

Complete your videos

Most customers you contact about this feature are likely to be unfamiliar with the idea. So unless they know you well, they’re unlikely to take a gamble booking a video unless they see some evidence of videos you’ve produced in the past. To maximise your chances of winning bookings, we strongly recommend you create these two videos first. 

• Explainer video. This is a video in which you talk to camera explaining the service in your own words. This is a great opportunity for you to show off your personality, reassure your customers that you provide a quality service and increase the chances of someone booking you. Read our to creating an excellent explainer video here (includes video from our Bookings Executive Chiara).

• Example video. Before going public, make an example music message video so your customers know what the results will look like if they book you. Read our full example video guide here (includes video from our Designer Cláudia).  

Check out our new customer-facing landing page here to watch examples of the videos our excellent beta testers have produced so far. Here’s one by Encore singer Sam Burkey which we really like: 

Concerned that producing these videos might be a hassle? Remember that the skills you learn editing videos here will be applicable to other projects in the future like editing a live performance showreel. Here’s what one of our beta tests had to say:

• “This idea was really good for me because it got me into a project and learning video recording was new and it’s nice to develop these new skills. I sometimes get frustrated with myself when I’m shooting different takes and messing up but I really enjoy getting stuck into it and learning some new skills.”
• “It’s a nice thing to be making something a bit personal, it felt of value I suppose.  To be honest I’ve been meaning to put up videos for ages and this is kind of making me do it which is good.” 

Market your new offering

Ok, you’ve got your videos sorted – now it’s time to share your new music message service with the world! Here’s how: 

1. WhatsApp / Direct message (best converting). From our testing, we found people were most likely to book if they received a personal message from you letting them know about the service. If appropriate, we recommend you let the people closest to you know on WhatsApp or Facebook messenger (and tell them to share it with their friends). Again we’ve got templates for that here. 
2. Social media. We recommend you upload your explainer video to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with a short message explaining how it works. Browse templated social media posts here.   
3. Past clients. You have a list of people in the past who’ve seen you perform live and love what you do. Now is a great time to get in touch with them. Even if they don’t book you for a video, it’s a great opportunity to remind them of your services so you’re top of mind next time they need a musician for an event. Learn how to email your clients here (including a template email). 

 Send us your feedback

We really hope you enjoy using this new service and that it gives a useful new project and source of income during this tough time.

We’re keen to understand where it could be improved or developed. If you have any questions or feedback, please drop us an email at [email protected]..