Tommy Cullen

TRAININGS COMPLETED:

• The Buddy System
• Selling Tickets for Live Shows
• The $1-A-Day Traffic Plan
• How To Get New Fans Daily (Fan Finder)
• How To Turn Listeners Into Real Fans
• Email Marketing for Musicians
• FREE + S&H Funnel Strategy
• How To Profit From A Launch Campaign
• How To Generate Sales Year-Round
• Grow Your Email/Text List
• Spotify Field Guide

How long have you been an IndiePro member?
3 years or so, I *think*!

Please give us a brief overview of your activity and progress since joining IndiePro?
I cut my teeth with some Fan Finder/Spotify type ads at first, then built a UAL campaign to release my debut album. From that point I increased my focus on acquiring new subscribers and customers, and have successfully built my list up by around 500 people in this time. I also created well over a hundred pieces of short-form content to support the album release (probably hundreds at this point, I haven't counted), along with a couple of full-length one take videos that are currently driving the majority of my growth.
This year I also played a number of shows around Ireland, drawing on the live show training to sell tickets in some cases.
I rebuilt my whole site in the CRM, and also used the CRM's funnel builder to set up my first FSH campaign, which has been running consistently and successfully for the past 10 weeks. This has massively ramped up my customer acquisition.

Here's the FSH link
And my website

Please describe your growth, achievements, and success, over the last 12 months:
I publicly released my first album this year, preceded by a UAL campaign which initially grew my mailing list to around 250 people. Played my biggest hometown show to date to launch the record, selling around 150 tickets using the methods detailed in the live show training. In the past 10 weeks I have implemented an FSH campaign which is now getting me around 30 new customers a week at roughly break-even. I'm about to sell out of my 3rd and 4th batches of CDs since beginning this campaign. I now have a customer list of over 300, using my evergreen UAL as an optin bribe on the checkout page (I'm in a GDPR country) - which has begun to yield repeat purchases of vinyl etc. My mailing list is currently at around 540 members and growing every day, and in 2024 I have earned 5 figures in revenue from my music for the first time ever.

Lastly, please tell us why you think you should be a finalist for the Breakout Indie Award:
Honestly, this felt like the year that my music career has begun in earnest. Having spent many years writing, recording and performing, to finally finish a full-length album that I am really proud of was a huge personal achievement. Having said that, I was entirely determined to make sure I didn't release it to crickets.
I dug in hard this year on my marketing, and have spent long hours shooting videos and building funnels, web pages, email campaigns and numerous ad campaigns to get my music in front of people who truly love and support it. This has, almost undeniably, made 2024 my most successful year ever.
The fact is, I now have hundreds of (financially!) supportive fans who had never heard of me a year ago - and the vast majority of these were acquired thanks to Indepreneur (the Fan Finder, UAL and FSH trainings specifically). As mentioned, I made 5 figures from my music for the first time this year. This was largely through merch and ticket sales, accelerated hugely in recent weeks with my cold FSH campaign.
As I live in Ireland (pop. 7 million), I've expanded my FSH to a handful of EU countries and am currently getting an incredible response from the Netherlands in particular. International touring has never seemed like an immediate possibility, but soon enough I think it will!
As I weather the storm of December CPMs, I will be testing a few new DCT ads and trying to optimise the campaign as best I can. In 2025 I then plan to ramp up my budget and see how far this FSH can take me.
Essentially, I feel like I have made the transition to a 'proper' professional artist this year. This was thanks to IndiePRO, so whoever's reading this - thank you!