The Online Musician 3.0 Review 2024; A Hands On Look At Leah Mchenry’s Course
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This is a hands-on review of the Online Musician 3.0 course – yes, myself and my team have gone through the videos! In this review I aim to give you an idea of what you can find in this course, and help you decide if it can actually help your music career.
As they mention, The Online Musician 3.0 is the most comprehensive step-by-step course to help you become an “online musician” and create a profitable and sustainable music career in the new music industry. The training is delivered in the form of videos, worksheets, & a supportive community.
Ok, so let’s have a look inside the membership area, at the lessons, the price and more. We’ll offer our verdict of the course at the end.
But first, if it's your aim to do music professionally, you'll want to check out our free ebook while it's still available:
Free eBook: Discover how real independent musicians like you are making $4,077 - $22,573+ monthly via Youtube, let me know where to send the details:
Contents
The Online Musician 3.0 Course Content Review
The Online Musician 3.0 is made up of seven modules with specific focuses. They are as follows:
- Module 1: Mindset & Goal Setting
- Module 2: How To Become The Big Fish In A Small Pond
- Module 3: Create Your Music Culture
- Module 4: Branding Bootcamp
- Module 5: Your High-Converting Website
- Module 6: Build Your Audience With Social Media
- Module 7: Monetize Your Music
These modules, however, are surrounded by introductory content (housekeeping, etc.) as well as The “Vault Of Knowledge” and a bonus module called Create & Launch Your Album.
First, we’ll be looking at each of the modules from a bird’s eye view, though we’ll also be covering a few lessons titles and what they help you accomplish.
We’ll be looking at the “Welcome” module to start things off.
Welcome
The course begins by helping you identify where you are in your career. After all, depending on what stage you’re in, you should be taking different actions.
Many musicians are already doing the right things, but are taking steps out of sequence, which limits their effectiveness in reaching their goals and building the careers of their dreams.
It makes sense. You’ve got to tailor your actions to your present circumstances. You’ve got to know where you’re starting from, where you want to end up, and how to get from A to B.
This is the focus of The 6-Figure Music Map, a 60 minute+ introductory training that shows you what elements you need to have a successful career in music online.
Module 1: Mindset & Goal Setting
Mindset is critical to success in any capacity. Musicians who haven't studied personal development or business may not know what the term “mindset” means, which is one of the reasons it needs to be addressed in detail.
Instructor McHenry does a good job of explaining the concept as well as the mindset you need to be able to reach your goals as a musician.
Having a strong mindset helps you navigate the challenges that are coming your way, invited or not.
Of course, musicians don’t all have the same goals.
So, identifying what you want to achieve and charting a course for achievement is essential to your success. You can’t get to where you want to go without knowing where you want to end up.
In summary, in this section, McHenry offers tips on how to make the most of the course. She also helps you identify your purpose and set your plan into motion.
Module 2: How To Become The Big Fish In A Small Pond
You’ve probably heard the expression “big fish in a small pond” before. The idea is that, in one way or another, you stand out from anyone else who might be occupying the same space. The benefit of standing out as a musician shouldn’t be lost on anyone who's been building a music career for a while.
So, what specifically are we talking about here?
This module is about finding your micro-niche. That’s right. The niche wars might be over. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find an even more granular niche pond occupied by very few fish.
Where musicians often get stuck with this idea, is they never wanted to pigeonhole themselves to begin with. So, catering to a niche within a niche seems counter-productive.
We’re not here to tell you one way or another, but McHenry’s method revolves heavily around finding your micro-niche, and by doing so, you can create a category all your own, instead of competing with every musician who says they want their music heard by everyone (hint: even The Beatles had haters, and they’re one of the most influential bands of all time).
Module 3: Create Your Music Culture
In this module, you get to learn how to build a culture around your music. This might sound a little “out there” at first, but the basic idea is to create a community. And to create a community, you need to attract a specific audience who’s interested in specific things.
Many musicians aren’t even aware they should be catering to a niche audience. So, they end up taking these steps out of order, which can severely limit their effectiveness.
McHenry’s method of creating a culture is built primarily around social media (Facebook especially).
This module also features multiple culture building challenges you can take to help you grow your community fast.
Module 4: Branding Bootcamp
Google “branding” and in the articles you read, you’re sure to see words like “colors”, “fonts”, and “logos” (with a generous hint of “consistency”) stick out at you. While these elements are important, they aren’t your brand.
This can make branding a confusing topic. After all, if you can’t learn what it is or how it works from a Google search, then it must be complicated, right?
And many musicians either don’t know they should have a brand or don’t understand its importance. This stops them dead in their tracks.
So, in this module, you’ll get to learn what branding is all about, how to do it, and what it can do for your music.
Module 5: Your High-Converting Website
It’s my opinion that every musician should have a website. But I like the idea of a “high-converting” website better, as it means your website is working for you and capturing leads or sales, even when you aren’t. After all, your website is serving visitors 24/7.
In this module, you’ll see exactly what a high-converting website template looks like, examples of effective websites, how to install your Facebook pixel and more.
There’s a lot of helpful information here to ensure your success in setting up and managing your own high-converting website.
Module 6: Build Your Audience With Social Media
Social media plays a critical role in your strategy as an online musician. If you want to separate yourself from the crowd, your strategy better amount to more than blanket call to actions like “buy our music now!”
There’s a time and place for call to actions, but you’ve got to put relationship and connection first.
In Module 6, McHenry helps you create your social media marketing plan and gives you content strategies that work. You also get in-depth lessons on Facebook and YouTube, what most would consider the most powerful and useful social media platforms for musicians.
Module 7: Monetize Your Music
Every musician wants to make money from their music. It’s easy to get caught up in the mainstream narrative, however (e.g. gigging is the only way to make money in music, there’s too much competition out there, streaming pays nothing, etc.). If you buy into all that, you probably won’t make much money from your music.
The mind is an amazing tool. If you direct your thoughts to positive outcomes, it will guide you there. The opposite is also true.
In this module, you will learn several monetization strategies, including merchandise, digital downloads, digital distribution and publishing, online fan clubs, and more.
Making money from music is possible after all.
The “Vault of Knowledge”
The “Vault of Knowledge” could also be considered the “miscellaneous training” section of the course. Bonuses are always nice, right?
There are some compelling sounding trainings here, including Quick Cash Generation Guide, Busy Musician Bootcamp, Songwriting Tips and so on.
You can also find Q&A videos inside.
Bonus Module: Create & Launch Your Album Online The Smart Way
The bonus module is relatively self-explanatory. Here you will discover how to plan your music release, what you should do once you’re done in the studio, how to launch your music, what you should do on launch day, and how to use press releases to promote your new music.
Building excitement for a release can be a challenge, especially when you consider that you’re going to be putting a lot of work into the release itself. But if you had a step-by-step method for promoting that release before and after, you’d naturally build a lot more interest in it.
How The Course Is Delivered
In this section, we will be taking a closer look at how the Online Musician 3.0 course is delivered.
We’ll look at the type of content you get access to, how much training is available, select lesson titles and more.
Let’s get into it.
How Is The Content Delivered?
The main content is delivered via video. Some of the time, you get “talking head with whiteboard” style videos, and most of the time you get slide deck presentations. This helps keep the content varied and engaging.
The content offered, however, is quite comprehensive. In each lesson, in addition to video, you also get audio. In addition to audio, you also get PDF downloads. Further, there are plenty of helpful links to additional resources you may find valuable.
This certainly supports the notion that this is a “premium” course with all the goods.
Do You Get Instant Access To The Content Or Is It Dripped Out?
As a member of Online Musician 3.0, you get instant access to the first module of the course. The rest of the modules are dripped out over 6 weeks at the rate of one a week. This is so you have time to go through all the information in each week's module and start to implement what you learn without becoming overwhelmed.
After 6 weeks are up and all the modules are available, you can jump around from module to module and lesson to lesson as need be.
How Much Training Is Available?
Each module has an average of seven videos of various lengths. Some are 30 minutes. Some are 60 minutes or longer. And there are also some shorter videos, at four minutes or so.
With the amount of content available, the price of admission certainly makes sense. There’s a lot to sink your teeth into, and if you’re planning to act on the information available (which you should), you’re going to be at it for quite a while.
Select Lesson Titles & What They Help You Accomplish
We’ve looked at what’s available in Online Musician 3.0 from a high-level view. Now it’s time to look at some of the specifics.
We can’t give everything away, but in this section, we’ll be covering a few lesson titles and what they help you accomplish.
Build Your Facebook Community Around Your Culture
From Module 3 on creating your music culture, this lesson covers the specifics of how to set up your Facebook Community.
McHenry covers all the bases, like:
- Why you should set up a Facebook group
- What to name your Facebook group
- How to run your Facebook group
- What to post in your Facebook group
- How you can turn community members into customers
She also explains why you need to prioritize the creation and growth of your Facebook group over your Facebook page.
Website Template Walkthrough
This lesson comes from the high-converting website module.
Now, it’s all well and good that you know you need a website. But how do you set it up? How should it look, and how should it be organized? What content needs to be on there?
This lesson shows you the various components that need to be on your website, their importance, as well as how they should be positioned.
So, this is a great example of a lesson that takes you from knowing nothing or a little to becoming an expert on how a website should be set up.
Digital Music & Downloads
This lesson can be found inside the monetize your music module, and as you can probably guess, it gets into how you can make money as a musician with digital music and downloads.
McHenry covers whether you should distribute your music on streaming sites, products you should make available on your store, how to incentivize your fans to buy, how to price your products, as well as how to build a relationship with your fans and gather their feedback for the creation of future products.
There are some concrete tactics here on how to get more sales for your music – something many musicians assume is impossible in today’s streaming-oriented culture.
Who Teaches Online Musician 3.0?
Self-proclaimed six-figure musician and mom of five Leah McHenry is the instructor of Online Musician 3.0, and we’ve covered her bio in detail before. So, here’s the Reader’s Digest version (if you’re interested in learning more, you can always go to her website):
- She started her music career after starting a family (and she admits she got this “backwards”). This meant she couldn’t tour.
- Instead of giving up, she started learning how to build a music career online.
- As result of her ongoing efforts in studying online marketing (and a strong focus on building a niche audience), she managed to build a six-figure music career from home.
- She now teaches other musicians how she did what she did and is the face of Savvy Musician Academy, a site that’s home to several courses for musicians (with Online Musician 3.0 being the most comprehensive offer).
How Usable Is Online Musician 3.0?
In this section, we’ll briefly touch on how usable the course is. This includes things like navigation, user interface, progress saving, and so forth.
We’ll talk more about specifics in a moment, but from a zoomed-out view, The Online Musician 3.0 has a simplistic interface. The branding, theme, and color scheme carries throughout, which helps unify the content, and never leaves you feeling like you’ve ended up somewhere you weren’t supposed to.
Overall, it’s a good no-frills platform with some minor design embellishments to keep your attention (mostly the videos).
Now, let’s examine some specific aspects of Online Musician 3.0.
Is The Members Area Easy To Navigate?
As with any platform, navigating The Online Musician 3.0 may take a little getting used to. But overall, it doesn’t get much simpler than this.
Each module is organized by category, so any time you need to choose a module, you can simply click the link that says “< Back to Categories” and you should be good to go. Each lesson also features handy “Previous” and “Next” buttons.
In some cases, lessons are bundled within “Subcategories”, and this isn’t entirely clear at first. Good thing to look out for if you end up taking this course.
The course platform also has a built-in menu, so if you’re taking a lesson, want to get out of it, and don’t see any other navigation links, you can simply open the menu and navigate to your desired modules and then lessons.
The Online Musician 3.0 gets an A in this regard.
Is Progress Saving Available?
Yes. It’s possible to mark each lesson “complete”, and there’s also a progress bar for every lesson/video, indicating how far you are into it. Convenient!
You should never lose your place while taking Online Musician 3.0, and if you do, it won’t feel like losing your place in a big book. You should be able to find what module you were on, and pinpoint which lesson you were taking with relative ease.
Online Musician 3.0 Review – The Verdict
We’ve previously looked at Leah McHenry’s Savvy Musician Academy and the various courses she offers. That said, the Online Musician 3.0 course is McHenry’s flagship course – and boy does it deliver.
I’ll admit, it’s quite a bit more expensive than some of the other music business courses we’ve reviewed. But it also provides a lot of training, and is quite extensive in what it teaches.
That said, before you join it’s important to be aware that Facebook ads isn’t covered in detail. Some current members feel like it should be covered more in-depth, but unfortunately it isn’t. If you want more in-depth Facebook training, the Savvy Musician Academy offers an additional course you can buy outside the Online Musician 3.0 if you want to upgrade.
Overall I feel this is a good course. If you connect with Leah and want to learn from her specifically, it’s worth giving a try. You really need to like the teacher, e.g. some connect more with myself or David.
With a shift in the way the world runs, doing music mainly online has become an increasingly attractive proposition. The Online Musician 3.0 aims to help more traditional musicians transfer into this way of doing things, and as this review shows they do it quite well.
P.S. Remember though, none of what you've learned will matter if you don't know how to get your music out there and earn from it. Want to learn how to do that? Then get our free ‘5 Steps To Profitable Youtube Music Career' ebook emailed directly to you!