How an Agency Founded by a Drummer Sent Bands' Merchandise Sales Soaring

David Puckett, a drummer in the metalcore band We Came As Romans, found it nearly impossible to connect with the band's fans in the way he wanted. When the band went on tour in 2007, it did what bands typically do—rely on third-party merchandising and ticket vendors to manage sales. But those partners held onto the sales data, limiting We Came As Romans' ability to connect directly with its fans or understand fan buying habits. "Not only is all of that customer data scattered between all of our different parties, we don't get any of it. None of it. You can buy $100 worth of merch at our merch table on tour and we don't get your information. The credit card processing company and the inventory management software company does," said Puckett. Audience segmentation is table stakes in digital marketing and crucial for DTC brands that must nurture customer relationships to thrive. Musicians need to use the same strategies, but have traditionally lagged behind DTC brands that tapped into audience segmentation strategies to gain scale and market share. The data gap was one thing, but historically, artists had to get by without a full marketing team's knowledge of audience segmentation and media buying. This combination left artists without the means to craft digital marketing strategies with any scale or effectiveness, limiting online sales and artists' incomes. To solve the problem, Puckett founded Hyperculture Marketing Group. The agency specializes in DTC marketing, leveraging customer data to connect directly with fans and increase artists' ecommerce sales. Now it's a go-to marketing agency for artists including Alicia Keys, Megan Thee Stallion, Mötley Crüe, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown and Papa Roach. Overall, the company's turnover rate is under 10%. Brandweek 2022: A Conversation on Entrepreneurial Spirit With Pharrell Williams "I realized that the music industry—specifically from the artist's perspective–is the only industry that exists where a brand that's driving the transaction is completely separated from their customer data," said Puckett. 'Owning the fan relationship' The data gap led to tight incomes for artists. "I quickly learned that the profit margins of being in a rock band aren't great, no matter how great the band is doing. We toured full time eight to 10 months out of the year for five years before I saw my first paycheck," Puckett told Adweek. To find the root of the problem, Puckett dug into artists' contracts and found that most of them didn't own their own data, making it impossible for them to benefit from any of the transactions their brand drove. Nobody ever pointed out "the importance and the power of owning the fan relationship," Puckett said. This meant that if an artist wanted to send an email blast to all their previous online merchandise buyers, they couldn't do it themselves. The problem is pervasive and not specific to smaller bands. Puckett is now working with Alicia Keys to build out her email marketing list from scratch. When Hyperculture signed Mötley Crüe, Five Finger Death Punch and Shinedown, they all had to do the same thing. "I've been in a handful of different industries and realized that the ability to scale any DTC initiative really lies in your ability to communicate directly with your customer. And know as many truths about your customer as possible," said Puckett. Artists are DTC brands When he took over marketing for his own band, We Came As Romans' ecommerce sales increased by 1,100% within about six months after the brand retroactively gained access to its historical customer information, reformatted it and then built its email marketing, SMS marketing and paid social initiatives to reach the right fan cohorts. Heavy metal band and Hyperculture client Ice Nine Kills' DTC sales increased significantly once it began working with the agency. Between October 2021 and September 2022, 40,000 orders on the band's web store generated $2.5 million in gross sales, which more than doubled its sales, according to Mike Mowery, an artist manager at the entertainment management and marketing company 10th Street Entertainment who manages Ice Nine Kills. "What Hyperculture has been able to do is help us allocate our ad dollars in an intelligent way, where we can target those people most likely to purchase on our merchandise drops," said Chris Nilsson, president at 10th Street Entertainment. "To be honest, I think the strategy before that was that we didn't really have a coherent strategy." The agency also unveiled insights for Alicia Keys when it tested multiple audience segments for her. Keeping her beauty and wellness company Keys Soulcare in mind, it researched audiences that had a high affinity for self care and wellness. The cost per click on the audience averaged $0.09 on Instagram, which Hyperculture found roughly 23% higher than a standard affinity artist or genre-based prospecting audience. But the agency tracked the audience's consumption and discovered that it consumed 30% more content across video and DSPs than the standard affinity artist audience. The research revealed that Keys' team should not only continue to spend on that audience, but pull budgets from audiences that were consuming content at a lower percentage and reallocate them to target the more engaged group. "If you don't share the data and make it accessible to all avenues of your business, you're not getting the ultimate benefits because these partners out there are working on your behalf," said Randy Nichols an independent tech industry consultant and an artist manager at Force Media Management. "Having a company like Hyperculture not just manage your ad spend, but help you understand how to build that infrastructure and manage it, is just game changing."