REVIEW: My Experience Using Mayhem Music Services
Most musicians I know are a lot like me. We make music, release it and then don’t have much of a clue of how to promote it properly. That’s why there are hundreds of companies out there who provide promotional services. It’s hard to know what to choose and why.
I just released a new EP and it wasn’t getting the traction I wanted despite spending about a thousand dollars on ads through social media. My frustration grew so I ended up asking my friends if they had any thoughts. One of my friends suggested trying out a new service called Mayhem Music Services. He apparently had some success so I decided to try it out.
The first thing I did was submit my music. It took about two weeks for them to get back to me. I was curious if they approved of everyone so I sent them a file of white noise from a different email address. They didn’t get back to me so it was good to see they were actually listening to the submissions.
About two weeks later one of the account managers contacted me and let me know that my music was approved. They also told me they would be sending out my music to different PR experts to see if anyone was interested in offering me a campaign. It took about a week but eventually I got an email with three offers.
After some deliberation I decided to go with an offer that was around two hundred and fifty dollars. What I was promised was that my music would be sent out to 200 contacts. One reason I chose that option was because there was a minimum guaranteed amount of coverage. They said with this option they would secure at least four features. Additionally, they sent me a custom made list of Spotify playlists that was aligned with my music.
About two days later my account manager sent me a link to a spreadsheet. It was a cloud based spreadsheet that I was told would be updated throughout the campaign. At this point my PR campaign officially started. I was also told it would be about three weeks before I started to get the results.
I was patiently waiting and once three weeks came I was starting to worry. Somewhat ironically later that day I heard from the account manager that three features came in. To my surprise the features were from respectable publications and were very well written. The writers really took their time getting to know the music and went into details about each song. At this point I was excited to see what else would happen. I added these links to my EPK which helps with landing gigs and getting more press.
I had to wait another week but the account manager got back to me with another article as well as an interview request. This time around the publication which did the feature blasted out my music on their social media channels with 50,000 followers and also added me to their Spotify playlist. My account manager helped with the interview. It was done via email and I also provided them with promotional pictures I had. About a week later my interview was posted. The week after that I had another article come in.
I was very impressed with Mayhem Music Services. In fact it’s a lot different than many other services I’ve tried. There are submission platforms out there where you submit your music and then they will send your music directly to the curators. I’ve spent hundreds buying credits on these platforms and have gotten very little in return besides feedback about why my songs weren’t “good” enough. One of the things that made this a great experience was the account manager. The fact that I had a real actual human helping with the campaign made a world of difference.
I’ve worked with PR companies in the past including one very reputable name. For my first album I worked with a “premier” PR company and spent about 5000 dollars. For all that money I got three reviews and a bunch of mentions on tiny blogs. It sucked. Mayhem music services were a breath of fresh air in comparison.
I really don’t have anything negative to say although I was confused as to when the PR campaign was done. It sort of trailed off. When I contacted my account manager he told me he would let me know if anything else came in.
Overall, I was very happy with my experience and will be using their services in the future.
Colin Jordan
