Matt Campbell had a long history as a mobile DJ, spinning tunes at weddings, school dances, and parties in the 90s. But when he got married and moved to Las Vegas in 2000, he decided to try something new. Entrepreneurial by nature, Campbell decided to launch a wedding planning website, which he named Wedding Museum — a terrible name, he realized eventually, but the domain was just $10. And he was competing against giants like The Knot and WeddingWire, which often seemed like an uphill battle. “It was crazy,” Campbell says. Fortunately, he also had a day job as a purchasing manager at a computer components company.
Several years later, in 2014, Campbell made a gutsy decision. He loved operating his own company but he had enough self-awareness to know what he didn’t know. If he was ever going to make a go of Wedding Museum, he’d need to know a lot more about running and marketing an online business. So he decided to seek out a bit of on-the-job training.
Campbell quit his job and moved to an online marketing company where he took a big pay cut to build and manage Wordpress websites. “I thought I knew SEO but I found out really quickly that I didn’t know SEO,” he says. “That job taught me the skills I needed to optimize my website.” As a highly-motivated learner, Campbell was also an asset to his employer, he says, since clients benefitted from his new knowledge of web marketing. He remained in that job for five years before finally taking the leap and devoting himself full-time to his own company.
“I’ve also made a couple of connections from the [Culture Council] monthly meetups. Larry Dvoskin at Miracle Music has been inspirational to me.”
As he learned more about analytics and traffic, one metric stood out to Campbell: most of his traffic was going to the song lists on Wedding Museum. So he made a decision that would have an immediate impact: he rebranded the company as My Wedding Songs and focused solely on playlists. “And that’s when things just blew up and we got the hockey stick effect,” he recalls. The shift, he says, put him in a niche category where he has few if any competitors. Other wedding-related sites partner with a variety of vendors and offer a large menu of services, but Campbell sticks to what he knows best — music.
My Wedding Songs is monetized through advertising and Amazon affiliate marketing. Campbell started out with Google AdSense then graduated to more sophisticated platforms as his traffic increased. And he draws upon all of his accumulated experience at the web marketing firm. “SEO is a marathon, not a sprint,” Campbell says.
To keep his site fresh, he adds to his “new music” list every Friday, tapping Spotify and new releases on Amazon. “Being a DJ in the past, I'm still able to know what a great love song is, or can tell, ‘this is a breakup song,’ or ‘this song could potentially get everybody out on the dance floor,’” he says. Pre-pandemic, he also regularly attended DJ trade shows to make connections and to keep current on industry trends. Also on his radar: what’s trending on TikTok and iTunes.
As an entrepreneur in the music industry for decades, Campbell appreciates Rolling Stone’s high domain authority. “It all comes down to expertise, authority, and trust,” he says. “Having an affiliation with Rolling Stone [Culture Council] is extremely valuable.” Campbell is a regular contributor to Expert Forums and also writes long form articles. He adds, “I’ve also made a couple of connections from the monthly meetups. Larry Dvoskin at Miracle Music has been inspirational to me.”