How to Grow Your Fan Base With Just $5/Day
In Episode #32 of the Music Marketing Manifesto Podcast I am going to teach you how to grow your fan base using Facebook ads for just $5 a day.
This strategy varies from many other strategies that I teach in that it is less focused on lead generation, and more focused on slow and steady growth for the artist who is new to marketing, has had a hard time with Facebook ads, or who just wants to spend more time being focused on music and creativity than they do on marketing. The goal being that once you gain a bit of confidence in the process and start to see your audience grow, you can transition into a more advanced advertising strategy.
I’m sharing this strategy as part of the build up to the release of my brand new course, Music Ads Workshop 3.0. As it’s moniker might suggest, this is the third edition of the Music Ads Workshop. It’s a brand new program, filled with all new strategies and lessons, and designed to teach you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music, in light of the many changes that have taken place in the Facebook Ad Network over the last year or so. This will be a complete A – Z of Facebook advertising, and the course has been designed to be the definitive guide to Facebook Advertising for Musicians.
It goes live on December 6th, and there will be a special early bird discount and bonus for everyone who signs up early. To learn more, or to get on the early bird list, head on over to MusicAdsWorkshop.com.
With that out of the way let’s dive into the episode…
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Still have questions about Facebook advertising? Ask them below in the comments….
What are some of the considerations that a person has to make when adapting the Facebook advertising strategy to YouTube advertising instead? We’d rather use YouTube because it is the leading non-Spotify music discovery platform on and off the Internet and would like to target the niche audience that already likes our style of music in in the cities that respond to new music in this genre the best.
And yes, I realize there are likely a long list of really good reasons why this program encourages people to prefer/stick to Facebook advertising. But the spirit of this question is to specifically understand how to apply it to YouTube advertising in particular.
Thanks in advance!
Thanks!
Hi Dairenn,
Great question. What is your primary goal with the Youtube ad campaign? Is it to get streams up or is it to grow your email subscriber base? (as is usually my recommendation with Facebook ads).
Hi John!
Thanks so much for your reply, I really appreciate it.
It is Definitely to drive web site traffic for the purpose of list building/growing the email subscriber base.
Well, in my experience it is much more expensive driving traffic with Youtube as apposed to Facebook, at least for music. My impression of why that is, is because we can do a better job of provoking curiosity with text based copy. When we share a video and the actual music, we lose the curiosity factor and people don’t feel as compelled to take further action. However, if I was set on doing this kind of thing with YouTube I would try and make a short commercial that explained whop you were, and why a person might want to download some free music (much like I would do with an ad on Facebook). I would then pitch the URL in the video and in the description and run ads from within my adwords account, optimizing for conversions, and I’d target people searching for similar music. But once again, I suspect you will have a much harder time with this approach then with Facebook. If I was to use Youtube, I would be using it to retarget people that were already in the funnel and use a music video with a link to an album sales page.
I’ve had this bookmarked for months and finally got a chance to listen to it. This is a great podcast and just what I needed to hear. I purchased MMM 3.0 and it was a bit of a bear for me so I think this is a great way for me to stick my toes in. Thank you for posting it.
1 question: How long would you recommend running each ad? For example, if I post new content once a week, should I run an ad promoting that content for 7 days (budget allowing, of course) until I post the next piece of content? Should it be fewer days? More? Obviously, I’ll be ruled by my budget no matter what but I’m curious if there is a point where (on average) an ad has been up too long and loses its effectiveness, or not long enough and doesn’t get any traction.
Thanks again for posting this.
Kevin
Hi Kevin, Glad you enjoyed this episode.
With this approach I basically just run the ad until I publish the next piece of content. However, I also watch the ad prices and if they go up beyond what I think is reasonable I will either try a new ad, or kill it altogether, as some content just doesn’t resonate as well as others.
Hey John and Steve.
I purchased Music Ads Workshop 2.0 about 3 months ago and I’m VERY HAPPY I did.
The strategies still work with the exception of FB Ad’s recurring changes but are these new 3.0 strategies more so elaborating on how to do the 2.0 strategies better or the same strategies WITH brand new strategies like the one discussed on this Podcast?
Let me know when you can,
Thanks for all you guys do
Hey Jaron,
Glad to hear you enjoyed MAW 2.0. There will be some strategies that are similar at their core, but which are run differently now, with different options selected during set up and with different management tools. However, there will be some new strategies as well. The course itself is also set up entirely differently, and is a collection of more, much shorter lessons so everything can be very easily referenced. It will also come with an ad set up checklist to help keep you on track.
But if you bought it less than 6 months ago then you’re in luck… Everyone who ordered less than 6 months ago will get a free upgrade 🙂 Expect an email on that before it goes live.
Wow that’s awesome, thank you!
One last thing John, will these particular MAW 3.0 videos be downloadable like the ones in MMM? I know MAW 2.0 weren’t.
I didn’t need internet connection to watch MMM videos because I basically made a playlist for them so I wouldn’t need an extra browser tab open and I could quickly refer back to them on the fly.
If you’d rather not, no worries I just think it’s a nice idea. I believe Vimeo does allow you to alter the speed on embedded videos also which I think is a major plus but these are some just some ideas I had based on MAW 2.0 set up.
Again, thanks for everything you guys do!
Hey Jaron,
Yes, all of the videos will be downloadable. I had a different video player software back in 2016 when Music Ads Workshop 2.0 was released and it wasn’t an option at the time. But I will be using the same set up in MMM 4.0 for the videos so no worries there 🙂
awesome! thank you sooo much!
Hey John, excited about the upgrade! When should I expect the upgrade email?
Let me know when you can,
Thank you
Hi John,
Great podcast! I’d love to see the screen shots- where can I find them?
Thanks,
Sally
Hey Sally, I started off expecting to need a bunch of them, and in the end I only referenced one, which looked kind of awkward on the post, so I left it out. I’m swamped until after the 6th, but f you send an email to john@mmmanifesto.com after the 6th I’ll dig it up for you. Sorry about the confusion there.
This was seriously THE MOST valuable podcast I’ve heard to date, thank you for sharing this strategy! I’ve spent a lot of money on learning marketing but a lot of it ends up being ineffective because my fan base is still too small. So this strategy is phenomenal for where i’m at right now. Cheers!
Really glad to hear that Eden. Good luck with it, and let me know if I can ever help with anything at all.
Thanks John! The look a like part has me a bit confused because I don’t have a solid base of true fans (strangers really liking my style of music.)
In my case, my base, is not really an audience of “true” fans. Right now most of my followers are just friends and family throwing me a polite bone “like”. Do you know what I mean? So, how would that algorithm work?
I do know what you mean. In your case, a lookalike audience would not be an ideal option yet. Instead I would begin by targeting the fans of artists that are similar to your music. In time, your subscribers will grow, your traffic will grow, and your Facebook followers will grow (especially if you use the “invite” strategy that I mentioned later in the podcast. Once you have a decent number of followers in any of those arenas you can begin experimenting with lookalike audiences. The larger the lookalike audience, the better it is likely to perform.
I just listened to this. Thanks for sharing. I’m in the process of going through MMM 4.0 & am about to start on the FB ads part of the course. A few questions concerning this podcast:
1) Sorry if I missed this, but is the goal of this strategy to get FB page “likes”, or is it just for overall engagement (post likes, comments, shares, etc)?
2) While I do write & record some music, my largest artistic outlet is acting in live theatre, so most of my social media content is geared toward that (since I’m usually in rehearsals for a show). Question… can I post about my acting stuff (rehearsal photos, behind the scenes stuff, etc)… or other non music related hobbies/passions for that matter, or should I only tailor my posts towards the music I’m promoting through my squeeze page? Note: my FB page is Tim’s Acting & Music. So I cover both, in my page. These music promotion courses can get confusing for me, because I have multiple artistic passions that take up much of my time.
On a side note to question #2…. I’ve been listening/following you for some time (love all of your content). A common theme is the importance of building relationships (which I totally agree with). I would think “relationship” building goes beyond what an artist is doing musically. How much content should be “day in the life stuff” vs music specific stuff?
Thanks for your help!
Tim
Hey Tim,
Thanks for listening. Hope you’re enjoying Music Marketing Manifesto.
1. The goal is not specifically to get likes. It is to simply attract an audience in the form of subscribers and social media followers. The purpose of this as apposed to the more ROI based strategy taught in MMM is simply to take the pressure off, while still creating that following that you can go back to later with your promotional offers. This does not replace the strategy in MMM. It’s simply a less daunting starting off point. If you have an MMM funnel in place, then all the better.
2. This all depends on how you define your brand. In MMM we discuss the USP (unique selling proposition). This is very important before you begin your marketing because it answers all of these kinds of questions. I don’t know enough about your music to really comment on what you should or shouldn’t do, but, for example, let’s say your USP was “Promising stage actor inspired by a dream to become a composer and give a voice to the society’s marginalized people” (this was an actual USP that I used for a client once), then sharing your acting videos would be very “on brand” and would make a lot of sense. If the theater has little to do with what is ultimately unique and appealing about your music, then sharing that kind of content would make less sense. In short, figure out who your audience is, figure out what they want, and then give THAT to them with your content.
In terms of your side note/question… again, I think this comes down to what is appropriate for your brand, and for you as a person. Sharing day in the life stuff is great, so long as it makes sense for your brand. For example a punk rock artist would do well blogging about a protest that he was just involved in, regardless of the fact that it had nothing to do with music. But sharing a cooking video in which he makes chocolate cake would be less appropriate. Know what I mean? If it feeds the interest that you believe your audience has, go for it. If not, save it.
Hope that helps, and thanks again for the kind words.
Love. This.
This sounds like a great way for me to get started. But I’m also very interested in the new course. Thanks for the step by step.
Glad you liked it Lisa. Thanks for your interest in Music Ads Workshop. Let me know if you have any questions.