Beth Ford is a 14 year old classical crossover artist from the UK and a friend of my daughter, Flo. They met in 2011, on stage at Symphony Hall, Birmingham singing 'The Impossible Dream' with tenor Alfie Boe and they have kept in touch.

Beth was keen to do something with her music but had no idea what to do. She had no following, beside the usual family and friends and a few fans of Alfie Boe who had kept in touch through his (now defunct) fan site. She had recorded a few cover versions at a local studio but done nothing with them.

Flo had been writing and recording a few songs (with help from tutors/mentors) but was generally unhappy with what she was creating. She is very young (still only 13) and her voice and style are still a work in progress. However, one song that she wrote, called 'If I Could Escape', seemed perfect for Beth's voice so she offered it to Beth and arranged for a friend to record it for her.

Having studied MMM, Flo set up social media for Beth across Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and Youtube and obtained a .com domain, all in the name Beth Ford Music (Beth Ford is quite a common name so the .com for Beth Ford was already taken and Flo wanted to be consistent across the web)

One of the biggest challenges that Flo faced was trying to describe Beth's style and get some initial social proof. She asked some of the people who she and Beth had 'met' through Alfie Boe to give feedback about who they thought Beth reminded them of and how they would describe her style. We also posted on the MMM insider circle and got helpful feedback here too. Flo used the feedback to create  a web page 'Introducing Beth Ford' that she sent to some 'friends of friends' who are established musicians, and asked them to give a review or testimonial about Beth. The page is here http://www.angrybaby.co.uk/int.....beth-ford/ Flo got three or four very helpful comments to use to promote Beth.

Then she persuaded a professional photographer friend (Nikki Lewis) to do a photoshoot for Beth and also persuaded Rugby School (a local, quite famous, private school with fabulous facilities and architecture) to allow her to take the photos on their site, all free of charge. The photos were amazing and very varied so they will come in useful for quite some time. If you are in the UK and need a photoshoot, I'd recommend you talk to Nikki. She specialises in photographing musicians, especialy in performance - take a look at her work at http://www.nikkilewisphotos.co.uk/

Rugby School has a private chapel on site. While Beth was having some photos taken there, her mom asked her to sing, so Beth stood on the altar and sang 'Pie Jesu' for her mom. I videoed it for her mom on my iphone - more about that later...

Once the photos were done, Flo created a consistent 'livery' across Beth's social media. She set up a squeeze page for Beth where she gave away a single track, a cover of the vaudeville/Judy Garland classic 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' that Beth had recorded a few months ago and which is in the public domain. The squeeze page is at http://www.bethfordmusic.com. Flo also set up a second squeeze page to encourage people to give 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' as a gift for their friends - it's at http://www.bethfordmusic.com/b.....-a-friend/ You'll see the testimonials from the music industry on there.

Flo's sister created a video for the song from some very basic footage that Beth's dad had taken on his phone on a weekend away. The videos were supposed to be for 'If I Could Escape' but there was enough to do something for 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' cutting in some royalty-free stock footage of ... rainbows! You might find somewhere on the Insider Circle a discussion about how to set up the YouTube channel so that Flo could add interactive cards linking to the squeeze page - it was tricky but we managed it between us.

Back to the video taken in the church. It was very basic, but rather special. Flo put it on YouTube with a very eye-catching custom thumbnail and. just on the off-chance, sent a link to it to the content curation site 'The San Francisco Globe' with the story about how Beth sang the song for her mom in an almost empty church. They picked it up and shared it. By the following day there were 20,000 views on the video. It was copied across other content curation sites and has now got about 128,000 views. Here's the link to SF Globe and if you google Beth Ford Pie Jesu you'll see other places where it was posted http://sftimes.co/2015/05/01/kRK/

Flo contacted local media (she already had contact with some stations and newspapers so she used those) and Beth appeared on BBC news, her local BBC radio station and in the local press as an 'internet sensation'

All of this was driving traffic to the squeeze page and getting sign-ups for the free track.

Then Flo sent 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' to an Australian radio station that has a 'stars of tomorrow' show. They played it, at the end of the month Flo managed a campaign to get people to vote for it and it became #1 in the station's chart for that month.

She also sent it to a number of bloggers that feed into The Hype Machine. One of them picked it up. From that, via a social media campaign, 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows' became #1 in the Hype Machine 'hot on twitter' chart.

Flo sent this to the local press who covered it. All the time, the campaigns were driving traffic to the squeeze page.

Flo used twitter 'follow and follow back' techniques to draw in potential fans and offer them a free track via a link to the squeeze page in an automated direct message.

A friend of ours who runs the ThoughtsofJustaFan blog, produced blogs about Beth which she posted on her site on Huffington Post and Flo included Beth in several of her own blogs on her Angry Baby site. Angry Baby is Flo's brand for her blog, music promotion and record label.

Sign-ups to the squeeze page were at about 350 when Flo launched the campaign for the release of 'If I Could Escape'. She set it up on CD Baby with a release date of 13 July, releasing it through her micro-indie record label 'Angry Baby'. Unfortunately it isn't possible to get pre-sales on a single, so Flo knew from advice on MMM that she had to get as many people as possible to buy the single on release day, all from the same store - she chose iTunes because her main objective from this campaign was social proof and Itunes is cooler than Amazon.

She set up a promotion offering 2 bonus tracks to people who bought the track on release day. Here is the web page she created to encourage new people to join in the 'countdown' http://www.bethfordmusic.com/c.....ld-escape/ Of course she emailed all the people on the list to tell them about it and encourage them to share a link to the page.

Flo continued to promote the countdown. Drawing on more networks, Beth was invited to launch her single at a VIP event hosted by another artist (Rebecca Newman) which exposed her to another audience and promoted more sign-ups. There were a few more gigs (including Flo and Beth reprising their performance of 'The Impossible Dream' at a local Pride festival - this time without Alfie Boe!) and more local press. 

In the last week, Flo focussed on a structured email campaign, encouraging people to purchase 'If I Could Escape' via ITunes on 13 July. 

Flo kept a look out on the ITunes related charts and on 14 July Beth entered the 'Art of the Mix' new releases chart, which draws data direct from iTunes, at #3. Right now, I have no idea how many sales were behind this but I'd be very surprised if it got beyond double figures - we had less than 10 requests for the bonus tracks.

We think that is an amazing result for a 14 year old artist with no previous track record and no advertising budget (because there is no chance of a RoI at this stage)

The next step is to release an EP in the autumn and a charity-related single at Xmas.

The squeeze pages will need to be updated, to take advantage of the social proof that has been gained from this campaign. The intention from the next phase is to continue to grow Beth's email list and possibly look to crowd-fund an album next year, although that is tremendously ambitious, isn't it?

Meanwhile, Flo is growing her Angry Baby brand. She publishes a weekly blog where she has started to give away a free track from artists who reach out to her (if she likes their music!) and is now linked to a couple of other blog sites, an 'Angry Baby' internet radio station and social media at Angry Baby Music. She is currently promoting 5 artists/bands via a campaign to get them placed in the Angry Baby chart. 

Through her blog, she has been given a summer job by a PR company to promote a young country/pop singer-songwriter to blogs and YouTubers, so she is gathering quite a lot of useful intelligence about how to pitch stuff to the media, as well as an extensive contact list. Not too shabby for a 13 year old. She intends to use her earnings to take a friend to the Harry Potter studios. Well, she is 13....

Anyway, I think that just about covers it. Except the metrics. You'd think I'd be good at metrics since I am an accountant, but I'm afraid I've let Flo down on that front - things have happened quickly and a lot of the time I haven't really known what she has been doing until it's done. So that's my 'must try harder' area.

Hope this is helpful. If you have any questions or advice, please ask/share - it's all learning.

And if you'd like Flo to include your music on Angry Baby, just ask.

Deb x

PS I'll get back to you on the metrics