John Oszajca said
Thanks for sharing all the details. It's a great way to keep yourself on track and I'm sure others will dig reading it. Glad I said Metallica and Alice in chains in your other thread. I hadn't scene these when I listened, nor had I noticed them in your sig. So My guess is that you are on target there. 

As for squeeze pages, host them all on one domain, so long as the top level of the domain is also a squeeze page. You just don't want to have any holes in your net is all.

My only real feedback at this stage is that you might want to try and find a way to tap into the experience that your potential fans are after rather than just comparing your music to other music. That works and all, but the experience is what people are really after. 

It also strikes me that you might simplify your comparisons. You mention quite a few bands which maybe confuses me more than helps. mentioning more than one can be cool if it sparks new imagery. But for example, everything you list in your sig kind of becomes a bit of a mess and I don't know what it is anymore.

Also, with your ads, don't mix targeting in the same ad set. One target interest per ad set. And sppeak directly to that demographic with your copy.

Maybe try this exercise. Mentally imagine a music video for your song, but you and the band are not allowed in the video and you have an unlimited budget. What imagery would you conjure up to sell the song? What setting would you use? What would the star of the video look like. What would he/she be doing? Distill that into a sentence and sell it with your headline.

AWESOME stuff, John. Thanks so much.

You're right about the smorgasbord of bands I have in my signature...it's clunky and I can see it not working as a headline for a squeeze page. I have the same signature on my profile on a few of those bands' message boards and I get a decent amount of traffic from that, so that was kind of my jumping off point.

In regards to the mix of targeting in the ad set...were you referring to my first campaign where I had "90s rock, grunge rock music, and hard rock music." or my 2nd one where I had "Velvet Revolver, Slash, and Scott Weiland" or both? I only ask because Slash and Scott Weiland are/were in the band Velvet Revolver so I assumed that is still kind of the same target....am I off in that line of thinking?

LOVE LOVE LOVE your exercise for coming up with a headline...gonna stew on that over night and put the axe to the grindstone over a cup of coffee tomorrow!

Thanks again!

Ok Final numbers after Day 2 of running the Velvet Revolver ad...

    -58 impressions
    - 3 subscribers
    -5.2% conversion (went down some…and 2 of the 3 conversions have not yet confirmed…so actual conversion is 1.7%)

So obviously, changes are in order...I loved John's advice about imagining a music video, so I went through that exercise and here's what I did...

First, like I do when I'm writing lyrics...I compile a list of words that spark the creative juices. I gave a listen to my song and came up with the words "fast, aggressive, perseverance, and overcome" I fired up thesaurus.com and was able to generate the following list.

FAST

RPMS
Speed demon
high octane
driven
acceleration
momentum
velocity
urgency
electric
racing
breakneck
hair trigger
hypersonic
supersonic
speedball
zooming
whizing

AGGRESSIVE

dynamic
energetic
red-blooded
high powered
kinetic
propulsive
sweeping

PERSEVERENCE

endurance
moxie
spunk
stamina
persistence
tenacity
guts
fortitude
mettle
grit

OVERCOME

conquer
crush
overpower
annihilate
demolish
decimate
exterminate
obliterate

As you can see...there's some real good imagery in a lot of those words and it got me in a awesome creative state. So, I gave John's music video exercise a stab...here's what I came up with....

Mentally imagine a music video for your song, but you and the band are not allowed in the video and you have an unlimited budget.

What imagery would you conjure up to sell the song?

-the idea of the video would be "training"…like a Rocky workout montage. I'd use flashbacks of the main character being defeated in many ways. In the example I have in my head the lead is someone who is training for something (the immediate thing that comes to mind is a boxer or MMA fighter)…and the flashbacks show all these times they failed or struggled…these memories play over and over again as the lead keeps pushing through their training while keeping their eye on the prize…maybe even have an opening shot of them hanging a picture on the wall of what their goal is (picture of a championship belt, perhaps) and have them contentiously stare at it while they train.

What setting would you use?

-dirty, grimy gym…definitely not an LA Fitness type place. There's no air conditioning in here. No fancy equipment. The plates are all rusty…you're here to work and sweat and get shit done…not talk on your cell phone while you trot 2.5 mph on the treadmill.

What would the star of the video look like.

-Woman…late 20s early 30s…fitness body type…has the look of an MMA fighter. hair pulled back in a pony tail and that stoic "takes no fucking bullshit" face. She's sweaty and dirty and has the eye of the tiger.

What would he/she be doing?

-She starts off the video posting up a picture of the championship belt on the wall in the gym. She starts doing squats as she stares that picture down. Her memories flash back to previous fights where she got knocked out, tapped out….flashbacks of training struggles….flashbacks of friends and family suggesting she throw in the towel. She's hitting the heavy bag now but again keeps her eye on the picture of the belt. She looks angrier and and angrier as the video plays on. More flashbacks…more intense working out…more determination in her eye. The flashbacks turn to flash forwards as she steps in the ring against the champion. The video ends with a shot of the champion looking unsure while our girl has the most stone cold "I'm gonna fucking crush you" look on her face.

Distill that into a sentence and sell it with your headline.

-"When You Need That Extra Spark To Overcome Your Struggles…The Crunching Guitars & High Octane Vocals of  The Liberty Underground Will Give You The Fuel That You Need to Crush Any Obstacle In Your Path."

…and now you can download their dynamic hard rock powerhouse track, "Never Let Up" for FREE!

So that's the major change I'm testing for day 3. Very eager to see how this goes!

http://thelibertyundergroundmu.....-04-09-14/

If it doesn't do well...the next thing I'm going to tweak is the Ad...I took a good long look t it yesterday and my gut is telling me that there may be some confusion with it. Velvet Revolver is no longer a band and there have long been rumors of new singers joining the group...I feel that people may be seeing the ad and saying..."Hmmm...if this guy in the picture is the new singer of Velvet Revolver.." or "Hmmm...I wonder what members of Velvet Revolver are involved in this band, The Liberty Underground." When they get to the squeeze page and realize that no one from Velvet Revovler is involved in The Liberty Underground, they could be clicking away.

50 clicks/day from a Facebook ad seems pretty good...especially since I'm only paying 20 cents per click...so I want to test the new headline first and see if I can pull the conversion numbers up before I do anything to the ad and potentially disrupt the amount of daily traffic its been generating.

Day 3 of Velvet Revolver/Slash/Scott Weiland target ad

-33 impressions

-4 subscribers

-12.1% conversion

a good bump...basically double...but not good enough!

As for targeting, you really want to just stick with one interest per ad set. While some things seem like they make sense, they often just don't. For example with MMM. I run ads to the CD baby crowd that do great. But Musicians Friend always bombs for me. You would think they were the exact same crowd, but they just aren't sometimes. Slash fans might be 40 year old G n' R fans while Velvet Revolver fans might be a completely different breed, even though there is some crossover. The difference can be huge with PPC.

That totally makes sense, John, and it's the first thing I changed today...targeting only Velvet Revolver interests. Since I also felt before that the Ad was misleading...that somehow, members of Velvet Revolver were involved in my band...I changed the copy of the ad and in doing so I came up with a great headline that I want to test. “If You Miss The Crunchy Riffs, Sleazy Guitar Solos, & Powerful Vocals Of Velvet Revolver…Then Check Out This FREE Download From The Liberty Underground & Satisfy Your Hard Rock Craving!” So I'm gonna run that today and she how she fares...I'll test the "MMA" style headline tomorrow with the VR crowd.

http://thelibertyundergroundmu......39-AM.png

http://thelibertyundergroundmu.....e-4-10-14/

My only thought is that it might be a little too dynamic and straying a bit from music, but hopefully not. It definitely conveys the feeling that you want, but so much so that it could be distracting from the fact that you are offering music. It almost reads like something that might connect with the MMA crowd vs Velvet Revolver crowd. Might even be worth trying an ad to that demo with a different squeeze page. But first things first… See how it does. Just make sure the picture on the page sells the same imagary that you are offering in your ad.

I hear you on that, John, and it's a good idea to test it to that kind of demo. Such a good idea, in fact, that I'm throwing a couple of bucks at a right column only ad targeting bodybuilders 25 to 50 in the US. I think that would be a good start. It's funny, the past few days I had a few friends on Facebook post about looking for workout music and it didn't click that hey....maybe I should try marketing my awesome workout track to people looking for workout music!!!

Here's the ad and squeeze page for that..

http://thelibertyundergroundmu......03-AM.png

http://thelibertyundergroundmu.....04-10-14b/

Back tomorrow with the results...

I waited a couple of days to post an update because I couldn't believe the results I was getting and I wanted to make sure it wasn't just a one day anomaly. It wasn't and I'm pretty stoked!

So I tweaked the Velvet Revolver ad and Squeeze page as noted above...my results over the past 3 days...

-34 impressions

-9 submissions

-26% conversion!

In passing, a student of mine mentioned how my song kind of sounded like the band Black Stone Cherry, so I created an ad and squeeze page targeting fans of that band. Here are the results for that over the past 3 days

-52 impressions

-15 submissions

-29% conversion!

heres the ad and squeeze page

http://thelibertyundergroundmu......19-AM.png

http://thelibertyundergroundmu.....-04-11-14/

I'm also only paying .29 per click and .86 per subscriber for the Black Stone Cherry ad. That seems like a pretty good rate, right?

The bodybuilder targeting ad hasn't gotten a lot of traffic but it's converting at 15%. Not too shabby. Could be better but I'm not that worried about it for now.

Just goes to show, you can totally turn your conversion rates up dramatically with some serious thought and simple tweaks!

Now, its on to fine tuning the sales funnel...

John Oszajca said
That's REALLY awesome man. I love seeing people take this stuff seriously, oput in the work, and turn their results around. Many just stop the second something doesn't work. Really awesome man. 

I consider anything under $1 per sub to be pretty good. I've seen cheaper, but .86 per sub is a winner in my book.

So just to summarize it in your words, what would you say is causing these ads/pages to connect while the others didn't?

I think what was happening with the first Velvet Revolver ad was that people were seeing it and going "Oh cool, they got a new singer.." or "Oh cool, this is Duff or Slash's new band..." and then they'd get to my squeeze page and see the simple (but generic) headline.."If You Like Velvet Revolver...Than You'll LOVE The Liberty Underground.." and back out because it's not what they expected or they just didn't care enough. It's a good headline for an ad to get someone to click to the squeeze page but it doesn't create an emotional reaction or experience to get someone to give away their email to WANT to hear my song.

After I went through your music video exercise (which was an awesome thing to do), I got creative and I put myself in the place of a Velvet Revolver fan, which I am. For one, they are not a band anymore, so there's a bit of scarcity or nostalgia about them. If you were a fan of a band and now they are not around anymore...you no doubt miss them! So, that got me started with a new ad headline "Missing Velvet Revolver?" From there, I thought about it from the fans perspective...What makes me excited about Velvet Revolver? What is it that I like about them? What's the comparison between Velvet Revolver and my band? I came up with the fact that Velvet Revolver has good heavy and groovy guitar riffs, cool guitar solos, and strong vocals...all traits that are shared with my band. Light bulb moment...that's what I like about Velvet Revolver...maybe that's what other people like about them too! I dressed up the language with some descriptive words that create a reaction "Crunchy Guitar Riffs" "Sexy Solos" "Powerful Vocals" "Satisfy Hard Rock Craving" ....just reading those words back, creates a reaction for me and I assumed that it would for others. An increase to over 20% in conversion tells me I was correct in that assumption!

While I was finishing up the last Velvet Revolver ad, my student came in for her lesson and I gave her the rundown of what I was working on. She mentioned that "Never Let Up" reminded her of the band Black Stone Cherry, so I thought, "what the fuck...test it out with that crowd..." I took the SAME idea that I came up with for the Velvet Revolver headline...."why do you like that band? What is it specifically..." and it's the same thing...riffs, solos, and vocals. I have the same headline for the BSC squeeze page, except I swipe out the band names....close to 30% conversion!!!

So, I think I have got the formula down for FB ads targeting fans of bands that sound similar to mine and the corresponding squeeze page to build my list. Now, I'm shifting focus to strengthening my sales funnel, as I have not yet sold a record from this type of marketing. My next post will detail my sales funnel, and hopefully with some input from you, help me troubleshoot where I'm losing the sale.

I love this shit....I don't even consider it work because I legitimately love every second of it. I spent so much time and energy learning the skills necessary to do a record all by myself, not to mention the time it took to actually write, record, and mix it, that it would just be stupid to not do everything possible to market it. While I'm proud that I did the record myself...I didn't do it to just pat myself on the back! I want as many people as possible to hear it and I want to make some goddamned money!!

Alrighty then...so writing out my process on this thread did wonders for my ability to turn the conversion rates of the squeeze pages around (along with some kick ass help from John)...let's see if it turns my sales #'s around too!

I've added 53 people to my list over the past 2 weeks. 16 of them haven't clicked the confirmation email, so 37 actual subscribers are what I am working with right now. As of right now, 54% of my list is on Email #2 out of 6 in my follow up series. I've had 7 leads go all the way through my follow up series...no sales. Now, that may be not enough of a sample size to accurately pinpoint the problem...but if I'm not selling 1 record for every 7 people who go through my funnel (14%), than my gut tells me something is a miss...

Here's the PDF of all of my Email follow ups...

http://thelibertyundergroundmu.....sion-1.pdf

Here's the stats on each one..

Email 1 - 95% opened - 85% clicked to download the free track

Email 2 - 45% opened - 21% clicked to watch my video interview

Email 3 - 47% opened - 6% clicked to read my blog post about being laughed at for my singing

Email 4 - 46% opened - 0% clicked the initial offer for free live album

Email 5 - 18% opened - 0% clicked the reminder offer for free live album

Email 6 - 62% opened - 0% clicked the final offer for free live album

Ok, so...the first question I have to ask are what are the average open and click rates that I need to be shooting for? I did a little research and from what I gather, average open rates for entertainment/musicians are in between 10-20% and click through rates are around 10%. Using those metrics, my open rates are exceptional (email 5 could be improved, but it's still industry average) and my CTR is good for the first 2 emails and horseshit for the last 4.

As you can see in my email copy, I followed the structure of John's template from MMM 3.0. Below is just me typing my thoughts out loud and working through the process of figuring this shit out

Email 1 - gives them what they signed up for...plus a little extra. 85% of the people are getting their free download, which is good.

Email 2 - is my "stump" speech. A video interview that explains my story, why I do what I do, what I've done to get to this point, and what the fans mean to me. It's got a decent click through rate, but I'm worried that the video might be too long...it's almost 15 min and it's also on autoplay. My intention is that it makes people interested in me...still wondering if it's working! http://thelibertyundergroundmu.....interview/

Email 3 - Gives my personal and true story how I used to be terrible at singing and then got better, contains social proof, and another free download. As we can see by my stats...not a lot of people clicking through. I wonder why? Could be the email copy is not strong enough? Could be they were turned off by the previous email and/or didn't find the interview compelling enough to care enough to find out more about me? I think I'll start with the copy and see what I can change there.

Email 4 - The initial buy 1 get 1 offer...with almost half opening and NOBODY clicking....somethings got to be up with the email copy. Does it come on too strong with the offer right away? That's my gut reaction when reading it...maybe butter them up for a paragraph before hitting them with the offer?

Email 5 - The reminder...shitty open rate leads me to believe that I need to change the headline. No one clicking through means the copy isn't compelling either.

Email 6 - Awesome open rate...no clicks...got to be the copy, right?

I'm going to spend some time over the next few days, monitoring the large batch of leads going through the funnel and seeing if the numbers bump, and rethinking the copy from the fan perspective. Any tips or pointers would be greatly appreciated!

Hey John, just for clarification, when you say 4-6% sales rate from the funnel...is that 4-6% of the subscribers? If so, that's extremely disheartening to hear as 100 subscribers from my Black Stone Cherry ad would cost me $86 and if only 4 of them buy (assuming no upsell) at $8.80 (what I'd clear after paying paypal), that would be $35.20 resulting in a loss of $50.80! That doesn't make sense, so something has to be wrong with how I'm looking at it, no?

John Oszajca said
Yes, 4- 6% of your total subscribers is considered good. Most industries look for just 1 - 2%. Higher is not uncommon. I have seen as high as 20%, with 10% being at the very high end. This is something that has been discussed at length in various parts of MMM. To make paid advertising work you usually (though not always) need to have an upsell or some additional profit points (such as live shows, additional albums, or house concerts) in your funnel. Your album is more of a loss leader with paid advertising so that you can make your profit on upsells and future promotions. For example, if you spent $1 per sub and got 100 subscribers, to whom you sold 6 albums for $10 you would have $60. Convert a $30 upsell at 20% (which is fairly low) and you would have generate $106. Only $6 profit but you would have a free list at that point and all future sales and promotions would be pure profit. That gets significant once you build up your list. But if you perform you can ad live show tickets and house concerts to the funnel and bring in a lot that way as well. Of course you can refine your ads even more to cut costs on subscribers and bring in profit without any of that. 

If that doesn't appeal to you, you can go after free traffic and it's pure profit right out of the gate. But I personally like the speed of paid traffic. It's not always easy, but may students have reported profit with paid ads, even without additional promotions. Though most had an upsell in the mix. Usually a box set. I have an interview coming up in a future podcast with a fellow MMM member who has been doing quite well with paid ads and generating profit right out of the gate. It's about two episodes away.

Hey John,

That makes complete business sense. I was really just looking at it from the wrong perspective. I do have an upsell in place, so we'll see what the numbers say when I start making sales. If you could chime in on these numbers and let me know if this what I should be shooting for, goal wise...

Cost per click on FB ads - less than $0.30

Cost per subscriber - less than $1

Squeeze page conversion - greater than 20%

Follow up email open rate - greater than 40%

Follow up email click rate - greater than 40%

Sales funnel conversion - greater than 4%

Upsell conversion - greater than 20%

Would those be fair numbers to shoot for in terms of averages?