A few more thoughts...

One thing I am starting as a result of this training (incidentally, I'm posting here because I got errors posting to the monthly training forum section) is to focus on the EXPERIENCE my fan is trying to create.

Part of this shift in focus includes testing a squeeze page redesign. My current squeeze page, which actually converts reasonably well, sells Charley Langer rather than an experience. It converts non-PPC at 25-35% (depending on source), and PPC at about 20%. My new test page includes visual and verbal imagery that I know is appealing to my fans, and I am pretty sure I can get my conversions up with some experimentation.

My cost per click is 0.05 (search engine network, not FB), and that gives me low double-digit subs per day. I'm shooting for 50 subs a day. Yes, I'm bidding bottom of the barrel. It doesn't seem to help me much to pay more -- I just burn through more cash on "casual clickers."

What you have inspired me to do is get my conversions up AND go after other key words that fit my demographic. If I think about the experience my fan is trying to create, that opens up a whole world of new key words. 🙂 I'm pretty excited about that. I'll let you know how it goes.

One thing that I think those just delving into this should keep in mind is, at least in my limited experince, PPC subs may not convert in sales from your website as well as more "organic" subs. I suspect that my PPC subs tend to look at me as more of a businessman than this unknown, wonderful artist that they discovered. On the other hand, my royalty and iTunes income has been going up since I started doing PPC. I'm not sure that correlation is causation, but I get 1.5 million impressions/month to my demographic and I only pay for clicks. So if you're still holding out on the traditional "tipping point" model, you might consider putting your money in PPC. 🙂

John Oszajca said:

Thanks Charley, what was the error you experienced? Not able to duplicate it. Hopefully it was just a temporary server issue or something.

It just wouldn't let me post, and the browser said "error on page."

John Oszajca said:

As for PPC, it's normal that it doesn't convert as well because it's completely cold. Organic traffic usually has some element of "referral" to it which really helps. But it does convert. I suspect with a market like jazz you might really want to target an older audience (one that spends money), if you're not already doing that.

Let us know how things progress. Love what you're doing. You're such a great example of the application of this stuff.

I've been mostly using sound-alikes as my keywords, so the demographics should be about the same (i.e., older audience that spends money). Nevertheless, I'm going to expand my keywords after I see how the new squeeze page does. I think it looks pretty darn inviting to my demographic:

http://www.charleylanger.net/msnetwork/

It might be a little too wordy, and that's something I'll test out later. My demographic tends to be a little more intellectual, so it might work. It also tends to lean towards women.

Here's the one I've been using that I know works:

http://www.charleylanger.net/

It appears to have gone up a couple %. I'm still doing some minor tweaks. Also, my wife suggested a few wording changes to the headline, which seem to have helped. My wife is actually in my demographic, so I respect her opinions. I think she was right.

My initial revised version said:

Light a candle, get yourself comfortable, and prepare to let your mind be stimulated by one of the most refreshing smooth jazz artists in recent time.

I changed it to say:

Light a candle, get yourself comfortable, and let your heart and mind be moved by one of the most refreshing smooth jazz artists in recent time.

She thought that "prepare" implies work. She also didn't like "mind" and "stimulated." I get what she is saying, but I am branding myself as "Intelligent Smooth Jazz." So I tried to hit a middle ground with "let your heart and mind be moved." I'll let you know as more time passes. I like a fairly large sample size (at least 100 subs) before I say conclusively, "this works better than that."

Annie said:

Hi Charley,

It still sounds a little awkward to me. What about getting rid of the "let your heart and mind be moved by" to just "and enjoy one of the" or "chill out to" - or just "let your mind be moved" since you are intelligent jazz. The "heart and mind" breaks up the flow of the sentence in my opinion. 

Hi Annie,

I really appreciate that, and those are good suggestions. I especially like the "chill out to" idea. I am going to let my text stand as is just for now only because I don't want to change too many things at once during my test period. That said, this version appears to be converting better than my previous version by about 4%. As I said, I like about 100 subs to be confident my sample is large enough; nevertheless, the fluctuations appear to be leveling off. I'm well over 20%, which I think is pretty good. And my CPC is less than 0.10.

Based on these results, I'm going to try some Facebook ads again also. Speaking of Facebook, I put a download button on my landing page that goes to my FTML "squeeze page." I am getting some signups just from organic traffic. Here's what I'm doing: http://www.facebook.com/LangerMusic.

Kat Parsons said:

even using the local venue!  going to keep thinking on it and will keep you all posted.

When you say, "using the local venue," are you talking about as a "precise interest" or as a geotarget? Geotargeting can make things more expensive. And if you're using a venue as a "precise interest," you might not want to do that unless those that play that venue are similar enough to you -- we get everyone from Norah Jones to Iron Maiden!

Just as an experiment, I went into my Facebook ad and used Sarah McLachlan as my "precise interest," and my suggested bid was $0.35. I'm targeting United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.

So, if your bid is over a dollar, I'm thinking you might have something set in a way that you don't want it set.

I do find Facebook cost per click is more than at MSNetwork, but I think the traffic on Facebook is better because: (1) my conversions on my squeeze page are better for essentially the same ad, and (2) The subscription confimration rate is better than MSNetwork. It's kind of six of one, half a dozen of another. I'm still looking for that free lunch!!