Hey Art,

Sorry for the slow response. I took a little time off for Christmas. Just to add to what Steve said, I know what you mean about the Paypal experience. I personally hate it and that's why I don't use it. I recommend it because it's a universal option that most people are familiar and comfortable with, and because they don't charge a monthly fee, which musicians seem to absolutely deplore. But not because it's the best way to go. 

I think the best way to go might be to use something like Stripe and a shopping cart.

I haven't looked into TopSpin in a while, but from what I've heard from other users they aren't the most ideal solution.

Thanks Art, and Merry Christmas to you as well. Keep us posted on your progress.

Hey Martin,

I just answered an almost identical question in a different thread. I had more info in that instance, but I thought it was possible my answer my apply to your issue. The bottom line right now is that while your sample size is too small at just 80 subscribers, the open rate is far too low. Check out the thread and see if this applies at all:

https://www.mmmanifesto.com/in.....onverting/

Hey Art,

Yeah, it is a bit tricky, and it comes more naturally for some than others. 

Open rates can vary a lot, but on a second email you'd want to see something over 60% in my opinion. By the end of the series that might drop to 35 - 40%, but it should be considerably higher than where you're at. Do you have confirmed opt in on or off?

Hey Art,

While there is nothing wrong with turning the opt in off (which I often do), that will lower open rates because some people use bogus emails. It's possible you are getting a high percentage of those. But even with it off, you should still be up over 50% on those initial open rates.

I wouldn't be concerned that the kind of people who you think will like your music won't respond to the marketing. No one is consciously interested in marketing, but when done right people will absolutely respond to it, no matter how jaded the audience might seem. Check out the MMM podcast with Xerxes from the New Jacobian Club. They are an extremely avant garde metal band who is targeting some of the more jaded music fans out there, and they report some of the best conversion rates I've seen. I've heard from nearly every genre of artist about these techniques being used successfully, so I really don't see any concern there. 

Good marketing should feel more like an opportunity than marketing. When it feels like pure marketing, it won't be effective. This is where putting yourself in your visitor's shoes, being able to intuitively understand what they are thinking when they land on your page, and then overcoming any remaining resistance, comes in.

I can only guess at things from this end. It would take me a good chunk of time to really go through everything and have a stronger take on what the problem might be, but I think the presentation is really good. I think maybe the headline could be improved a bit on the squeeze page, I think you need to turn comments on, on the blog so that people can begin to engage (enormously important), and I think it's possible you need to try other targeting options. But my biggest guess right now is that the emails (and possibly more importantly the email headlines) might need some work. The glaring issue is that open rate. As a starting place we need to get to the bottom of why so few people are opening the emails.

You might try creating a duplicate list with the opt-in turned on and see how that effects things. It may bring your subscribers down, but it should bring the open rates up.

On top of all of that 80 subscribers is still a fairly small amount. I would have expected a sale or two by now, but you haven't hit any real statistical significance and it's always possible that you have just had a bad run so far. But I'm thinking it's the emails more than anything. Hard to say with just a superficial glance, but those are the things I'd focus on.

Anytime Art 🙂