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QuoteI have put together a good budget that should keep my ads going for a good sustained period of time. of course, my goal is to keep it going long enough to follow the ready, fire, aim approach. I tend to do most things on my own and don't ask a lot of questions or for advise. I am trying to do better about that so, here it is...
I want to share a couple of ad images that I have used in the past and some that I have been thinking about using. here they are:
I am a bit embarrassed to admit to the last ad on this list... what was I thinking?
I'm sure all of these ads share a common problem that I can fix but I feel like I am too close to the project.
I am targeting Celtic music fans but I don't like to sell myself as a celtic harpist... I play a more Jazz,rock, Dubstep, gypsy, fantasy stile but I feel like I need to start at a common point or no one will take the time to find out what I really do..
at the moment, I compare my stuff to Andreas Vollnweider, Lindsey Stirling and Flogging Molly but I feel like those audiences are very small and no one knows who they are (except Lindsey Stirling)
any help would be hot. =D
Thanks!!
11:19 pm
June 9, 2011
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Hi Aaron,
Steve here. Personally I like the last ad. It's fun.
I also like the one of you sleeping in a cart. Of course how well they do will depend on the audience.
Let us know how you make out.
The last ad was the funniest but I liked pics #1, #2 and#4 best.
So the lesson from this is that the ad that embarrasses you the most is the best. 
10:13 pm
June 7, 2011
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Hey Aaron,
Have you run these and had some problems, or are you just looking for feedback before doing so?
If its the latter then I personally like images 1 and 4 the best (counting from the top going right). That said, I think all of them could be improved in that your face is obscured and somewhat distant in all of them. I don't feel like I am really getting a sense of you the person. So much of an images success is just feeling an instant affinity for the person in the image. But there is some humor in some of them so that's a plus.
I also think the copy could be improved. Your main text is currently not doing much to entice me. It's really just emphasizing getting some downloads which by itself is not usually enough. Instead I would try to tap into the real experience that Celtic music offers the listener. In other words, what is the quality that a fan of Celtic music likes. While I'm not that familiar with the market I imagine what people like about Celtic music is that it transports them back in time and connects them with their Irish/Scottish roots. If that assumption is correct you could craft an ad that said something to the effect of "Aaron Stokes will transport you back in time and immerse you in the sounds and traditions of ancient Ireland"... or whatever. I'm just spit-balling here. But that type of copy tends to do better than simply offering downloads, because it promises the very thing your audience presumably desires.
I realize that you said your music is not exactly Celtic music, but so far you have chosen to position yourself that way so I am speaking to that. Picking an establish niche is smart. But make sure that your music and the rest of your brand ultimately align with what the audience ultimately wants or sales will not materialize even if initial subscribers do.
I hope none of that comes off as critical or too blunt. Hopefully it helps a bit. Let us know how you;ve been making out, or how the ads go in the future.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Steve, Brent and John,
thank you sooo much! Branding has been a huge struggle for me because I'm not sure how I appear to others or what sticks out the best but all of your responses have really helped me clear my lenses. It's very liberating for me to make these discoveries about myself, who I am and what I am about with all of your help!
clearly, you are helping me to look inward and I LOVE the answers that are coming to me. I am getting excited!!
john, to answer your question, I have used some of them but have had only small amounts of success. so far, my top performers were interestingly, 1 and 4..... your faveorites. I'll tweak the copy and images as you suggest and continue to split test. I'm not married to any of these images and will work to make my face more visible. I can totally see what you are talking about.
Celtic audience or not, I can see how your advise could be applied in other markets. thanks for the clarity =D
I will follow up soon.
7:20 pm
June 7, 2011
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Hey Aaron,
Awesome. Glad the feedback is making sense and resonating. Keep us posted on how it goes from here.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Latest developments-
I have never quite been satisfied with my targeting and decided to play around with the idea of using lookalike audiences... It just felt like the thing to do. I haven't done hardly anything with video and have never put video on Facebook because It can have a strong affect for good or bad but I didn't feel like there would be anything to loose in this context so I dug up an old video I put together a couple of years ago. It included some still shots in the video which I was not a real fan of but whatever. if the viewers stay long enough, they must like the music, right?
I uploaded the video strait to Facebook rather than attach the URL for YouTube... not sure but I think that was the best thing to do...
my only objective at the moment was to get views as quickly as possible so I set my post objective to engagements, targeted Celtic, Celtic rock and Cosplay audiences (about 200k people) and set a $30 budget to run for 24 hrs. there were no calls to action or links attached.
I double dipped on my decision for the headline. I wanted two things, I wanted to know what people think when the hear this stuff for the first time and I wanted to encourage comments.
So the headline reads "What kind of music is this?? Celtic, Gypsy, or... something else?"
The results were unbelievable! at least, by what I was expecting... I will post a screen shot of the results so you can give me your input. my cost per engagement quickly dropped to $0.01 per engagement.... I would have been thrilled with $0.11....
the part that really blew my mind was the shares and the comments. There were far more than I expected and they continued after I stopped the ad.
What's crazy is that I never worked ROI into this ad because it was only a test and a push to get views nothing else. Because of this ad, I ended up selling music to new fans who took the time to figure out that I had music to sell (I never mentioned it in the video or ad) WOW!
I got a return on my investment already and... THERE WAS NO CALL TO ACTION!
Lastly, I received 2.5k Views with 102@25% 49@50% 33@75%
I actually went so far as to create a lookalike audience for all 3 of the previously mentioned numbers to see if the audiences sizes would vary. they didn't. all 3 lookalike audiences are 2.1 million. Now the question... Which of the 3 will likely benefit me the most... If they are all the same size but based on narrower fields. do we have enough statistical streingth to suppose that the 75% is more accurate than the lesser ones? forgive me, this is very theoretical. I'm probably thinking too much =D
I can't wait to see how the next step goes when I actually do it right (hopefully)
what are your thoughts? would you have done this differently? am I on the right track?
11:32 pm
June 7, 2011
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Hey Aaron,
That';s fantastic. You are definitely on the right track if you've already had a positive ROI with zero call to action. Imagine if you had had one 🙂
You definitely did the right thing posting to Facebook vs Youtube. If you posted to Youtube you could not have created a lookalike audience on Facebook with the data.
.01 percent is actually pretty normal for video views. Prices range between .05 and about .03 cents. They are rarely higher for video views. But keep in mind a video view might be as minor as someone scrolling past your video for 3 seconds with the sound off. It's those that view a significant percentage of the video that really count.
Your lookalike audiences will always be about 2.1 million people in the US because no matter what your seed audience is Facebook will apply their patterns to 1% of the population (that has a Facebook account). You can narrow that down a bit by adding other variables, but I usually always at least start with the entire audience.
It's hard to say which will be more effective with only 2,000 some odd views. If you had considerably more views then the 75% audience would almost certainly be the most effective. However, with a small audience like that the number will get smaller and smaller as you go up. If it becomes too small then it will become less targeted. In other words, building a lookalike audience around 17 people (or whatever that number might be) will likely be very random. So I'd probably start at 25% and if that didn't work you could always try bumping it up.
With all of that said, because what you did worked so well, I would probably scrap the lookalike audience for now and run an almost identical add, but add a call to action. So in other words, I would select conversions as the objective, but when you go into create an ad, create a video ad. You'll get more views on the video and hopefully you'll maintain the ROI while building your list. That's where I would start at any rate. Why change anything if what you are doing is working well?
Congrats on the progress and keep us posted.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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