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6:55 pm
June 9, 2011
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QuoteHey everyone,
A little over a week ago I had posted a topic about an offline – to – online strategy I was curious about, involving the show poster for a gig for my band.
Below is the video of my results so you can see for yourself whether or not this will be an effective strategy for you.
** Special thanks to fellow MMIC member, Tim Curry, who was in Pennsylvania at the time and came out to the show to have a few drinks with us. Cool to meet you, Tim!
1:22 pm
June 7, 2011
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This was awesome Steve. This is exactly what this forum is for. Thanks so much for making this, as well as sharing it.
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3:28 pm
June 10, 2011
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This was a really neat idea, and for only being up one week, getting as many people as you did to go to the site
and take action is pretty impressive.
I'm wondering if somehow you should incorporate a slogan or tagline to go with "The Prisoners," something like,
"Cutting edge punk with an old school feel..." that quickly describes what someone would expect to hear listening to
the band. Then, fans of this style of music would be more inclined to act when they know what the genre is.
Also, I was wondering about using "tear tabs" at the bottom of the poster that had the URL so that people could just take it if they were going to look it up later. Thanks for sharing this, it was great to meet you as well!
4:46 pm
June 9, 2011
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My pleasure, John. I hope everyone puts this to use and has some success with it.
Tim,
Yeah I thought about the pull tabs. Maybe put a special 'coupon code' to add some exclusivity to it. I could also use the coupon code to track. Because this was a new site… and now that the direct url is out there, I can't scientifically repeat this case study, so a coupon code of some sort would remedy that.
I like the tagline idea because it's a qualifier. In other words it will help narrow down my target and possibly help with conversion rates, as you are suggesting.
Good thinking.
5:45 am
June 10, 2011
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Nice Video Steve! Thanks for sharing that info with us
I tried something new for me this week along those same lines. Back when I came out with my first CD, I bought a everything I needed to duplicate, print, and package CD's so I could produce them in house. It cost's me about $0.95 per CD, so I'm really not saving much over using an outside company, but I do have one advantage. I started putting a coupon inside the CD's directing people to my squeeze page and a free track from my next CD. It's still to early to see any results, but I will post again when I have more info.
I know this won't be the most effective way of getting new signups, but the cost is next to nothing, so even a few new signups will make it worthwhile
What would a jam session with Gordon Lightfoot, Collective Soul, and Damien Rice sound like?
Check out Greg Parke and you’ll have a pretty good idea!
2:38 pm
June 9, 2011
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Thanks for watching Charley. I hope there's something you can use in it.
Greg,
You're absolutely right. This approach is not going to yield a ton of website visitors. It is however, another tool to feed your funnel, taking advantage of of the offline opportunities that you are presented with.
The reason for this case study was 2-fold. First I was curious to see if people even read these posters, but also it's a really modest example of how effective the MMM direct response strategies can be... even on a tiny scale.
That's actually an important word, by the way... Scale
When you are tracking this stuff, you can see the numbers. When you can see the numbers, you can see where improvements can be made.
When you make improvements, you're on your way to optimizing of your funnel. When the funnel is optimized, the business of your band is now scalable, meaning that your paycheck is directly related to the amount of people you drive to the website.
30% opt-ins is still 30% opt-ins whether you are talking about 100 visitors or 1 million visitors.
When you get your opt-in rate to steadily increase or plateau, you can really plan well for a pay-per-click campaign, etc.
I mean if I could confidently say my squeeze page converts at 30%, I'm going to feel a hell of a lot better about paying for traffic, especially if it looks like I can make more than I spend... and if that's the case I'll spend even more.
Hey Steve
Great video, thank you! Interesting idea, my one question would be if you have 19 visitors, who must have been interested enough to take down the web address, and type it in a browser, why did only 3 input their data? I guess it could have been current fans, who maybe already have the FREE music? I wonder if it would be worth on your landing page using an incentive bonus track/s for fans who recommend the page to their social networks? Sorry just thinking as I am typing here.
We will give this a try at our next gig, and maybe add the same information to an A6 flyer which we will have handed out at the gig itself and see what kind of results we get. We will report back.
Thanks again.
Paul/Claire
RAINTOWN
10:57 pm
June 9, 2011
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Paul and Claire.
Glad you like the video.
To try to answer your question as best as I can...
These posters were hanging in the bar. So it wasn't targeting existing fans. It fact it's not targeted at all really. The only thing in common that any of the 19 visitors had in common was that they hang out at the same bar. That's about it.
Also, as I mentioned in the video, probably all of the visitors were using a smartphone. I really don't think anyone remembered the url for when they went home. Unless they wrote it down or something.
As to why all of them did not fill out the form... I don't think there is any squeeze page that converts at 100%. At least not with cold traffic. I would imagine that these were people who never heard of us and wanted a free track, but then balked when they realized that they had to give up an email address to get it. That's perfectly fine with me though.
The goal here is to actually sell music and that doesn't always happen the first time around. So the email address is my ticket to keep my musici in front of them. If they don't volunteer it, that's fine, someone else will 🙂
Thanks again for watching!
-Steve
Might be a good idea to do something like this at coffee shops where folks hang out with their computers, pad & pen? Ill do it and let you know how the results compare.
DRESSED HIS WIFE UP LIKE A HORSE FOR HIS NEW ALBUM COVER
http://www.deanfields.net
11:09 pm
June 9, 2011
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Definitely.
There is absolutely no chance of me ever making a poster that doesn't do this again. I'm sure Paul and Claire will definitely see results from the hand bills they plan in doing as well.
I didn't do that this time, but next time for sure. Especially because I believe (but who knows) that people will be more inclined to take action while they are listening to you. Especially if it seems like others are digging it too.
Steve Rodgers said:
Paul and Claire.
Glad you like the video.
To try to answer your question as best as I can...
These posters were hanging in the bar. So it wasn't targeting existing fans. It fact it's not targeted at all really. The only thing in common that any of the 19 visitors had in common was that they hang out at the same bar. That's about it.
Also, as I mentioned in the video, probably all of the visitors were using a smartphone. I really don't think anyone remembered the url for when they went home. Unless they wrote it down or something.
As to why all of them did not fill out the form... I don't think there is any squeeze page that converts at 100%. At least not with cold traffic. I would imagine that these were people who never heard of us and wanted a free track, but then balked when they realized that they had to give up an email address to get it. That's perfectly fine with me though.
The goal here is to actually sell music and that doesn't always happen the first time around. So the email address is my ticket to keep my musici in front of them. If they don't volunteer it, that's fine, someone else will 🙂
Thanks again for watching!
-Steve
Hey Steve
Totally agree that no squeeze page converts 100%, we still get people saying they enjoyed the video and the song, now where do they get the free download? We literally have RED arrows pointing at the email capture box beside the video! lol
I appreciate now that it was folks in the pub, and you are right people are very protective these days about their email address.
We are still going to implement the strategy, with the A6 flyers and will report back on the results. Thank you again for sharing. Also thought that Dean's idea about coffee shop posters would be a great shout.
Thanks
Paul/Claire
RAINTOWN
1:38 pm
June 9, 2011
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Hahaha. I also have big arrows pointing to the opt- in box.
If you think this is new to a a lot of musicians, just think how new it is to potential fans. Most people are used to bands sending them to a page where the whole damned album is available for free download, for the most part.
I was actually pleased to see 19 visitors, let alone 3 sign ups. Again, from the limited traffic that was sent, I'm also pleased to see a 31% opt-in rate from a first go around.
I used a video for the "quotes and reviews" instead of text, so I at least know that works, so I'll split test it with text and see which is actually better. On a side note, people don't even know what genre we are considered to be until they read some of the reviews. That may also be why they decided not to opt-in.
Here's the page again, if you haven't checked it out.
11:08 pm
June 10, 2011
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Hey there,
That's a great case study! In addition to showing the potential value of this poster experiment, I like it as much as an example of how to implement an idea and track the results. Great stuff!
I think extending this technique to handing out fliers, and posters in places where people hang out with computers are both great ideas!
I've also been wondering about how well a QRC code would work with this.
Daniel
4:14 am
June 9, 2011
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Daniel Crandall said:
I've also been wondering about how well a QRC code would work with this.
Thanks Daniel. Great point about the QR codes. I was thinking of it myself but then thought,
"How do I explain to people what to do with it?" "Just Scan Here With Your Smartphone!"(?)
Don't know... I'll give it a shot.
However you do it, it has to stay really simple in order to be effective.
1:07 pm
August 27, 2011
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Steve Rodgers said:
Daniel Crandall said:
I've also been wondering about how well a QRC code would work with this.
Thanks Daniel. Great point about the QR codes. I was thinking of it myself but then thought,
"How do I explain to people what to do with it?" "Just Scan Here With Your Smartphone!"(?)
Don't know... I'll give it a shot.
However you do it, it has to stay really simple in order to be effective.
Regarding the QR code - just put it on there and see what happens. It should be self explanatory to those who use it - and those who don't know what it is aren't the target. Heck, it could start a discussion about your poster...not a bad thing.
Just to pile on the ideas for your concept, what about taking your poster online in places like related/targeted forums (ideally related to the city and genre of music you play)? If capturing emails is your first priority - you can link the image of your poster directly to you squeeze page. Viewers can easily get to your squeeze page with a single click (and are often prone to click on images anyway).
This should work on Craigslist and Backpage at the very least and if you title the listing with keywords in mind, you can also start ranking online for it as well since Google crawls these sites all the time.
Your online 'gig listing' will have a longer lifespan than the age of the average poster in the real world, so you might get a significantly higher opt-in rate and it complements the offline poster placement as well.
5:32 pm
June 10, 2011
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Another QRC thought: I think one would want to set up a special version of the squeeze page optimized for phones. Effectively doing that could be a whole topic on it's own.
6:28 pm
August 27, 2011
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Yeah - good point. It's pointless to send QR traffic to a site or page that isn't optimized for mobile visitors. It's pretty easy to do if you're using Wordpress with the Touch plugin to host your squeeze page.
6:46 pm
June 10, 2011
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I actually saw a poster with a QRC code on it when I played in Charlotte, NC.
I thought it was a very clever use of poster space. But I am not an iPhone user,
so would have no idea how to go about setting this up.
8:29 pm
June 9, 2011
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Mike, Daniel and Tim,
There really are a ton of things you can do with posters.
Whenever I do post the image online I make it clickable to the squeeze page. I haven't tried optimizing a listing in a classified ad, but again this case study was definitely a highlight of how effective posters can be.
Lots of really god ideas here. 🙂
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