Ryan Buckley said
Since the release date of our EP in May 2012, we've gotten over 1000 EP downloads, and we currently have almost 700 mailing list subscribers.  We have a decent system in place for interacting with interested listeners and turning them into more loyal followers. This has helped us build the small fan-base we have right now.

We have a great product in place that listeners are truly reacting to, and we would like get the music out to more people, in a shorter amount of time.  We will then do our best to turn the interested listeners into fans/fanatics by our personal interactions via Facebook and other social media.

Right now, our main methods of bringing in potential fans are:

1. Facebook advertisements targeting potential ideal fans.

    - Click-through rates have generally been between .10 and .12.

    - The conversion rates have been between 15-25%, varying from ad to ad.
    - We send them to our free download page, which require they enter their email address. 
    - This is where we've gotten the 1000 downloads.

2. Feature articles, reviews, interviews, etc... on websites that appeal to our ideal fan
    - Heavy Blog is Heavy, Sea of Tranquility, Gun Shy Assassin, etc...
3. General music discussions on our Facebook page that bring in "friends of friends"

We have also tried these methods, but with minimal results:

1. Cross-promoting with bands who have a similar ideal fan
    - The few that have worked, have been great.  Most other bands don't understand the concept well enough for it to work though.
2. Less targeted advertisements on rock/metal websites.
    - Just doesn't compare to the results we get on Facebook.

Any thoughts on how we could speed things up? 

Hey Ryan,

It sounds like you're off to a great start and you've overcome the hurdle of being willing to spend money on advertising (which stalls so many people - myself included!).

My advice is to keep doing what works.

You mention downloads - but how are you doing with actual purchases? If you have a good system in place you should be at least breaking even with your advertising - that way it's sustainable. If you lose money every time you get a new 'fan' on your list and you don't have anything else to promote to them...you'll eventually have to stop when the money runs out.

If Facebook is working - keep at it. You can keep refining the process and earn more money to invest back into more advertising. If you have your Facebook campaign to the point where it's really humming, you can experiment with other sources.

Are you looking for more fans or for more money? Having a pile of fans is a great feeling - but if they're not buyers it ends up being a pretty empty metric to track.

If you want more money, then focus on improving your funnel by small amounts. If you get 10% more traffic + 10% more optins + 10% more conversions + 10% more upsells + 10% higher margins + 10% more frequent purchases +10% higher transaction price = doubling your business.

Changes of 10% aren't that hard to do. It's not that hard to go from 100 visitors/day to your site to 110/day; you can do that by following the traffic strategies that John teaches quite easily. When you focus on each of the areas I mentioned above - you'll be compounding your efforts resulting in almost doubling your business without having to do twice the work.

Aside from that - don't try to rush things. Enjoy the ride and keep perfecting your system. Then you can bring on other traffic strategies and focus on them in the same way.

Ryan Buckley said
Hey Mike, thanks for all the info!  Like I mentioned we've gotten a good amount of downloads but we're giving out the music for free at this point.  Occasionally Bandcamp would act weird and require people to pay and when that happened people actually bought the music.  But we didn't let that go on long enough to gather any data on it.  We are, however, selling merchandise.  Right now we only have one t-shirt available and we're in the process of ordering some more designs.  People seem to be interested in the t-shirts, for example, we get plenty of comments when we post potential designs on our Facebook page but when it comes down to actual sales only a few people have followed through.  The only times people seem to make purchases is when we do a 10% off sale.  And even then we only get one or two.  At this point its definitely not sustainable and making it so is one of our goals.  

We're definitely looking to make more fans and more money.  I like your advice on improving the funnel by 10% increments.  We will be trying that out for sure.  But in terms of gaining more fans we're very much interested in figuring out how to do it faster.  At the rate we're going at it'll take forever to reach the same level that other bands in our genre reached prior to ever working with any type of label.  Is it PR, playing a ton of shows, constantly building relationships with current and potential fans matching a certain percentage of our 'ideal fan' description?  We've had the best results by building relationships with people.  In fact that's the only thing that has ever worked for us.  And while it is working we would like to go faster.  If you have any thoughts on that stuff I'd be quite interested in your opinion.  

 

Thanks!

Hey Ryan,

I think you're doing a great job and all of the right things. Networking is definitely a big part of getting to the next level. I have to defer to John when it comes to getting signed since he's the guy who actually did it. However, I interviewed him and we spent most of the time getting into his mindset and approach that he took to get signed in the interview - you can listen in here:

http://indiebandalliance.com/j.....g-is-power

However, if I dig in a little deeper to your reply above, it sounds to me like a big goal for your band is to 'get signed' and that there's an element of needing to do this 'fast enough' for whatever your objectives are - presumably to earn a full time income as a musician.

Please don't get me wrong, but I think this is the wrong way to go about doing it. Focusing on things that are largely beyond your control (will you be what a label wants, can you find the right label at the right time and have the right sound, the right look etc.) causes a needless distraction and misdirects your focus. If you have a list of 1,000+ fans - I think you need to figure out how to get them to buy by giving them what they want and that they're willing to pay for.

By doing this - you're building a business, which is sustainable. It takes money to build a business - and if you can successfully earn money from your fans eventually you'll have labels interested in you and you'll be in the position to work out a deal from a position of strength.

In my personal experience, once the 'quest to find a label' becomes the underlying focus - the audience tends to get overlooked; but ultimately they are the ones who are going to sustain your career - not the label. As soon as your sales plummet, any label will drop you like a wet noodle.

A record label deal is an 'outcome' that comes about as a result of putting in the effort to build a business in the right way. You're already hooked up with John's training so you have an excellent foundation to build off of. I think the issue of 'speed' factors in for two reasons: 1) you're not making money and are worried about how long you can keep your band together if nobody is getting paid 2) you set some arbitrary goal in your mind of when you should 'make it by' - i.e. age 30.

Neither of these scenarios are good and can be avoided by focusing on your audience, putting together the best material that you can that they will value enough to buy and repeating the process, growing it incrementally.

If you do it this way, money will start coming in, you'll have full creative control and IF a label shows interest...again you're in a position of strength. If the numbers are on your side, your age, sound and look won't be a factor in getting a deal - should you actually still want one at that point.

This is just me talking from my past experiences Ryan, if it doesn't apply to your circumstance feel free to ignore.