March 7, 2009 Creating your Marketing Funnel
I’m an avid follower of online marketing guru Ali Brown. Ali Brown publishes the award-winning ‘Highlights on Marketing & Success’ weekly e-zine that includes marketing tips for small business owners.
The marketing funnel in small businesses is a very old principle. It’s been around for years. Your Marketing Funnel is a simple way of looking at how your products and service offerings are structured, and how you can sell at a wide array of price points. So lets put this in the perspective of an artist and how you can construct your levels of your marketing funnel.
An artist-marketing funnel will help you to begin to build your email list, find ways to engage and interact with your fans before you begin to ask for money.
First step is getting them in the funnel.
Offering something FREE is how you begin getting your fans into your funnel. Internet Marketers usually collect prospects by giving away something free, such as a report, an informational report, or a tele-seminar. For artists you will get people signing up by BRIBING them by giving away a free mp3 or an exclusive video, etc in exchange for their contact information.
Do NOT phrase it as “Sign up for my Email list” that does not answer the question “What’s in it for me?”. Remember that every person that lands on your website is asking that question. A better way to phrase it is “Enter your name and email to get a Free mp3 of our hit single ____”
Once they’ve signed up you get their names and e-mail addresses, allowing you to contact them again.
Your next step is step is to think of ways to begin to move them down your funnel. This is the step where you begin to interact (newsletters) with them to gain their trust.
Lets look at a sample funnel:
TOP OF FUNNEL - starting your email list
- free exclusive mp3 in exchange for their email address/contact information (free)
MIDDLE OF FUNNEL - getting your list to trust you and interact with you
- sending out exciting and informational monthly newsletters (free)
- engaging them in contest giveaways (free)?
- Ask them listen to a new track on Myspace and leave feed back (free)
- Invite them to be your buddy on Twitter (free)
- Have them watch a video of you on YouTube and subscribe to your YouTube channel (free)
- downloadable singles ($ .99)
BOTTOM OF FUNNEL - asking for money
- released album ($10 - $15)
- coming out to a show ($10-$15)
- donations for next album ($$$)
Write out the funnel that you have in place now (if any). See where the holes are, and start thinking about what needs to be added to move your fans down to the ultimate end goal of you making more money.
Cyber PR Urban is Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR’s new urban division that handles Hip Hop and R&B as well as urban and urban crossover artists. We connect urban artists to Blogs, Podcasters, Internet Radio Stations, Vlogs, Social Networking sites, and Webzines. Cyber PR Urban’s Urban Plug newsletter is a free bi-monthly e-zine for musicians & entrepreneurs who want marketing, promotion and PR tips for navigating the new music business. Sign Up here:
www.cyberprurban.com. Check out past articles at:www.cyberprurban.com/blog
Christina Duren started her music career as an intern at Island Def Jam where she spent a year in the Radio and Promotions/Publicity department. At IDJ she worked with Mariah Carey, Rihanna and Ne-Yo. From there she took her first real job at Shore Fire Media working campaigns for The Roots, and Heineken Red Star Soul Tour. Christina now acts as PR Director for Cyber PR and co-founder of Cyber PR Urban.
Reader Comments (3)
I'm confused - what does the funnel model have to do with Ali Brown?
I was just crediting Ali Brown for teaching me the marketing funnel for small businesses. So then I turned it around to show how artist can also use the marketing funnel
This brings up some interesting points - to track customers at each level of funnel will require certain integrated software. An email list such as getresponse.com alone won't do this because it's separate from the shopping cart. If someone buys something they would need to move to that particular level in the funnel (for possible targeted emails ... Read Moreto that level - ie higher value customers). Perhaps something like 1shoppingcart.com. I use Extreme Member for my membership site which puts people in different lists.
Also, each level would usually need both a series of autoresponders (eg weekly emails to upsell them, not just at checkout time) as well as broadcast emails at certain times (promotions, etc). Just wanted to point out the specific needs (software and time) that this system requires. Maybe people can post what systems they use :)