Ascension Recommendations | Non-PRO

Add sales funnel and checkout functionality to your artist website

Unfortunately, most artist websites are glorified business cards. All too often, artist websites simply fail to capitalize on the power of digital marketing. This is especially tragic when you consider the mindset of the average person who makes it all the way to an artist's website...

We spend so much of our time on social media sites, Google, and Amazon that its rare for anyone to visit any other type of website. When someone makes it to your artist website, it's not by accident - they sought you out! So, we want to make the most out of every website visit by creating a website with high-powered email marketing and e-commerce features that translate into long-term fans and sales.

Relevant Trainings

Implement website tracking and analytics

"That which is measured, improves. That which is measured and tracked, improves exponentially."

As an online artist in the digital age, you will likely use your website for many high-value purposes - including to host landing pages that entice users to sign up for your email list, purchase a product, or register for an event.

But, not all landing pages are created equally - some of them suck - and a sub-optimal landing page will yield sub-optimal results. By implementing tracking and analytics on your website, you will be able to identify when a landing page is underperforming and make steps to improve it. And, you will know exactly how much those changes improve that performance - down to the percent!

Relevant Trainings

Learn The Buddy System and ideate your Fan Journey

Every marketing and business strategy taught and practiced in our community plugs into an overall framework: The Buddy System. This system describes the journey that your audience takes from stranger to listener to fan. It also describes the “areas” of your business that you will have to set up by building and deploying campaigns and projects.

By learning The Buddy System first, you will be able to understand which part of the relationship each campaign facilitates and how the campaigns you construct fit together to form a complete business.

Relevant Trainings

Configure your email list and email automations/workflows

Email marketing is the cornerstone of almost every online business - even in the 2020s. Email marketing performs better than any other form of online marketing, generating an average of $30-40 for every $1 spent.

Because you've already built a respectable email list, implementing this training will be mostly about fine-tuning and automating your email marketing efforts. 

Email automations and workflows taught in this training will ensure that every fan who joins your list, signs up for/purchases an offer, or grows cold and stops opening emails is taken care of automatically. In turn, this will ensure that you grow more rapidly, keep your subscribers entertained and engaged for longer, perform less manual work, and generate a lot more sales!

Relevant Trainings

Build and run a Free + S&H Funnel campaign

While there are many trainings and strategies we implement for sustained sales and revenue throughout the calendar year, we want you to be able to bootstrap your sales with a large influx of subscribers and customers - to show yourself that your fans will support you and that you can generate sales.

The Free + S&H Funnel Strategy can significantly reduce the time it takes for a die-hard fan to support your music by making a purchase - it's a cant-resist offer that will make it easy for you to grow your customer base. In fact, Indies who implement this strategy can usually generate dozens of customers with a simple, 9-word email, activating would-be customers you didn't even know you had!

Relevant Trainings

Create a sales promotion calendar and run your first sales promotion

For online businesses, every month brings a new opportunity (and excuse) to convert email subscribers and followers into supporting customers. Typically, the lifecycle of an online customer ends with a final stage of "deal-seeking". This means that, when you have developed enough of a relationship and given enough value to a fan, they may just need any reason to finally support you by making a purchase...

By creating and implementing a sales promotion calendar, you can ensure that you consistently make high value offers to your audience that serve as a "good reason" to support your music - whenever they are ready to do so. This will also give your existing customers a good reason to make a follow-up purchase.

Relevant Trainings

Build and execute a Product or Album Launch Funnel campaign

Sales funnels and product launches are responsible for a lion's share of the revenue generated online through digital marketing. For start-ups and established businesses alike, there is no better tool in the digital marketing toolbox for creating customers at a profit.

For this reason, it's necessary for you to learn how to create funnels and launch products from beginning to end. Not only will these skills bootstrap your customer base and help you generate profitable sales, they will have the added benefit of growing your email list and larger warm audience while giving you the confidence to maintain complete control over your business.

Relevant Trainings