My head is about to explode, need a stratagey

Hi Nathaniel!

You'll be surprised to learn that you are already doing so many things right!!! You're exploring other mediums by being on Facebook, YouTube, and by blogging. That's good.

When it comes to making a residual income, it's important to realize that in order to make a residual income you have to build your assets to get it to that point. And even though you're only 3 days in, it's good that you understand this concept.

The main thing that I would suggest doing, is mastering one medium before you move onto another. Making sustainable money from YouTube ads is a HUGE feat, and will take time. There are other assets to be explored also. The most common and seemingly religiously preached one is your list.

You can build your list around people who are just like you, guitarists, gig promoters, or musicians in general. This will also take time, but it seems like you understand that you have to go to places that already have people like yourself so good on you.

If I had to lay out a simple plan for you to follow at all, I'd say that you should keep making money through your gigs, but put a little money on the side that you can invest in advertising to build your list, or backlinks to help your videos and blog posts rank better. YouTube, and blog posts can be monetized through ads. An email list can be monetized through promoting niche related products. For the guitar niche you can also try promoting gigs themselves, or possibly online musical events. one idea that I think could work great for your niche is the idea of a membership service. You can turn your site into a membership site, where you charge people monthly for guitar lessons, tutorials, or whatever high quality content it is you have to offer and you can give your subscribers this valuable info through your YouTube videos.

Just know that it's a building process and there are
Many ways to achieve the residual income your looking for.

That blog on the wix platform is not helping your future in SEO. I'm not liking that !# thing going on.

I clicked on a post on your blog:

nathanieljpwills

What are you selling? Where are you monetizing? Where are you collecting direct names on your site that you can email personally to share and market to for something that doesn't require you to be live?

It's good you have some free beginner lessons - but where is your private paid members stuff? Did you know you can charge for more advanced videos on youtube too?

Where are your happy customer reviews of your live clients?

Do you just want to promote your music and your personal pages or you also want to do Internet marketing as a way of earning money?

If you want to promote your music and personal pages go to Facebook post some interesting stuff about music or some very weird music-related specific stuff and then do facebook ads to get people to like that post and your page. Link to your website. This way you'll increase your audience significantly. Collect their emails on your website, build your list and send them newsletters, every 3-4 newsletters you can sell them products related to music.

If you want to do Internet marketing other than what has to do with your personal music then you can still stay within music but it doesn't need to be your personal. You create website focused on sub-niche of music or music instruments and then drive traffic through SEO or also with facebook, or even paid ads. Then you have amazon products on your site. If you want to do this then you need to do keyword research and assess the competition.

If you want to do Internet marketing, yes you can make lots of money, but there is a learning curve and you must really get down to work for lets say 3 months and reap the rewards later.

The Tribe Leader has spoken!

Hello fellow musician! Its good to see some busking going on Internet marketing. I would like to add mate. Try using Soundcloud. Upload your compos, covers, etc. (disable the download feature) and always plug in your social media accounts every end of your materials. Soundcloud is the best way to go for this. Since its mobile friendly, takes not too long to load and very minimalist.

I also upload our Bands music there called Blood Reich (shameless band promotion here), we do Metal of course. Im kinda curious what your genre is perhaps we can do a collab? I do acoustic gigs from time to time on Sound Cloud too but not too much that its my main line of income. Anyway, i digress. Sound cloud has audiences too and the best part is that you can share it on FB, Twitter and the likes. Basically youre hitting two or 3 birds now. hell, hit the whole flock right?

And always remember, content is king! No matter how many groups you join, dont be the one that "posts-and-run" type. Engage the audience. Especially on the comment sections on YT.

Cover Reddit too! go to r/selfpromotion or r/music. They have certain guidelines you need to follow but dude, Reddit has the best community and the biggest organic traffic you can ever find.

Hope i helped.

I have several pieces of info/feedback for you.

1. I personally don't like the black you have used. I have never liked that colour on websites as it's very off-putting.

2...and the more serious problem is this. You say you want to make money from your site. The way yo make money is to get people to pay you. However, your site mainly focuses on "I, I, I." People want to know what you can do for them, not that you dabble in playing a guitar.

I understand that you look for performing gigs but they're not regular enough at this stage. You need more publicity in every form so focus on that. Also consider the site's look.

I hope this has helped you a little and I do wish you luck.

I don't always agree with jill. I thought your blogs and your website was excellent. They're beautiful. But jill is right that nobody knows what you want them to do when you get them there so you are spinning your wheels.

if you want to get residual income memberships are the way to go. Teach people to do what you do they'd love it I think. On this forum or on google search for how to create a membership site for free. You can point your blogs and website to what you are selling (memberships) by putting ads for the memberships site on your sites and blogs. (Just a note websites and blogs are worthless if you are not driving traffic to them thats a whole other story)

But before you start selling anything you have to do a lot of PRE PREPARATION you have to check google for the market and see if there is one. Sure some guys and even gals are good at playing something and would love to do what you do, but what age are they, gender etc, ect? you need to get the specs to make sure there are people who want to buy. Then you need to get keywords, check google for competition of these keywords make sure they are worth your time. The people you want to join your membership are on google. look for forums for musicians etc, drive traffic that way (Learn to market on forums first there is a way to do it without spamming). Before you start check amazon and the dummies website to see if they have a lot of publications in this area. If the forums are there, and a good amount of books published. if the keywords are good, the specs look good you know that a members area with learning materials will be popular too.

just teach somebody to play guitar bro ...its your niche

Assadok just gave you the solution in a single line. Nice one!

I don't mean to over simplify it, but in short it appears that your best bet what with everything you've been doing so far, is to create a digital product that teaches others what you do best... play guitar!

Keep up all the free content you're providing, and direct people to either a free product/gift to build your mailing list (and subsequently turn them into buying customers or perhaps make affiliate sales with targeted products), or direct them straight to your membership area to purchase your digital training package that will sell on autopilot for you 24/7/365.

I have to admit I'm a little biased as this is by far my preferred way to make money online and where I've seen the most success, but none the less, it seems like you've already got such a great online presence already that a digital training product is the next logical step.

More than happy to impart some wisdom if you need clarification on anything in this area.
All the best!

I could be wrong but why not create a course on Udemy? I think you could do that

I like the site - it's full of good music and clear photos.

I think YOU have to decide what you want to accomplish with the site. If you want the site itself to be a money making site - you have to sell something. Sounds easier than it is when your main product is yourself and your skills.

Right now the site is selling your music - so push the "hire" on more than a single page and put a "book me" box on every page if your goal is to play events.

Also consider promoting to other music businesses people - event organizers and promoters, well known local music groups, charity gig organizers, forums/sites/blogs that talk about the genre of music you prefer.

It's quite difficult to make money online selling "guitar lessons" (you can find them free all over) or selling musical instruments (hard to compete with the big stores online). I think you'll make more selling your own talent.

On your blog, I read an excellent blog post about "4 ways to learn guitar". But another post on the blog was too much in depth on "how I learned to play" in my opinion. When writing, don't get so much into the "me" and "I" that you lose the reader...

"Busking" is not well known outside major cities....you probably have a lot of funny stories or interesting personalities you've met that would make fascinating blog posts.

Do you have business cards? I assume you do because your site (with more push on the "book me" or "hire me") does a good job of selling YOU.

Do you hang out on musician forums? There are some terms you should google and check out, such as

profitable musician blogs
musician forums
how to promote music online

You've probably seen quite a few of those resulting sites but might find something new.

i was also thinking about having instagram and snapchat , i think you can get a lot of traffic there and also check out gary vaynerchuck he is a marketing guru i am sure his free contents on youtube and other social media can help you out

Nice site. Seems very accomplished. You could look at monetizing the Site and being an "IMer".

Or you could build up a Following using blog and social media (sounds like with FB you are starting to do this) and get fans who are actually into to your music and seeing you perform.

I think you have some potential in that area. You seem to have the "chomps" and the look and image

Put out the content like you're doing.

You can also put together a training course of videos teaching how to do what you do.

I see people try to start of selling their music when, in fact, the best way to make money
at this stage is to sell what you know. Sell your knowledge and training. Not to mention,
once you make a training video course, you can sell it over and over without any more work.

Also, you can have different levels of training courses, from beginner to advanced and sell each
stage to the same people IF you build a list of buyers. So, like others have said, you need to capture
emails. That way you have clients that you can sell to over and over. And charge a little more as the
courses get more advanced.

Make simple 3-5 videos for each level of training, maybe 10 minutes each (or however long it takes).
Sell the beginner 5 video course for 19.95 or so (Compare with others).
You will have a short post in ALL of your contentsites, Youtube, Blog, Facebook pages, etc, that will
explain where to get these courses and you will have a link to buy them.

Make sure you have a sign up form from an auto-responder , say, GetResponse, and offer some free
tips to get people to sign up.

Sorry, getting out of order here cause it just keeps coming to me.

Step 1: Keep doing videos, blogs and whatever.

Step 2: Create a "Free Tips/Lesson" video to give away in exchange for people signing up. (get an auto-responder account, GetResponse.)

Step 3: Create training courses. Start with the beginner course and make sure people want what you have to sell.
No sense in making them all if no one wants them.

Step 4: Make sure in all your videos and blogs you have a link to the FREE TRAINING. People will sign up for the free video and get on your list. Make good videos of you playing and blast them everywhere and people will sign up.

Step 5: When people sign up and see your free video, you can then offer them more training at a reasonable price. Remember, don't give them too much in the free video, always leave them wanting more. Build trust FIRST! Then present your offer to them. Nobody like a hard sell right away.

Step 6: If people buy, you can then create more advanced courses to sell them at more premium prices.

Step 7: Offer them other people's courses and training if they don't want yours. You can make an affiliate commission.

The thing here is to give to get. You must GIVE people what they want first and then they will give you what you need when they trust you and like you and see you as an honest authority figure on the subject.


So make sure you start capturing those emails! Build your list and build an asset.

Robert C.

Nathaniel,

You've stated that you want residual income. If that's the case, you've got to have something to sell besides your time as a hired guitarist. Whenever you are paid for playing at an event or on the street . . . you're trading your time and talent for your money and that's not residual. So keep advertising your availability as that seems to be what you enjoy doing - but you've got to create other income streams in order to supplement your gigs.

Doing advertising on your site doesn't make sense as a business model unless you are getting mega traffic.

To me, your situation suggests that you need a product (or better still, several products) that you can sell 24/7/365 on autopilot at your site. They should be relevant to your niche. They can be created by you (probably the best alternative) or by others (you sell as "affiliate" products.

Think about the kinds of things you see popular bands selling at their concerts . . . CDs with their own music tracks, t-shirts with their logo or band image, posters, calendars with their pictures, hats, hoodies, and other logo swag (mugs, bumper stickers, autographed and framed pictures, logo keychains, etc). You could do all this to help "brand" yourself and your image. Places like CafePress, Zazzle, and others will help you see the possibilities.

There are other kinds of products you can create as some of the other posters in this thread have pointed out. Guitar courses, "how to" books, even a paid community site for people interested in your genre could be profitable. The sky's the limit really.

Your web site is a nice beginning . . . congratulations . . . but at this point I feel that you need to put on your "marketing" cap and begin to brainstorm all the ways you have to create products that you can sell. Build up your assets and learn to market them - that is how you can add residual income to your "hired" out and busk income.

The very best to you,

Steve

I love your website and blog. Black background fits right in with your theme and niche!

If playing your guitar is something you love, why not expand on what ever it is that is working for you right now?

Becoming successful online in any niche is quite an endeavor to take on.

Becoming a successful marketer online in your niche will surely take the wind out of you. But you can still do it.

But if playing music for a live audience was my passion and my biggest desire, I would definitely be following up with that.

Whether you decide to expand online or follow through a live performing artist, just know, there are challenges in BOTH.

To your success!

Warrior Forum is always a great place to be. The people here are always willing to help. Just like everything the advice can be good, bad or middle of the road. Not everyone agrees with everything but, that's what the forum is all about - finding the path for you.

Sell an ebook about how to play the guitar. And create backend products about playing guitar too. Then learn good marketing to get customers and then recurring customers.

Another one? I don't think the world really needs that.

I know a writer, Nathaniel. I'll tell you what he did, and maybe it'll help you. In an effort not to out him, however, since he brands himself and writes and acts under a pseudonym, we'll call him Joe.

• Stories. Before Joe made the decision to become Joe the writer, Joe the actor, and indeed Joe the brand, Joe had written dozens upon dozens of novels, novellas, short stories, short and feature-length screenplays, and even that rather obnoxious flash fiction. (I say obnoxious, because I always find flash fiction is never sufficiently long to deliver the goods.) He was, in other words, sat on a pile of stories. Unpublished, unproduced stories. And this was a problem. You write a story, just like you write a song, not for yourself but for others. To write a good story - and never let anyone else experience it - is kind of like doing stand-up in front of the mirror in your bedroom. The purpose of a joke is to make people laugh. If no one is around to laugh? You're not giving that joke a chance to live and breath. Same for stories. Same for songs. But it gets worse. Joe would pull these stories out of his melon and, when the stories were good enough to deserve it, he would put himself through the torture of giving them words. But there was a greater torture in store for him. Remember, he never shared a single story with the world, not a synopsis, not a line. So imagine the torture, then, of walking in a bookstore and seeing a novel, by another writer, that told one of his stories, or walking in a cinema, plonking down in the middle row, and, as the curtains rolled open, going on to spend two hours watching another of his stories unfold, and, just like the novel, a story delivered by another writer. Pain, Nathaniel. Pain. "But that's my story! I did that! First! The world should know."

• Platform. Tell you what, Nathaniel, you can only take that kind of torture for so long. Something snaps. And when it does? Well, the Joes of this world end up doing one of two things: They walk out the front door with a machete and spend a pleasant afternoon giving the neighbours a rather unpleasant afternoon, or, they give the world their stories; and luckily for his neighbours, that's just what Joe decided to do; he had a sit-down with an expensive web development agency. Now, you have two types of professional web developers, Nathaniel. Those that listen to what you want, and deliver it. Those that listen to what you want - and deliver what you need. Like yours truly, Joe knew his way around web development and online marketing, and again, just like yours truly, Joe knew that two heads - or, in this case, 4 - were better than one. He chose the latter type of agency. And, true to form, Joe got what he needed. The agency came up with brilliant idea after brilliant idea, but the best idea of the bunch was this: "Joe, you need two things. First, you need the perfect platform. Second, you need the perfect system. The idea, Joe, is to put in place a well-oiled machine that will enable you to concentrate on writing stories and not have to worry so much about running your website and growing your audience." The idea worked. It removed, you see, the general problem of wondering what Joe should be doing all day to further his writing career. Joe, because of the system, knew what he should be doing. No wondering was involved. No guesswork. Joe got up each morning, hammered-out some more of his latest story, and when he was done, usually around the 1,000 word mark, Joe would dive into System Mode. And every day? Pretty much, System Mode amounted to performing the same series of tasks.

• Old. Back in primordial times, you know, '70s, '80s, you became a published author by following the general route of the age. You wrote short fiction, you collected little slips of paper that were not little slips of paper you could cash at the bank ("Unfortunately, your story is not a good fit for our publication, but do try again when you believe you have something more suitable."), you got a handful of literary competition wins under your belt, a publication sent you a little slip of paper that a bank would cash, eventually one of 237 literary agents that had received your formal covering letter and sample of your work wrote back to you with offer of representation, you hurled a novel at said representation, said representation, otherwise known as your pimp, did what pimps do, and if you were lucky, and if the route worked for you, a publishing house would offer to make sweet-sweet love to you every 18 months, and for bankable little slips of paper of increasing value if you got really lucky. The next time you walk in your local bookstore? Those names on the books? Hookers. And, as you'll know if you've ever spent a drunken month in Vegas, the best hookers? They ain't cheap.

• New. Well, as Dylan said, for the first time in '64, "For the times they are a-changin'." Times do change. And as Ferris Bueller says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Joe? Joe was always looking around; still does. Joe didn't - and never has - missed a trick. The old route to literary success was dead, Joe knew. Only the new route would do.

• Route. When Joe had his website, he stepped out the front door for the very first time. Not with a machete. With a brand. If the world beyond Joe's home was a collection of streets and little suburban homes, the world beyond Joe's website was an inter-connected system of digital roads, on which sat social networks and forums and blogs and, in sum, everything Joe needed to network and spread the word. And he became active - everywhere, and each day. He grew his personal accounts. He grew his business accounts. Each day, he got up, he typed-up his 1,000 words, he blogged, he uploaded videos, he networked, he shared media, pictures, animated gifs, audios, videos, and before long everything was taking off. He talked to his audience. His audience talked back. He talked to the The Powers That Be. Some of them, a trickle at first, sure, but some of The Powers That Be talked back. It was hard work, don't get me wrong, ten-hour days, writing, running his website, running his system, but before long? Before long, the search engines loved Joe, the Gods of viral content loved joe, and - most importantly - Joe's audience loved Joe. And that - that was when The Powers That Be did more than talk back. Sweet-sweet love, Nathaniel. At the time of writing, Joe gets only a little of that sweet-sweet love, but still a lot more than most. And if he's lucky? If he continues to work hard? To run his website? His system? Hell - you never know - maybe one day Joe will get what he wants. To call himself a high-priced hooker. Laugh if you like, but it's the oldest profession - and if you're among the best, well, as we already know - they ain't cheap.

So. Advice. Were I Joe, or were I you, Nathaniel, I would take a leaf out of Joe's book. Like some of the books he writes, like some of the movies he writes, and sometimes to his displeasure gets plonked in - the material is not half bad. The both of us can learn a lot. If I had to say one last thing, then, it would be this: Nathaniel, you need two things. First, you need the perfect platform. Second, you need the perfect system. The idea, Nathaniel, is to put in place a well-oiled machine that will enable you to concentrate on making music and not have to worry so much about running your website and growing your audience.

Get up each morning. Tell your stories. Run the website. Run the system. And if you deserve the sweet-sweet love?

You'll get it.


- Tom

Wow! You guys are absolutely brilliant, so I want to start this response by saying a big thank you to you all, and now secondly, I've been taking some heavy notes from all of what you have had to input and this is what I have gathered so far and compiled into a strategy from it.

Plan of action notes and brainstorm

“I need the perfect platform and a perfect system. A well-oiled machine that will enable me to concentrate on making music and not have to worry so much about running my website and growing my audience” - Tom Addams

Market Research

-Understand the current market price listings
-Understand the format that the current market employs their resources
-Understand the way how they engage with their audience
-Identify the averaging age of the people who are in demand
-Identify the dominating percentage of the gender of the people who are in demand
-Identify the most commonly used keywords

Content and Public Engagement

Continue building an online presence and establishing relationships, maintaining consistency in order to build rapport and trust with my following.

Continue uploading YouTube videos sharing expert advice on my niche on set days per week to display value.

Master and commit to this medium before moving onto anything else.

Email List

Look toward developing an emailing list, requesting that people give their details in exchange for valuable free content.

Build an emailing list around people like myself with similar interests in my niche
Promote niche related products through my emailing list
Promoting gig's themselves or other online musical events
Blog posts included in emails and updates about YouTube Video Releases

Rules for the emailing list

Only try to sell them something every 3-4 newsletters
Mail them daily!

IDEAS FOR THIS EMAILING LIST

-This emailing list will be generated by a capture form pop up, which will
request people to enter their name and email in order to receive free content beyond the 3 tutorial videos I have on my lessons page.

-The same capture page can also be linked to on my blog posts and on posts
on my YouTube channel and Facebook.

Advertisement

Perform and set money aside to invest into advertisement of my content in order to build up my mailing list.

Add more backlinks to help develop higher rankings in my blog posts.

Add more backlinks referring to my squeeze page which offers free video content

Facebook ad's

Promote myself to other music businesses

Promote myself to event organisers

Promote myself to Charity gig organisers

Promote myself in forums/sites/blogs (Learn how to do so in a way that won't be considered as spam)

Merchandise

-Posters
-Images
-Calanders
-Autographed and framed pictures
-T-Shirts

Question about the !# on my blog link URL (With regards to Jill's point about it not helping the future of my SEO)

Membership Site

BUILD #1 CONSIDERATION – MONTHLY RECCURING MEMBERSHIP SCHEME

Beginner Membership

Find a way to create a free membership site and advertise it though my website/blog posts and YouTube Videos, creating a premium content beginners Course that lists a set of 5 tutorials for 5 of my songs which can be performed at beginners level and 5 beginner exercise videos to accompany it totalling to 10 videos for a recurring monthly price, which will enable the customers access to the premium website where all the content is embedded.

Intermediate Membership

-For an upgrade to intermediate level the customers will continue to pay the monthly recurring fee for access to the website and will have to pay a 1 off time fee to upgrade their level from beginner which will unlock the intermediate content additionally which will include 5 intermediate songs and 5 intermediate level exercises

Advanced Membership

-For an upgrade to the advance level it will be the same process as intermediate

BUILD #2 CONSIDERATION – 1 TIME PAYMENT

Customers page a 1 time fee at a price which is competitive with the current market for 5 videos explaining how to play 5 original songs at each level and 5 techniques at each level.

Monetization

-Website Ad's
-Affiliate links on blogs recommending third party products: Amazon, Ebay ect...
-Gig's and other online musical event promotion
-YouTube Ad revenue (Long term game)
-Selling my online courses through premium recurring membership
-Emailing list advertisement of affiliated products
-Offer other peoples training courses if they don't want to pay for my own courses in an affiliated link

Reviews and evidence of engagement

Capture videos and photo-shoots of me engaging with the public more to change the spotlight from me to them!

Platforms

SoundCloud

-Upload Compos and Covers (Disable the download feature and always plug in your social media accounts every end of your materials)
-Content is shareable on social media

Reddit

-r/selfpromotion and r/music
-Understand the guidelines

Facebook

-Maintain and upload official page

YouTube

-Maintain upload rate and always look for ways to improve by comparing to competitors

Webpage

-Update blogs frequently and install the links to the membership page once it's created which would be through the squeeze page pop up.

(Check out Udemy)

Instagram

Snapchat

LiveFeed

Website Additions/Modifications for improvement

-Add more backlinks to my hire page

Blog Additions/Modifications for improvement

-Don't focus so much on Me/I in order to keep the engagement of the readers

-Write about the interesting personalities that I have met while I have been out busking

Things to search up on and understand

Profitable musician blogs
Musician Forums
How to promote music online
Udemy
Question about the !# on my blog link URL (With regards to Jill's point about it not helping the future of my SEO)
Gary Vaynerchuck

Hey Nice Playing! I'm also a musician turned internet marketer..
So here is the strategy that you should deploy.
It's A strategy I call Optimistic Outcome.

1.Sign up for an affiliate guitar offer at click bank.
2. Buy the course
3. Extract main thing lesson out of the course
4. Put together a 4 part tutorial teaching people how to go from not playing to playing. break it down to make it easy and simple.
5. Make a 5th overview video recommending the course basically saying "if you like what you just learned than I think you'll you'll love this course" make it a light pitch.

After you create the mini course/ up load to you site and make people opt in to get the free lessons
-Create Landing page with a great headline
-Connect to an Autoresponer
-Craft 7 part email series- send the video one each day. put affiliate link at the bottom
-Create download page

Drive Traffic! Build List.
Test, Test, Test
Optimize

Once you have a list an followers-
Make you own course then Follow the same step to market your course.


Hope This Helps Bro!!