SOUND ON SOUND

[The Red Bladder]

So, how do you make a living Andy?

In no special order, studio, property, other investments, business consultant, German company owner.

BTW, I like what Eddy Deegan has just written!

[Zukan]

Thanks Eddy. Loads to take on.

Sadly, there is not a lot I can do with the Pivotshare platform.

...

I am trying to migrate across to Shopify but am hesitant to do so with the current climate as the migration costs amount to a few thousand pounds.

Valid points, both. However, you can link to pivotshare from anywhere, so perhaps you can drive up visitors through promoting it via the methods (or something like them) I mentioned before.

I've discovered so much cool stuff on youtube over the years it's ridiculous. I also know that if in my 'suggested videos' list I saw something along the lines of "Creator of <something> for <well known band or record> recreates it using modern plugins" I'd certainly find that quite intriguing.

Then, in the description of the video you have your distilled bio/credentials together with links to similar videos in your channel, a tempter "if you enjoyed this video you'll probably love our series on the Audio Production Hub about managing the low end and making kicks awesome" etc. and ... well, you get the idea. It's all about laying out those paths in a way people want to follow. Subscribers go up, some of them flow over to your other services and so on.

Good points. I always try to promote the Hub both here and everywhere on my FB pages but I have yet to see any direct signups though these outlets.

I like the Youtube ideas. I will try to incorporate them but have found I get little interest re my audio production videos. Not sure why. Yes, I have a thousand or so subscribers to my Youtube channel but not a lot of views when it comes to audio production videos. When I was creating Propellerheads Reason videos I had 30-40000 views per video. Now, with the focus being on audio production, I get views in the tens or hundreds.

Ideally, and something I have been after for a long time, I would like to take on a marketing partner who can handle all these issues, create product descriptions, handle marketing etc...but no takers.

[Martin Walker]

I think you need to big yourself up more. Not so that you come across as cocky but as an experienced professional offering a relatively rare opportunity for anybody to learn from your content. I know that's the message you already give, but I think it could be shouted from the rooftop more.

You believe in your content (and I think rightly so), and the little 'About Eddie' section on samplecraze contains very relevant information, but I think that could be expanded significantly so that the overriding message on the site is "You've found something really special and here's why".

Then, take that message, distill it into something shorter and more to the point and use that in all your promotional stuff.

Spot on Eddy - I've been saying this to Zukan for years, and at first he was even loathe to put up the little history he has on his websites now.

You won't get musicians hanging on your every word if they are not convinced that it's worth their while to do so, and currently that means them taking the plunge and spending some money. Your website has to convince them that their money will be in safe hands and that they will emerge with new skills and more refined production techniques that will stand them in good stead in the future.


Martin

[Zukan]

I don't know how to approach this Martin. I abhor blagging achievements and when I do start to put something together it ends up being a Tolstoy affair.

I'm liking that chairwoman already!

You would love her manager then. Because I was working all day I wrote a piece of music for her company in the evening when I got home, it took me eight evenings. This work has been performed on Radio 3 twice and in concerts in several countries. However her manager screamed at me as if I were a badly behaved, stupid child 'is this a joke? Are you winding me up, for god's sake eight evenings to write five and a half minutes of music, you're treating me as if I'm stupid'. These two described themselves as "tough, hard-nosed business women". I have another word for them but by feminist wife says I'm not allowed to use that word.

the third is doing two other things and also can only do a day here and a day there.

That is true of all the good teachers I know, they can't turn down work with major orchestras and ensembles to teach children at a regular time every week. My teacher at college was so busy I wouldn't get a lesson for three weeks, then I would a long lesson when he was back from touring.

Incidentally, I know so many excellent saxophone teachers that there must be something else going on.

I don't know how to approach this Martin. I abhor blagging achievements and when I do start to put something together it ends up being a Tolstoy affair.

My view is that if you feel uncomfortable doing it then it probably won't be convincing anyway. I'm the same by the way.

[Eddy Deegan]

When I was creating Propellerheads Reason videos I had 30-40000 views per video. Now, with the focus being on audio production, I get views in the tens or hundreds.

Bingo ... that's a great example of how to use one to boost the other. If you did a Reason video about how to create some cool patch, groove or other, then towards the end of it you start applying some of the EQ, Compression, Mastering etc. techniques that are in the audio hub, you have a good opportunity to convert some of those eyes that came for the Reason stuff.

"At this point, we've got our groove and we've improved the way it sounds by using some of the techniques used in high end audio production. If you'd like to know more about these techniques and how to apply them to your recordings/beats/grooves/dubs, then we have a comprehensive set of video guides on the Production Hub that can elevate the quality of all your output (ie: not just Reason) to a whole new level. Once learned, these skills work on anything.".

Ideally, and something I have been after for a long time, I would like to take on a marketing partner who can handle all these issues, create product descriptions, handle marketing etc...but no takers.

After my company grew to the point we had a marketing requirement beyond what we could do in the gaps, we used a student fresh out of marketing college (in fact, I think he might even have still been in it and was working with us as part of his final year project).

Cheap as chips, he was happy, we were happy. I had to re-write most of what he'd written but he did the market-y thinking, I just formalised the output. It worked pretty well ... might be worth talking to an educational establishment or two to see if there are any student programs you could get involved in. They are inexperienced but freshly trained, and between their marketing stuff and your experience that might get you forward a bit.

[Martin Walker]

Hi again Zuke,

I've just been looking more closely at the ADSR tutorials (whose pink noise mixing tutorials got the 50,000 views, even though yours came out months earlier), and it struck me that the first thing you see on their website is a huge list of genres from which to choose:

https://www.adsrsounds.com/tutorials/

I'd like to bet that (much like most other websites organised by genre) there's an awful lot of overlap, in that each video gets tagged with half a dozen or more different genres, but this approach does instantly imply that there's absolutely LOADS of stuff to look at.

Your web site also has loads of stuff to look at, but (as someone else mentioned earlier) if you can take someone immediately by the hand and guide them to topics that are likely to interest them then you could be halfway to a sale.

Only trouble with this approach is that you need a web designer on hand to keep refreshing things, but Eddy Deegan's comment about a student could be worth following up in this capacity too - with so much existing content on your web site, it would be a great feather in the cap of someone wanting to make a mark near the beginning of their web design career.


Martin

[CS70]

A tough one. There's no recipe in business, otherwise everybody would get rich. There's things that improve your chances and then there's either the lucky break or the continuous, grinding improvement year after year, but starting with (and keeping above) a no-loss baseline.

Tougher still as a one-man gig because you need to work many angles to really improve your chances. Not impossible, at all, but it's a mindset - one that's seldom found in musicians. And it's a hell of a hard work, much harder than any "regular" work.

First of all, who's your intended audience? Absolute beginners, mid-level, experts? That's the basis: the same content can be brilliant or awful depending on who's listening.

Second, is that intended audience big enough?Say you capture 0.1% of the total - would be enough to sustain your business?

My guess would be that people interested in generic courses on subject X are not total beginners (too much commitment for something you ain't yet sure it's gonna be important to you) nor obviously experts at your level (unless you run master classes), but the large bunch of people that's got a bit further, found out they like it and would like to know more, at least for a while. A few interested souls, a few occasional punters, but you cant count on these.

Remember that these people by definition often can't really judge how good a product is - because they don't really yet understand it. Therefore they use proxies: brand, glamour, looks, group thinking, other's opinions etc. People choosing Harvard have never followed lessons at Harvard before (doh!): they go there for the reputation, the implied promise of future success and, to a point, the general look of the place (it bloody looks the part!).

That means that, if you're targeting these people, the quality of the proxies will be as important as the quality of the content (sound awful, innit? Welcome to normal, not-quality obsessed people :-D)

Third, how's the competition for that audience? It's good to have some - the field breakers are seldom successful - but too much competition and you can't survive unless you find or conjure an edge. You have to decide whether or not to stay in that market or try to find another one (but still viable, as per above).

Fourth, is there an edge to be found? Or can you make up edges which are easy to communicate and cannot be copied? In other words, how close to a commodity is your product?

So: find an audience (and ensure it's viable assuming you capture a very small part of it, at least initially, and not over competitive); find your edge; pay attention to the proxies as much as you do to the product itself (that's surprisingly the tough one for any creator!); invest financially in promoting your edge to your audience.

You still need luck - we all do - but still is more of a plan that if you don't think about any of that stuff.

Take Netflix online service: potential audience, enormous - everyone liking movies; competition, relatively limited when they started; proxies - pretty good; edge - amazing, when they started - you don't ave to go rent a video tape or dvd or whatever and bring it back. Luck; yes, they happened to launch in sync with widespread adoption of broadband, which allows theirs service to exist at all.

Now from what I read your main edge is your own experience and nearness with well known acts. That's what distinguishes you from the 16 years old kid with Cubase and a cheap Chinese mic.

What audience will care most for that? Hard to say, but my feeling would be that the lower-knowledge level won't care too much. No matter which names you can drop, in today's billion-information-pieces-world these names won't mean crap to a lot of people. Even if u worked with Madonna. Heck, when Paul McCartney worked with Kayne West, loads of kids had never heard of the former!

So you want to aim to people already a little in the know. Finally, is that audience viable? Not sure, it's your bet. How about the competition? Same same, it needs more research than I have.

An idea could be master classes only - aiming to a smaller market but far more informed (for example I've occasionally looked at the "Mix with the Masters" free videos, and found them interesting, even if I'd unlikely pay for them).

I also like Red Bladder's idea: bundle with something else! The "Mix with the Masters" videos are, insofar I understand, sophisticated props to sell hopefuls a week residency experience with an actual mixing engineer, or associated events. You could try to organize similar events. Or come out with even wackier ideas - what about an audio show across the UK? FInd a bus! :D

If all of that sounds like hard work it's because it is :D

Promotion is expensive and no matter your financial resources, they're a drop in the ocean of the possible ways of doing it... so it works only so long you have a clear idea of what you are promoting, to whom and why..

Best of luck!

[The Red Bladder]

If I put my consultant's hat on, I often get approached by people with online businesses that are failing to perform. I nearly always do not want to deal with them, because there is just too much wrong to even begin to start to fix things. (That and the fact that most of them are already skint!) Rather than criticise what is going wrong in this case, here are the main points I find myself having to make again and again and again . . .

1. Platform. If the website in on some "Create your own website for free!" platform, or is using one of those website builders that allow anybody to just pull-down items in easy steps, it has to come off and be properly hosted. Google doesn't like them! This means starting all over again and from scratch. And when the client says that they don't want to start all over again, that's when we part company (as we do for points 2 to 10).

2. Quality. The website must be assessed by a professional for mistakes, dead links, bad copy, mobile-phone-compatibility, ease of navigation, logical online shop and many other things besides. Very often, the website is a DIY job using unsuitable plugins and apps and some ghastly ready-made theme and needs to be scrapped.

3. SEO. Again, a professional needs to be brought in to optimise the site for SEO. What used to score well, no longer applies, so a DIY approach is doomed from the start. A basic 4-page Wordpress site with good SEO can cost as little as £400, so it is well-worth getting things done properly.

4. Content. Smokey The Bear says "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Same applies - only YOU can create good content. Text. Pictures. It's down to the client to create these things! This is all part of SEO - good texts trigger those all-important search engine keywords.

5. Social Media. If you are supposed to be reaching Joe Public (and you are not selling automatic forging machines at $500,000 each to customers that you direct-mail) you must be all over SM. TwitFace, MyFace, FaceOff, YouBlog, InstaCrap and LinkedTube - every day and in every way, you must engage with all the above if you are to create that emotional proximity that turns click-throughs into fans and fans into customers. It worked for Donald Trump, Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj - so what are you waiting for?

6. Faces and Names. The client MUST have an 'About Us!' page - and there have to be faces and names! I mentioned 'Funky Dude' in another (business) thread - he runs a very large investment fund. His name and his face and the names and faces of his team all over their website, together with an interesting and well-written blog. Once again - we are talking about emotional proximity here and without that, you ain't got no fans to turn into customers.

7. Videos. Oh Boy! Everybody and their mothers-in-law are today a Cecil B. de-Hi-Def. Except they are not! Nearly all online videos stink. They ramble on, they are far too long. They are unscripted. They are poorly lit. The sound is dreadful. The camera is hand-held. The mistakes just keep on coming! How-to videos often do not even show the face of the person doing the VO.

8. Call to Action! Kenn Dodd once said, "Who'd have thought that one day we'd see the end to a DFS sale!" Except we never shall! "This week only 50% off!" "2 for the price of 1!" "Just £1 each! As long as stocks last!" "When they're gone, they're gone!" These 'calls-to-action' help push the wavering customer over the line!

9. Money-back-guarantee! What it says on the bloody tin. If the product is generic, i.e. not custom made, the client is FAR more likely to press the 'Buy it Now!' button if he/she is told that if they don't like it, they can always return it and get a full refund.

10. Softly-softly! When I was a furniture salesman (for a while!) the shop used to have a sort of glass funnel by way of an entrance and we put the most enticing things right there in the funnel windows. I stood across the street and watched the funnel. When punters entered the funnel but had not yet gone through the shop doors, I came over, as if I had been on an errand and as I passed them, with a big smile on my face, I invited them in. Each step was a soft enticement to take the next step. So much for free. So much more for free, but with an email. So much as a special introductory offer - and so on! Softly-softly-catchy-monkey!

So there are my ten things that nearly always need fixing in online businesses that are struggling. Miss one out and the business will fail. It's that simple. But getting all ten right is no guarantee of success either!

There has to be a genuine demand for the product or service in the first place! If the punters aren't lined up ten-deep at your door - no chance!

"Build a better mouse-trap and they will come!" only works if the people actually want to catch mice!

[Zukan]

Hi again Zuke,

I've just been looking more closely at the ADSR tutorials (whose pink noise mixing tutorials got the 50,000 views, even though yours came out months earlier), and it struck me that the first thing you see on their website is a huge list of genres from which to choose:

https://www.adsrsounds.com/tutorials/

I'd like to bet that (much like most other websites organised by genre) there's an awful lot of overlap, in that each video gets tagged with half a dozen or more different genres, but this approach does instantly imply that there's absolutely LOADS of stuff to look at.

Your web site also has loads of stuff to look at, but (as someone else mentioned earlier) if you can take someone immediately by the hand and guide them to topics that are likely to interest them then you could be halfway to a sale.

Only trouble with this approach is that you need a web designer on hand to keep refreshing things, but Eddy Deegan's comment about a student could be worth following up in this capacity too - with so much existing content on your web site, it would be a great feather in the cap of someone wanting to make a mark near the beginning of their web design career.


Martin

Good insights Martin.

I have always been against tagging the same product across various classifications. I think it's a bit of a con. You do not get repeated content on my site. It would be so easy to use say one of the vocal tutorials that uses reverb in the tutorial and tag it to Effects etc...the same video will end up appearing in different categories. That will make it all look impressive but people would soon get fed up of repeated content across so many categories.

Tom King has been an angel in running the site for free and helping out when needed. I need to let the guy go free lol. I have always struggled with site management be it design or seo. This is why I wanted to take on a partner on a percentage to handle the nitty gritty day to day stuff and I can get on with creating content.

I took a different approach when I set up the Hub as I didn't want it to be genre specific. I wanted the channel to house really professional content that helps budding producers at any level and in any genre. I keep the genre specific stuff to the compilations and video books I create: so, Mixing Hip Hop covers everything needed to run through an Urban mix project. It would be really easy for me to take all the 30 odd videos that accompany the book and release them as individual videos. However, I felt that the processes I cover vary from genre to genre; so I keep general processing tutorials in the Hub and the genre specific content to the video book releases.

I thought that with 200 odd videos, 7 eBooks and 3 video books plus countless articles, blogs etc I would make a half decent living. How naive I have been.

As you know Martin I have always had a real problem blagging my resume. I literally have a mental block when it comes to blagging my abilities. I also never know how to word these kinds of tags.

I am still at a loss as to how to proceed. I don't want to waste any more resources on creating content that sells to a handful of loyal customers. I need to think of way to make the content work for me. Advertising revenue is an abyss of lost investments in that you could spend time and money building a great Youtube channel with 50000 subscribers and the advertising would be a pittance compared to the really big players that are into leisure or lifestyle vlogs. Those dudes have millions of subscribers. In effect, the advertiser can now choose where to advertise and the bar keeps getting set higher as more and more channels gain subscribers.

I think taking on 1-2-1 students is the only surefire way of earning an income but that is dependent on me attracting students to sign up with me.
I still believe the Hub could be better run and with a hundred or so subscribers I could get on with creating content only for the Hub.

[Zukan]

If I put my consultant's hat on, I often get approached by people with online businesses that are failing to perform. I nearly always do not want to deal with them, because there is just too much wrong to even begin to start to fix things. (That and the fact that most of them are already skint!) Rather than criticise what is going wrong in this case, here are the main points I find myself having to make again and again and again . . .

1. Platform. If the website in on some "Create your own website for free!" platform, or is using one of those website builders that allow anybody to just pull-down items in easy steps, it has to come off and be properly hosted. Google doesn't like them! This means starting all over again and from scratch. And when the client says that they don't want to start all over again, that's when we part company (as we do for points 2 to 10).

2. Quality. The website must be assessed by a professional for mistakes, dead links, bad copy, mobile-phone-compatibility, ease of navigation, logical online shop and many other things besides. Very often, the website is a DIY job using unsuitable plugins and apps and some ghastly ready-made theme and needs to be scrapped.

3. SEO. Again, a professional needs to be brought in to optimise the site for SEO. What used to score well, no longer applies, so a DIY approach is doomed from the start. A basic 4-page Wordpress site with good SEO can cost as little as £400, so it is well-worth getting things done properly.

4. Content. Smokey The Bear says "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Same applies - only YOU can create good content. Text. Pictures. It's down to the client to create these things! This is all part of SEO - good texts trigger those all-important search engine keywords.

5. Social Media. If you are supposed to be reaching Joe Public (and you are not selling automatic forging machines at $500,000 each to customers that you direct-mail) you must be all over SM. TwitFace, MyFace, FaceOff, YouBlog, InstaCrap and LinkedTube - every day and in every way, you must engage with all the above if you are to create that emotional proximity that turns click-throughs into fans and fans into customers. It worked for Donald Trump, Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj - so what are you waiting for?

6. Faces and Names. The client MUST have an 'About Us!' page - and there have to be faces and names! I mentioned 'Funky Dude' in another (business) thread - he runs a very large investment fund. His name and his face and the names and faces of his team all over their website, together with an interesting and well-written blog. Once again - we are talking about emotional proximity here and without that, you ain't got no fans to turn into customers.

7. Videos. Oh Boy! Everybody and their mothers-in-law are today a Cecil B. de-Hi-Def. Except they are not! Nearly all online videos stink. They ramble on, they are far too long. They are unscripted. They are poorly lit. The sound is dreadful. The camera is hand-held. The mistakes just keep on coming! How-to videos often do not even show the face of the person doing the VO.

8. Call to Action! Kenn Dodd once said, "Who'd have thought that one day we'd see the end to a DFS sale!" Except we never shall! "This week only 50% off!" "2 for the price of 1!" "Just £1 each! As long as stocks last!" "When they're gone, they're gone!" These 'calls-to-action' help push the wavering customer over the line!

9. Money-back-guarantee! What it says on the bloody tin. If the product is generic, i.e. not custom made, the client is FAR more likely to press the 'Buy it Now!' button if he/she is told that if they don't like it, they can always return it and get a full refund.

10. Softly-softly! When I was a furniture salesman (for a while!) the shop used to have a sort of glass funnel by way of an entrance and we put the most enticing things right there in the funnel windows. I stood across the street and watched the funnel. When punters entered the funnel but had not yet gone through the shop doors, I came over, as if I had been on an errand and as I passed them, with a big smile on my face, I invited them in. Each step was a soft enticement to take the next step. So much for free. So much more for free, but with an email. So much as a special introductory offer - and so on! Softly-softly-catchy-monkey!

So there are my ten things that nearly always need fixing in online businesses that are struggling. Miss one out and the business will fail. It's that simple. But getting all ten right is no guarantee of success either!

There has to be a genuine demand for the product or service in the first place! If the punters aren't lined up ten-deep at your door - no chance!

"Build a better mouse-trap and they will come!" only works if the people actually want to catch mice!

Great pointers!

Most of these I have covered. Seo is decent on my site. WP site with all manner of plugins but I still feel WP is not the right platform for my business.

Pivotshare is not that good at all and has little if any SEO tools. No engaging with your subscribers, no news section etc make this literally a place to house content and not much else.

I am all over social media with pages and groups. I hep out in about 5 groups purely to help strengthen my brand. I use social media more than any other medium to generate sales.

Call to action is a regular feature for me with competitors constantly forcing me to run ludicrous sales which I believe work against us one man businesses. I have tried every kind of sale and I even offer free subscriptions and books/videos to my students. With subscribers I keep the fee very low (10 dollars/month) and I believe the content is good. I have been creating how to videos for a long time and the room is fine, the equipment is fine and I believe my delivery is ok. The rest of the points you rasied I have to work on.

[Zukan]

A tough one. There's no recipe in business, otherwise everybody would get rich. There's things that improve your chances and then there's either the lucky break or the continuous, grinding improvement year after year, but starting with (and keeping above) a no-loss baseline.

Tougher still as a one-man gig because you need to work many angles to really improve your chances. Not impossible, at all, but it's a mindset - one that's seldom found in musicians. And it's a hell of a hard work, much harder than any "regular" work.

First of all, who's your intended audience? Absolute beginners, mid-level, experts? That's the basis: the same content can be brilliant or awful depending on who's listening.

Second, is that intended audience big enough?Say you capture 0.1% of the total - would be enough to sustain your business?

My guess would be that people interested in generic courses on subject X are not total beginners (too much commitment for something you ain't yet sure it's gonna be important to you) nor obviously experts at your level (unless you run master classes), but the large bunch of people that's got a bit further, found out they like it and would like to know more, at least for a while. A few interested souls, a few occasional punters, but you cant count on these.

Remember that these people by definition often can't really judge how good a product is - because they don't really yet understand it. Therefore they use proxies: brand, glamour, looks, group thinking, other's opinions etc. People choosing Harvard have never followed lessons at Harvard before (doh!): they go there for the reputation, the implied promise of future success and, to a point, the general look of the place (it bloody looks the part!).

That means that, if you're targeting these people, the quality of the proxies will be as important as the quality of the content (sound awful, innit? Welcome to normal, not-quality obsessed people :-D)

Third, how's the competition for that audience? It's good to have some - the field breakers are seldom successful - but too much competition and you can't survive unless you find or conjure an edge. You have to decide whether or not to stay in that market or try to find another one (but still viable, as per above).

Fourth, is there an edge to be found? Or can you make up edges which are easy to communicate and cannot be copied? In other words, how close to a commodity is your product?

So: find an audience (and ensure it's viable assuming you capture a very small part of it, at least initially, and not over competitive); find your edge; pay attention to the proxies as much as you do to the product itself (that's surprisingly the tough one for any creator!); invest financially in promoting your edge to your audience.

You still need luck - we all do - but still is more of a plan that if you don't think about any of that stuff.

Take Netflix online service: potential audience, enormous - everyone liking movies; competition, relatively limited when they started; proxies - pretty good; edge - amazing, when they started - you don't ave to go rent a video tape or dvd or whatever and bring it back. Luck; yes, they happened to launch in sync with widespread adoption of broadband, which allows theirs service to exist at all.

Now from what I read your main edge is your own experience and nearness with well known acts. That's what distinguishes you from the 16 years old kid with Cubase and a cheap Chinese mic.

What audience will care most for that? Hard to say, but my feeling would be that the lower-knowledge level won't care too much. No matter which names you can drop, in today's billion-information-pieces-world these names won't mean crap to a lot of people. Even if u worked with Madonna. Heck, when Paul McCartney worked with Kayne West, loads of kids had never heard of the former!

So you want to aim to people already a little in the know. Finally, is that audience viable? Not sure, it's your bet. How about the competition? Same same, it needs more research than I have.

An idea could be master classes only - aiming to a smaller market but far more informed (for example I've occasionally looked at the "Mix with the Masters" free videos, and found them interesting, even if I'd unlikely pay for them).

I also like Red Bladder's idea: bundle with something else! The "Mix with the Masters" videos are, insofar I understand, sophisticated props to sell hopefuls a week residency experience with an actual mixing engineer, or associated events. You could try to organize similar events. Or come out with even wackier ideas - what about an audio show across the UK? FInd a bus! :D

If all of that sounds like hard work it's because it is :D

Promotion is expensive and no matter your financial resources, they're a drop in the ocean of the possible ways of doing it... so it works only so long you have a clear idea of what you are promoting, to whom and why..

Best of luck!

Great points CS.

My problem is that I get varying advice from different people and I try to follow all and any advice.

Being a one man outfit is extremely difficult for me. Not only do I physically not have the time to tend to all the various areas you describe but I don't have the knowledge or skills to exploit these wonderful ideas.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

A lot of good advice from TRB especially. Here's a few extra/complementary thoughts that may help you.

To expand on the better mouse-trap cliche a little with another well-worn adage: marketing is about making what you can sell not selling what you can make. This is very important and explains many a failed business enterprise quite succinctly.

In other words, you may need to radically change how you present yourself and your offerings and think laterally in order to monetize your skills most effectively. It's no good saying 'this what I do, please buy it'. As TRB said, if the market's not there you won't sell a thing. I have had many a prickly conversation with my clients over the years on this very topic!

That's why the first thing I would do in your shoes is to really get to know the similar businesses online who are doing what you do, but doing it very successfully. Know your competitors inside out. Understand what they do and why they do it.

Subscribe to their YT channels, visit their websites regularly, follow on instagram and Facebook and Twitter, even buy their lessons. Then see how they use the various conversion techniques (via email in particular in this market seemingly) to convert their subscribers and followers to paying customers. Then nick all their techniques.

In the recording sector you'll see people making money from advertising on YT, selling courses, templates, samples etc. A good example of the sharp ones that I consider to be doing it right is The Recording Revolution. https://www.youtube.com/user/recordingrevolutionHe has a good website, really good YT presence, sends informative and useful emails. He uses classic marketing techniques, too, behind his cheery exterior...stuff like long-copy squeeze pages (Google these if you don't know what they are) to convince you to buy, limited time offers, discounts (sorry, you HAVE to offer discounts).

Another one might be Rick Beato who seems to have grown his subscribers very rapidly or, for a UK one on a slightly different topic, Justin Guitar. I was trying to isolate what the successful ones have in common and it's, amongst other things:

* A fairly distinct niche: eg Recording Revolution is very much aimed at the beginner
* A very cheery and TV-friendly personality on video. This is SOOOO vital on YT. Certainly more important than your CV.
* A constant stream of useful, relevant and helpful content. Or simply entertaining content to drive subs. New YT videos every week, new posts on their website/blog every week.
*A constant stream of emails, at least weekly, driving you to YT or website etc
* High production values in their videos and on the website
* A catchphrase or visual gimmick that adds to their distinctiveness
*All their marketing activities interact with each other, constantly looping visitors around from YT, to website, to emails, to facebook, to YT, to website etc etc
*They understand how to put together YT vids to get found, with the right sort of content, presentation, titling and so on. There are endless vids and web pages on how to do this. But again, look at the successful folk and you'll see they all do very similar things
*They have a constant friendly dialogue with YT followers and blog subscribers, they come across as your mate who's happy to help so you feel you have a real 1 to 1 relationship with them.

HTH, cheers

[Zukan]

Thanks Huge. Loads to take in.

I feel overwhelmed and rather depressed.