The primary reason, as I understand it, for you to redesign your website is to sell many more CDs and digital versions of your albums. Secondarily, the website should also attract opportunities for gigs and other appearances for performing and teaching.
The work I do for you will be two-fold: 1. to create a modern, attractive, functional eCommerce website and, 2. to coach you in the marketing to promotion of your work through optimizing the site for search and to facilitate social media and email efforts.
If marketing is anything, it is finding and attracting people who want what you offer. That is what I will help you do.
The site architecture
As we discussed, the main sections of the initial site are: 1. Home page, 2. Albums, 3. Bands/Projects, 4. Blog, and 5. Press and Contact.
The home page will highlighted certain albums and contain a truncated bio, a sample of video, and a contact form. More if it makes sense.
The Albums page will contain images, brief write-ups, preview samples, testimonials, and purchase buttons for each album. These individual pages will serve you as ‘landing pages’ for each album. That means you will easily be able to direct people to a specific album or, if you prefer in certain circumstances, refer them to the page that will display all of your albums.
The Bands/Projects page will contain photos, testimonials (where available), brief write-ups, and samples of music.
The Blog page will be a repository of your writing. As we discussed, this page should be added to with a new article at least weekly to start. Blog posts need not be long. A variety of long-form and short-form writing is ideal. I have a sense that coming up with good topics will be easy for you.
The Press/Contact page will contain a downloadable/printable full bio, background, and photos as well as a contact form for reaching out to you.
I will create a banner and/or pop-up that exchanges something of value created by you (we discussed a video) for a name and email. I called this a ‘Lead Magnet.’
A page will be created just for you containing videos I create demonstrating how to do basic maintenance. Those videos include how to log in and access the back end of your site to see orders and product details, make basic text edits throughout the site, create emails and add contacts within Mail Chimp, optimize blog posts for search, and anything else you wish to know for self-sufficiency.
Email marketing
You should create a basic account in Mail Chimp that will allow email to be sent out to a growing subscriber list. This list will begin with the emails you have collected through the years from players and students. The list will grow through the lead magnet, capturing buyers of your music, and your onging collection of addresses.
I will design a template for emails and assist in the writing of the initial few in order to help illustrate best email practices.
The content of these regular emails will include the initial announcement of your new site, promotion and links to new albums and projects, and new articles in your blog. Typically these emails are short, to the points, and direct your recipients to the relevant content on your site.
Social media
Your primary social media platform will continue to be Youtube. Videos should be regularly added to your channel from performances, interviews, and educational content.
I will update the look of your Youtube page with a better ‘Picture’ and banner image and suggest different/better organization of your videos on the account. I will also coach you on writing video descriptions and creating video thumbnails that are more effective at attracting viewers. The goal is to grow your subscriber base which will increase your site traffic for viewing content and buying albums.
You are encouraged to engage with comments from your audience in order to build rapport and to attract people to your site and products.
The site mechanics
Your site will be built using Word Press and the Elementor editor, and be hosted on your current web hosting platform. CDs and digital albums will be sold through WooCommerce with payment collected through Stripe for credit cards and Paypal.
I take no fee from your purchases. You will collect all sales proceeds net of the small Stripe and Paypal processing fees.
When someone buys a CD or digital album, you will immediately receive an email notification and that sale will get recorded in the back-end dashboard of your site for easy access and accounting. WooCommerce is a widely used eCommerce platform that can be expanded to provide virtually any added function desired. You need not be an eCommerce expert to take advantage of its capabilities on your site.
Cost
To provide all of the above, the total cost will be $1,850.
50% of the total cost will be due at the start of the project with the remaining 50% due upon launch of the website.
Assuming timely availability of photos, writing, and approvals of the work, the site should be completed in approximately 30 days from the start of the project.
I will be available after launch to fix mistakes, continue to coach you on using the site and social media, to make basic edits to the site beyond your skills. For any advanced changes or additions I will bill you at $50 per hour.
At the point at which you wish to create a book of arrangements for sale on the site or any other major addition to the site, a separate proposal will be agreed to.
Fine print
Once I build out the home page, I will provide you with a link to review it. After your desired changes to that page are made, you will be able to view the site as I continue to build it. I will occasionally ask you for your thoughts on pages I am building so that I can confirm your approval of the work that has been done.
After your approval of completion of the site, designed for a desktop computer screen, I will then design the site for the unique sizes of phone, tablet, and laptop. Every well-designed site is constructed slightly differently for each device. At this point, I will assume only a small number of edits will be necessary prior to the launch of your website.
