Case Study: How We Helped John Schneider Sell Over 22 Thousand Copies of STAND ON IT
In the fall of 2018, John Schneider engaged the IndieX team to maximize his digital marketing efforts and connect with and grow the fan base that he had accumulated over a 20+ year long career in music, television, and film.
At that time, John was poised to join the cast of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars and he and his team wanted to dive headfirst into to a multifaceted approach to build awareness, release new music and movies, and grow the revenue of his business.
John had a sizable fan base due to his popularity as a country artist and as a well-loved actor on TV shows including Dukes of Hazzard, Smallville, and Tyler Perry’s The Haves and Have Nots.
Knowing this, our team worked with the John Schneider Studios team over the next 2 years to build numerous digital marketing campaign strategies aimed at helping John’s fans both old and new discover his revitalized effort in music, which included a 54 song album called The Odyssey Project.
Throughout the release cycle of The Odyssey Project and the subsequent albums Redneck Rebel and Recycling Grace, our team directed our focus upon fan acquisition through multiple Fan Finder Video Ad Campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, using performance videos and music videos for John’s singles as they were released.
Our intention was twofold. First, these campaigns succeeded at connecting thousands of new fans to John’s new music.Second, we aimed to maintain both these newly generated fans along with John’s existing warm audiences through retargeting, keeping them constantly engaged with new music and content online.
Along with these Introduction stage campaigns for fan acquisition, our team also assisted with the creation of multiple email subscriber growth campaigns, creation of a subscription fan membership site called the VIP Lifers, and regular sales promotions.
These efforts drove massive growth for John’s fan base. For example, on Facebook where a good majority of John’s audience “hangs out”, we helped triple his audience from 200k followers in late 2018 to over 650k by the end of 2020.
Additionally, through dedicated efforts to build his email marketing efforts, John’s subscriber list grew from 13k subscribers to 38k well-nurtured fans and customers to keep them excited and engaged with everything happening in John’s creative world.
Through regular sales promotions and music, movie, and product launches, we used Facebook Ads and email marketing, coupled with organic social media efforts to triple his e-commerce revenue in the first year, and then grow it again another 60% in the following year!
By mid-2020, John and the team were preparing to undergo a massive release with his movie Stand On It.
Stand On It was filmed amidst the coronavirus pandemic and its release was set for Black Friday 2020.
Set as a tribute to Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit, and American stuntman Hal Needham, the film had the potential for widespread appeal for both John’s fans and hot-rod movie lovers in general.
Our team prepared for the release by creating numerous Facebook Ads campaigns targeting both warm audiences and cold traffic, dialing in the perfect combination of appealing ad copy, and selecting ad creatives using images, video snippets, and the movie’s trailer that would stop any potential fan dead in their tracks online.
We also created a series of email marketing campaigns counting down to the release of the movie, combined with a Black Friday promotion, to engage John’s core fans and customers to rally around the big release.
Sold directly to fans via the John Schneider Studios store on Shopify, the sales offer was a simple DVD with options for fans to get an autographed or personalized copy if they desired.
After the release date, our team also built out retargeting campaigns offering fans the opportunity to continue riding the way of Stand On It excitement with exclusive merch, t-shirts, and more.
THE RESULTS:
Over the six month period after the release of Stand On It, the digital marketing efforts built for the movie excelled at driving sales.
By May 2021, our Facebook Ad campaigns were responsible for driving sales of over 15k copies of Stand On for a 6x ROAS.
In total during the release period, we’ve helped generate 23,483 sales of Stand On It directly to John’s fans, with over 116% increase in his e-commerce sales throughout 2021!