Raquel Rodriguez

As an independent artist, I’ve embraced the opportunity to connect directly with my audience, through marketing. Combining offers between all of my projects, "The 310,” "Sweet Side” and now "Housewife," (music + recipes), I’ve built a career on defining success my way. Through targeted marketing, I’ve given away over 1000 CD’s with a very successful international FSH campaign and have driven sales for my new music, including over 300 vinyl and 450 CDs for Housewife.

Please give us a brief overview of the Introduction Phase of your Buddy system:
I'm running a Free Shipping and Handling funnel. For the majority of my funnel, my PSM has average at 2 or above. My total revenue so far is $17,217. My total profit so far is $8,388. And the total amount of new customer is 853 people. Here's the link to my funnel.

Please give us a brief overview of the Education Phase of your Buddy system:
I have a general $1/day campaign as well as a Streaming campaign. Both give my fans an opportunity to engage with me and my music.

Please give us a brief overview of the Permission Phase of your Buddy system:
This is done through my FSH funnel and when that is not running, I usually supplement it with my “Sweet Side Live Vault” funnel where my cost per lead averages around 75 cents. 🙂

Please give us a brief overview of the Nurturing Phase of your Buddy system:
For email communication, I connect with my fans through Drip. I generally email my full list 3-5 times a month outside of updating customers on order status. I also personally respond to about 75% of my comments and interactions on social media and consistently make an effort to keep an open line of communication with new and existing fans. I also continue to shout people out and accept their requests for my live stream shows.

Please give us a brief overview of the Affirmation Phase of your Buddy system:
I ran a pre-order campaign for my new album aside from this happening naturally inside of my FSH funnel.

Please give us a brief overview of the Ascension Phase of your Buddy system:
This is happening within my FSH and Pre-Order campaigns. I also ran a black Friday sale. Each one made new fans as well as returning customers purchasing again. I'm regularly running offers to my list supported by ads to grow my customer base.

Please describe your growth, achievements, and success, over the last 12 months:
Honestly feeling pretty proud of myself this year. Marketing seemed like a really impossible and daunting skill to learn and once I dived in, I found that I'm capable of not only learning a new skill, but I'm also able to use it to finally generate money as an independent artist. I was selling exclusively on Bandcamp before this running into a lot of issues. I finally switched over to Shopify incorporated with Drip and between my Sweet Side Live Vault funnel, my FSH funnel and my Pre-Order campaign, I went from only about 2500 email subscribers to almost 7,000 within the course of less than a year. I've generated almost $40,000 worth of income and the engagement I've had with my fans has felt exponential

Lastly, please tell us why you think you should be a finalist for the Indie Of The Year Award:
For context, I have been part of the Indeprenuer program with my coach Shae for only the last 8 months (6 months in 2024). I have worked on very specific stages for every step of the Buddy system and have consistently seen growth. I pride myself on my work ethic and really feel like I took on these new challenges and ideas head on.

When I first started my FSH campaign, my PSM was consistently sitting (on average) above 4.0. It took awhile for it to dwindle down, but I felt like I exceeded my own expectations as well as the expectations of my coach and fellow indies. 

I also figured out how to sell my merch worldwide and market to all Green Light Countries in order to maximize sales to fans around the world. I set up a warehouse in London to manage my international orders and have taken advantage of the opportunities that have come from selling worldwide.

I also designed all of my funnels by myself with much success and have been able to implement those lessons into ways to build my social and streaming platforms.

All of this being new to me, I still have plenty to learn but I'm proud of myself for how quickly and thoroughly I was able to accomplish all of this mostly by myself and with the guidance of my coach. After being part of this program for the last 8 months, I feel like what I’m starting to really accomplish is exactly what Indepreneur hopes for for their clients. My numbers and results speak for themselves and after years of having no marketing, this has completely opened my eyes to what’s possible for independents.