Taylor Bradshaw

Please give us a brief overview of the Introduction Phase of your Buddy system:
My Introduction phase consists mostly of my Free+Shipping campaign, which I have been running at higher budgets for the last 2 years. It has the advantages of selling my music immediately and creating email subscribers, while also showing performance videos of my music to a large number of people, creating new fans whether or not they take the F+SH offer. All of this while breaking even on expenses.

This has enabled me to spend $109,262 on Meta ads in the last year while roughly breaking even on costs. This created 8,033 new customers/email subscribers, while also creating over 8 million impressions in the last year.

With my costs, this is truly break-even, as Meta doesn't account for shipping income in its revenue or ROAS calculations.

Please give us a brief overview of the Education Phase of your Buddy system:
My Education phase mostly consists of my Introduction email series, a Green Light Warmth boosting campaign, and livestream concerts.

My Introduction series is my main education phase, as most of my new fans are generated through my FSH funnel. It first thanks them for their support and asks for a direct email reply to some fun questions. It then provides them a secret performance video of a new, in-progress song, then a bunch of fun and sometimes silly stories guiding them through the album, the tour that supported it, and other "behind the curtain" goodies.

In tandem with my FSH campaign, I'm also always running a Green Light Warmth boosting campaign on socials, where I post performance video snippets three times a week consistently. This can keep people warm, and also warms up prospective FSH buyers who are still on the fence.

Please give us a brief overview of the Permission Phase of your Buddy system:
My Permission phase is mostly from my FSH campaign, which has generated 8,033 new subscribers in the past year. However, I have a number of different permission bribes for fans, as I know that many of the people who see my FSH ads won't want that particular CD offer, despite having become real fans from seeing the ad. Each bribe is crafted for a different kind of fan, which I'll list below.

Merch orders from socials: People who order a "real-time" offer from social media are subscribed.
Ultimate Album Launch: A 5-day virtual cabin experience that brings people behind the scenes of my EP, complete with stories, live studio videos, performance videos, and more.
Request a concert: People can request a concert in their city with an opt in form.
House concert applications: I perform house concert tours, and people can apply to host me on my next tour.
Choose the songs I make next: Fans get access to stream a whole archive of demo recordings and vote for what I make next in a Typeform survey. This not only serves as a permission bribe, but gives me valuable insight into what songs I should focus my production resources on.
Live concert signups: The classic "pass around the clipboard" at a concert. Yes, literally a clipboard. And yes, it works really well!

Many of these bribes were created as direct responses to common questions that pop up in my FSH comments. If someone doesn't want a CD, but wants something else, then there's a link I can drop them!

Please give us a brief overview of the Nurturing Phase of your Buddy system:
Aside from my Introduction email series, which provides post-purchase nurturing, I have a few other consistent nurturing efforts.

I send weekly emails to my list that are much more personal and story based than what I share elsewhere. Over time, I've been able to tap into how my fans speak, what connects with them, and what they're looking for from me. I do this by measuring responses to my emails, while compiling a doc where I copy/paste comments and email replies that are representative of fan vocabulary and emotion.

They want peace and comfort. They want to hear stories about how it's not all pretty and easy, it's actually a really rough struggle out there. But there's hope and a silver lining to every struggle. And we need to love ourselves through it all and keep our heads up, even when the going gets tough. In this way, these emails are more about them than the music itself. And I've learned that through trial and error.

I also post performance video snippets 3 times a week, boosting with a Green Light Warmth campaign.

I perform livestream concerts monthly, with live Q&A baked into them. These have a consistent attendance of superfans, and I interact with all the comments in real time.

Please give us a brief overview of the Affirmation Phase of your Buddy system:
The Affirmation stage is mostly covered by my FSH campaign, which has generated 8,033 customers and $151,867 in gross revenue over the last year.

However, I also affirm people through other means. This can mean attending a live concert, hosting a house concert, or purchasing a full-price merch item.

I run real-time offers on a 6-week cadence. These are mostly merch offers, but can occasionally be something like a house concert hosting campaign.

Merch orders from my social media efforts can be affirmation actions. And for my livestream concerts, I'm always selling something live and current with a pinned comment and verbal sales pitches throughout the concert. These always generate a boost in sales.

Please give us a brief overview of the Ascension Phase of your Buddy system:
My Ascension phase is strictly from real-time offers these days. I have run all manner of automated ascension efforts from a "complete your discography" decision-tree email workflow to specific discounted products in an email workflow with printed signage in packages with QR codes.

They were all underwhelming, despite extensive testing. I found it far more beneficial to skip an automated ascension series so that they could enter my regular mailing pool sooner and receive real-time offers sooner.

I deliver real-time offers on a regular 6-week cadence now, and this performs much better than the automations. The key is consistently keeping up with those real-time offers, which is something I have been developing more recently.

I include a (photocopied) handwritten letter in every package for real-time offers. These are current, and create a closer bond with fans. They also highlight the "now" aspect of these offers and pack more value into each package than I had promised.

Please give us a brief overview of the Referral Phase of your Buddy system:
The Referral phase of my buddy system is from several sources. Without my efforts, fans buy FSH packages as gifts for loved ones all the time. However, here are my intentional efforts:

I include postcards in every package with QR codes and CTAs to join my Ultimate Album Launch experience. It's natural to send cool postcards to friends, especially within the context of this FSH buyer having just received a letter from me themselves. And these postcards act as a referral.

I include links to share with a friend in emails.

I include asks to film/photograph their unboxing experience, printed on the outside of each package. They have a QR code and also an email link for them to upload afterwards. They often post these videos themselves to social media and tag me. I also use these photos and videos to great "user generated content" montages for use on socials, my store, and FSH ads (with their permission). I've received 563 responses so far.

Please describe your growth, achievements, and success, over the last 12 months:
This has been a rollercoaster of a year for my music career, and it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. But the massive growth has been a realization of years of effort within the Indiepreneur model.

I've run a Free+Shipping campaign at high budgets (over $1,500 a day last Feb), generated $160,215 in gross merch sales, sent out 8,202 merch packages, played concerts for thousands of people, flown around the country for concerts while making money, and made deep connections with fans, some of who feel like family now. All in the last year.

I've broken even on some pretty extreme ad spend, and supported myself through the summer mostly on live performances (concert income isn't reflected in any of the preceding numbers).

I've also gone in and out of some extreme debt, stubbed more toes than I knew I had, struggled to keep up with fan replies and keep up with what I offer (eg. playing all those house concerts), and became somewhat socially isolated from working so much on music.

But overall, I've laid the foundations for a lasting music career in the last year. My music career has turned from a dream into a certainty. People ask me to play a concert, I say a high number, and they say yes because I have this leverage now.

I've done the work of creating and scaling this business behind the scenes - hiring and managing people, building my team, creating systems of scaling, and other necessary (if less-than-sexy) business-building. All while retaining 100% ownership of my career.



Lastly, please tell us why you think you should be a finalist for the Indie Of The Year Award:
I've gone through some really insane growth in the last year. And I've shared the whole journey with the IndiePro community. At this point, many of you know me, and know that I share anything and everything I can to help others in this community with their own growth.

I owe everything in my music career to Indepreneur. I couldn't have done it without their training, coaching, and the wonderful community of IndiePro.

I've taken these indie marketing methods to the extreme, and pushed the envelope on what could be achieved with them. I've created my own flavors of marketing efforts, such as creating a house concert survey funnel and making this a cornerstone of my income this year.

I've built and scaled a business based on my music and sent out tens of thousands of CDs.

I've created a lasting impact in the lives of fans through my music, and that alone is worth all the effort.

This still feels like the beginning of the journey. But I hope to share everything I can with our Indies along the way. Thank you for your consideration.