Aaron Turner of Groovy Kaiju

Money Maker

Groovy Kaiju

Groovy Kaiju (formerly known as Groovy Godzilla) is a Future Funk, Vaporfunk, and Vaporwave producer from Moreno Valley, CA & Long Beach, CA. Groovy is all about good vibes, fun times, kindness, and staying Groovy! 😎🦖🌊

Trainings Completed:

  • The Buddy System
  • Run A Successful Crowdfund
  • Selling Tickets for Live Shows
  • The $1-A-Day Traffic Plan
  • How To Get New Fans Daily (Fan Finder)
  • Ones & Zeros 101
  • How To Create Your Brand
  • Make Merch That Fans Want
  • How To Turn Listeners Into Real Fans
  • Email Marketing for Musicians
  • FREE + S&H Funnel Strategy
  • How To Profit From A Launch Campaign
  • How To Generate Sales Year-Round
  • Grow Your Email/Text List
  • Spotify Field Guide

Tell us about your A-Series:
For Ascending Customers, Here’s How I run my A-Series:

1. Fan-Powered Merch Drops: I run an annual survey in my Email Fan Club asking fans who have already bought merch, what future merch they’d actually buy and at what price. Then, I turn the winning ideas into a big merch drop every two months. This strategy has worked wonders in turning first-time buyers into loyal repeat customers!

2. Paid Monthly Subscription (Patreon): My monthly subscription gives fans access to my entire back catalog, exclusive live recordings, and one-of-a-kind merch. Every 6 months, I invite my most active free fan club members to level up and join the paid expanded version of my fan club.

3. "Funky Fan Favorites" Offer: After fans join my Email Fan Club through my Free + Shipping CD offer, I follow up with a special deal on my most-loved merch items, but this time with free shipping! It’s my way of saying, “You covered shipping last time, this one’s on me!”

4. Fan Club Super Signature: Every fun email I send ends with a friendly P.S. that gently reminds fans of the things I mentioned above so they can ascend whenever they are ready!

Tell us about your Promotional Calendar:

As mentioned before: I run an annual survey in my Email Fan Club asking fans who have already bought merch, what future merch they’d actually buy and at what price. Then, I turn the winning ideas into a big merch drop every two months. This strategy has worked wonders in turning first-time buyers into loyal repeat customers!

My promotional calendar was planned and executed as follows based on the 2023 survey feedback I got:

  • February 2024: Most Popular Album Cassette Tape Launch (Monster Tape Zero Tapes)
  • April 2024: Groovy Kaiju Artist Plushie Launch
  • May 2024: Premium Screen Printed Groovy Kaiju Shirts
  • July 2024: New Album Drop (Radical Reptar CD & Tape Release)
  • September 2024: Most Popular Album on Vinyl (Monster Tape Zero Vinyl)
  • October 2024: Testing Album Drop for Side Project (Aviscerall)
  • November 2024: Kaiju Club Survey & Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale
  • December 2024: Prep for Next Year & Completely Free Digital Gifts for All Fan Club Members for the Holidays
Tell us about your FSH funnel:
I run both warm and cold F+SH funnels through email and Meta Ads, offering my most popular album for free, just pay $9.99 for shipping and handling (covers the CD, shipping, payment fees, and I have a Third Party Logistic company to handle fulfilling the CD for me, so their costs as well!).

This leaves me with a tiny ~$0.30 gross profit on the CD itself, but here’s the fun part: customers can pay their own price on the CD or grab upsells like: cassette or vinyl upgrades, more CDs, and merch like stickers and keychains. Plus, the shipping price drops with more items in the cart—boosting conversions while keeping fans happy.

For ads, I lean into my actual everyday "skater geek" vibe. My top-performing creatives include a live performance with the offer at the bottom, skateboarding clips mixed with my music, and my personal favorite: a retro console playing my album on CD next to a post-it note explaining the deal that I filmed on just my iPhone haha! I keep my copy personal and fun, kind of like catching up with an old high school buddy over Discord or something. It’s VERY casual but still have it pack a persuasive punch by using Robert Cialdini’s principles of Influence and the AIDA formula (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) by Elmo Lewis.

FSH funnel landing page

Tell us about your album launch:
The album launch I did this year was very simple. I made sure fans on my email list knew the album was coming by mentioning it maybe once a month until it was finally ready.

 Then, once it was ready, I followed this album launch plan:

Week 1: Album Cover Reveal, Album Release Date, and Physical Formats announcement
Week 2: Album Tracklist Reveal and personal story/meaning behind the album
Week 3: Early Album Release for Top Supporters (Physical and Download Only)
Week 4: Official Album Release for Everyone (Physical and Download Only) ...
Week 9: Album Release on Streaming Services

This album launch gave me a great bang-for-my-buck experience, and my fans loved it. Last year, I tried a very intensive approach with a daily breakdown of each song, teaser videos, explainer videos, and an album launch party on Twitch. However, this resulted in diminishing returns for me (both in terms of conversions and revenue). Thus, going forward, I've decided to stick with this album launch format!

Tell us about your product launches:

I launched A LOT of new products in 2024! The most notable one I think is my Groovy Kaiju Plushies!

Plushies were something my fans were asking for a LONG time now, and I finally figured out how to get them made, by learning how to navigate Alibaba. I found a supplier, and sent them some ChatGPT generated ideas for a plushie. Which actually I don't recommend, but I got lucky and got an AWESOME plushie in return.

With every product launch, I always send a "foreshadowing" email, so I sent an email showing off all the random plushies I have around my house, and asked my fans to send me theirs.

I found out one of my fans is a HUGE Lilo & Stitch Fan, and like their room is literally floor to cieling stich plushies and merch haha! The next e-mail was my own plushies and they literally flew off of my website, I was sold all 60 (at an average price of $35) of them in like 2 months!

Tell us about your physical merch:
Please see my previous answer, as my plushies were physical merch, haha! 🙂

Every merch drop follows the same process: I send a foreshadowing, nurturing email first, followed by the actual merch sales email. Then, I send a "three days left" email and a "last chance" email to anyone who didn’t grab the merch in the previous emails. For example, for my Monster Tape Zero vinyl launch, I shared a lot of insights about how successful the album has been.

I included the number of copies sold, some images and videos of me making the album, stories about potential collaborators who bailed out, and some of my early thoughts—not knowing how much of a SMASH hit the album would become for me, haha!

Tell us about your digital merch:
Please see my previous answer, as all of my albums come with a Digital Download and Bandcamp code, haha! 🙂

This is done via the Shopify app EDP - Easy Digital Products. For a low monthly price, I am able to attach digital downloads and "license keys" to individual product variants.

 Whenever they are purchased, my customers can see all the instructions for redeeming license keys (which allows me to generate and distribute Bandcamp codes) as well as a file download on the order page. Customers also automatically get a seperate email with all of their download and Bandcamp code information! 🙂


Revenue overview (last 12 months):

My music revenue has been AWESOME over these last 12 months haha! 🙂 I've made the following revenue streams from only my Groovy Kaiju project:

Merch (Shopify): $120,481.62
Shows: $17,852.24
Streaming: $9,468.67
Paid Membership: $1,352.03
Bandcamp: $287.25

Tell us about your highest performing revenue drivers:
Yes, my biggest revenue driver is DEFINITELY my F+SH funnel! Since I already provided details, here's what it's meant for my career: My F+SH Funnel has become the fuel for growth for my business, and I pretty much revolve everything around it. It's provided me with a controllable and scalable way to decide how fast I want to gain new fans, and it's a constant stream of opportunity to test new ideas, explore new things, and grow my business into something that actually is able to provide income for me to live off of!

Financial Overview:

Gross Revenue (Revenue after COGS, Fulfillment, & Fees) for Groovy Kaiju is: $73,649.76

Net Revenue (Gross Revenue after Marketing) for Groovy Kaiju is: -$5,520 That being said, the net loss over the past 12 months is due to me taking a loan out at the beginning of the year to "super scale" my F+SH ads as I noticed my average R.O.I on my generated Fan Cohorts was ~11.84%. 

I've now paid back the loan and I am at an average operating net profit of $1,634.34 in the last 3 months! 🙂


Lastly, please tell us why you think you should be a finalist for the Money Maker Award:
I should be a finalist because my music and business are building a sustainable direct-to-fan connection where my fans and I provide financial support, personal stories, good vibes, and awesome experiences for each other. From plushies to cassettes to vinyl, every launch has been inspired by my fans and crafted to make them feel like they’re part of the journey. This year, I took risks to scale up, tested new ideas, learned from my mistakes, and created a system that’s now finally consistently profitable and deeply personal to me and my fans! I’m honored and beyond thankful for everything this hard work, honest connections, and fun music have been able to build! Not just for me, but for everyone listening to and supporting my artistry!