Raquel Rodriguez

TRAININGS COMPLETED:

• The Buddy System
• The $1-A-Day Traffic Plan
• How To Get New Fans Daily (Fan Finder)
• Be Your Own Videographer
• FREE + S&H Funnel Strategy
• Grow Your Email/Text List

Tell us about your Promotional Calendar:
In anticipation of my new album, I not only ran ads for Pre-Orders, but I directly communicated with my list to share singles before they were available, the artwork before it went live and often shared my stories about what the singles and album mean to me. I scheduled these to coordinate with each release. I also planned for a simple Black Friday sale as well as running ads for my scheduled shows/tours.

Tell us about your FSH funnel:
My FSH funnel was thriving off of only 1 song split into 3 different videos. The copy felt very true to my brand and I made a big effort to respond to everyone's comments. My main copy was:

"Ay! Can I send you a free CD?? Seriously, I want to give you my debut album "Sweet Side" for FREE!

First of all, my name is Raquel Rodriguez, I'm an LA native and I make feel good, groove-based, relatable R&B music…

I have a limited amount of "Sweet Side" CD's and I want to send them to new fans while I press my new album — If you like this one, maybe you'll like the new stuff too!"

Through this funnel, I was able to give away hundreds of free CD's with my first bump being a $7 EP. Eventually when those were sold out, I pivoted and used my new album "Housewife" on CD as the first bump at $15. Through the funnel I also offered my new album as a bundle with CD and vinyl or either of those separately. The last step in the funnel was a vinyl bundle of two Limited Edition vinyls, one of which is a live record with only 300 copies made as well as my debut album "Sweet Side" on a limited edition coconut color vinyl.

The link to the original FSH is: https://www.raquel.la/fsh2024
The new FSH is: https://www.raquel.la/fsh2024new

I designed all of the pages by myself and included a short video of my showcasing the free CD and all the perks and details. I explained I designed the artwork and insert by myself and included all of the information that often gets left out online.

Tell us about your album launch:
I didn't run an official album launch necessarily but I did release a new album with build up to the release. I also offered cooking recipes in the artwork of my new album in order to stand out from the standard music only albums.

Tell us about your product launch:
One of the product launches I had was for 4/20. I have a song about "mary jane" called "GREENS" and it tied into the grocery and recipe aspects of the album title "Housewife" - I marketed a tote bag (with matching shirt) that had a cartoon drawing of a bunch of kale that looked like it was smoking. Underneath read "Raw Kale Rodriguez" - a play off of my name as well as an attempt to brand the weed, food and name of the album.

Tell us about your physical merch sales/strategy:
I was able to set up worldwide sales by shipping some products to a warehouse in London to fulfill orders. It wasn't my full line of products but it was the main items people tend to buy. That company also produced a lot of my new merch in order to fulfill them directly and the remainders were sent to me in the US to fulfill orders here.

This year I was able to make a lot of new products that my fans hadn't seen yet. There were 2 new t-shirts, a new tote, 2 new vinyls in addition to the new album which consists of the vinyl option available in 3 different colors and the CD. There was also a bundle option that includes an additional recipe that's not on the album as well as an exclusive shopping list that matches the Greens items.

All of these items were included in a sales funnel or email campaign.

Tell us about your digital merch sales/strategy:
This is something i'm going to focus on more next year, but digital sales (aside from iTunes, Amazon, etc...) were exclusively through Bandcamp for now.

Please give us a brief overview of your music revenue over the last 12 months:
On Shopify my sales are at $38,988
My Bandcamp sales are at: $1,845
My overall touring income was about: $13,000
Merch sales from tour about: $7500

Please describe the highest performing revenue drivers:
I think my FSH funnel is my highest performing campaign by far. It's one of the biggest ways that i've gained a lot of new fans and have introduced my music to people that had never heard of me before. It got me excited to see that there really are people out there that appreciate my style of music. I just had to make the effort to find them and market to them. this has ultimately gained me more visibility across the board and is allowing me to level up in every aspect of being an independent.

Gross and net revenue:
This is based upon Shopify sales alone. Not including touring or cash sales. Unfortunately, I don't have accurate information for that although it's something I hope to fix next year.

Gross: $38,988
Net: $27,544


Lastly, please tell us why you think you should be a finalist for the Money Maker Award:
After struggling for many years as an indie artist, living "paycheck to paycheck," I finally have had a financial breakthrough. I've made the most money from my music than ever before and I'm excited to continue and grow.