 What's up everybody once again this is Brand Man Shana and I'm back with another episode of Inside the Network where we show exclusive content from inside of brandmannetwork.com. Now, this is another clip from our collaboration Brand Man Network group with Music Entrepreneur Club where me and Dame are asking questions in this particular clip. We're talking about do artists still need websites? Why is it relevant or is it not relevant at all? Check out this breakdown right here. Dame does a good job at sharing what the whole path looks like. Right now, but my first question was I was watching this Adam Ivey video and he talked about creating your own website and he was saying like because social media is so congested and because it's controlled by someone else it's hard to really promote and push your brand and your music on those platforms and I wanted to get you guys to take on like creating your own website and like sending your traffic towards that website. Dame you want to answer first? Yeah, no I definitely feel like you got you know I know that there's been some chatter like you don't need a website stuff like that I'm not in that camp. I definitely feel like you should have a website. I definitely feel like you should strive to own the communication with your fans and this actually might be a good point to share the graphic that I put together to see if it makes sense to you guys. Let me see if I could share my screen. Can you guys see this? Yup, you are seeing my girl man. Alright so this is what I call the journey of a fan and I'll show you how it kind of relates to what you're talking about. So this is essentially what you guys are tasked with right like getting that first initial view or stream and then trying to take them through this cycle to eventually spending money. So on this graphic what you see at each step there's a higher likelihood that that person would spend money. So on one side you have a view or a stream I mean somebody could have clicked the button on accident at this point you don't even know if they liked it or didn't like it right. So on the first stream it's a pretty weak metric and a pretty weak indicator that you know this person is going to spend money but as you move to the right like comment follow they're doing more things that prove that they like your content they support what you're doing. But when you get to the green the green is kind of is an indicator that you actually start owning this communication and this is why it's important right because if you get somebody to give you an email and especially if you if somebody gives you their phone number there's a super high likelihood that they're going to spend spend money with you and that is why I think Adams talking about a website and having a place where you own the communication and is so important because if again if somebody gives me their phone number that means they trust me enough that means they love what I do enough to give me that phone number because not everybody wants to be bothered with a text or a phone call right. I would assume that pretty much I would bet that if somebody gives you their phone number to interact with them or to get a video via text or any type of marketing via text. This is just a wild guess but I would assume that 75% of those people will actually spend money 80% will actually spend money because again a phone number is a pretty intimate thing. This again is essentially the journey and sometimes this takes years right at initial view or stream all the way through to actually spending money you guys need to understand that sometimes this is a year process sometimes it's a week process maybe a couple of days process you don't know but you know and this is why I'm always emphasizing the importance of getting phone numbers. If you have people that you feel like you've at least taken all the way through to like the shared email stage and you're comfortable asking for their phone number you guys should be getting the phone numbers of your fans and this graphic hopefully indicates exactly why it's because it's right before you know essentially spending money it doesn't necessarily happen in this order but it's a higher likelihood that they're going to spend money. So going back to your question yes definitely have a website definitely be getting emails definitely be getting phone numbers if you've already built up relationships to a point where they trust you enough to give you a phone number because that is when you can ease more easily create experiences for your fans and monetize your fan base as well and a lot of this happens on our websites. So I work with you know I work with Futuristic and I work with a couple of comedians and actors and on their websites we're trying to get phone numbers and emails there as well. I mean I still do emails but email open rates are pretty low it can be effective email can still be effective but open rates are pretty low the phone numbers however when you start texting with your fans the open rates are like 95 96% and that's again another reason why I would put the phone number ahead of an email but a lot of people still swear by emails a lot of people still monetizing their email lists and that's what happens on your website and also what happens on your website you sell merch hopefully you got a cool merch strategy you got some cool cool items so you always want to send traffic because you're monetizing right then and there. So hopefully this makes sense I'm still not 100% comfortable with how it looks because I know that if I wasn't there to explain it a lot of people would be like what the fuck is this so I'm probably going to massage it a little bit and some more explanations in it. I have some feedback for the design if you want to hear it for sure yeah I would suggest making the... Alright so that's that clip and of course you can check out the full clip in bramannnetwork.com but I want to give my opinion in just expanding on why I think websites are still relevant but how they should be used. One they're still relevant because all of these assets are still relevant in some form or fashion email, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TV, radio all these things are just mediums right to communicate, create awareness and or capture. Now I put website on the back end capture yes websites are cool to have and try to get people to it and you know you want to do all these experiences and things like that back in the day but now it's less about trying to get them to spend time on your website or even direct them to do all these things and showing them your music and all that it's more about having a utility to your website. It's more about having a purpose for your website and what I mean by that is don't just try to mimic your Instagram page or don't try to get people to listen to your music on your website any of that kind of stuff right for your website you should really be looking at three primary things one opt-in by opt-in that means collect some information you should have something for them to sign up for whatever excuse there is for them to give you their information that's the number one purpose that you should look be looking at your website for because you want to own as much data so you can get back to them for cheap or free versus all these other social networks to then something to sell right that could be merch or whatever makes sense for your brand and then three is a little bit more open but something like touring or some kind of updates like that okay cool right something that's very specific information where you're probably not gonna have a full expansion on social media or it just makes it easier for it to be in one place right touring ticket sales but that one kind of runs back into sales right or something for people to buy so purpose number one if you have anything just an opt-in right you have to choose one thing just something for them to opt-in to buy something some sort of product right something for you to make money in which is almost still some version of an opt-in but you probably need a funnel created or attached to that more purpose and then last but not least tour so that's my thoughts just generally speaking of course it gets slightly differed from some situation to situation but that opt-in thing is very serious almost all around I'm pretty much gonna probably give that same advice so again if you want to check out this full interview well this full conversation brandbandnetwear.com is a place to do that also to help get information to build your brand develop your brain and really help build your fan base but of course as always we end it here if you like this video go ahead the like button if you like it then your minds well share it and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe button