My previous case study which showed a real working example of Using Facebook Ads was a great success. This is what you guys need, real studies of other artists getting their hands dirty in the name of promotion and revenue.
This week we meet Lizzy V. A recording artist and songwriter from Holland, who like many, has lost most of her income during the coronavirus lockdown. She had to start thinking creatively. How was she going to turn her business around – and fast?
One option for Lizzy was to begin selling her expertise – providing her services for hire. Platforms such as Fiverr, etc. are a great way to begin doing so. I recently wrote about outsourcing in my post here.
I really enjoyed Lizzy’s spirit of not surrendering to the pandemic’s misery and her drive to continue making money. So I wanted to take you through a step by step procedure of specifically how to use the Fiverr platform to hire your expertise.
Whether you’re an up and coming artist or a senior level expert in your field; you should consider registering on these outsourcing platforms. There’s always somebody who doesn’t know what you do and requires your skills.
Why Use Fiverr?
- Traffic
There are lots of people using all of the various outsourcing platforms. Even more so because over 36.5 million Americans alone lost their jobs from the first two weeks of lockdown. The traffic on these platforms has shot up over the past couple of months.
With all that extra traffic means a lot more jobs being posted and a lot more people available for work. Musicians started to create more music with all their free time and they need others help to complete the tracks.
Whether you’re a producer, vocalist, sound engineer or songwriter; there are other creatives looking to get a quick turnaround using your skills. So naturally, Fiverr is one of the first places that musicians will start reaching out for fast, low cost collaboration.
Spotify acquired SoundBetter, an online marketplace for sound engineers and producers. Showing that the demand is worth investing in as it’s popularity continues to grow.
With the high traffic of people looking to hire expertise right now, if you aren’t visible on these platforms, you’re essentially losing out on business as you read these words.
2. Paid to Collaborate
Being hired to use your talents in collaboration with other artists on Fiverr, you’re creating art with other people. Collaboration is one of the most effective strategies to build and grow your brand. You open up the opportunity to tap into each other’s networks and fanbases.
A lot of collaboration happens for free, which most people end up doing for free. However, Fiverr bridges the gap between not having somebody available to collaborate with and allowing artists to make money for being available.
Instagram DMs are loaded with people looking to collaborate for free, whereas Fiverr is the place where they’re offering to pay. Be seen on both.
3. Stepping Outside of Your Comfort Zone
The nature of these platforms can be very random. One day you might be asked to be a vocalist over a metal track and then country the next. This is going to push you out of your comfort zone and that’s okay.
Your journey will always continue to take you on different paths and out of your usual area. Exploring new genres and avenues of music you wouldn’t necessarily explore will open up your journey. The best musicians out there are the guys who are knowledgeable across a multitude of music areas.
Lizzy V’s Steps to Generating Revenue on Fiverr
Let’s go through the steps that got Lizzy V to a ‘Level 1 Seller’ status on Fiverr, in only two months.
A level 1 seller is Fiverr’s official stamp of approval. A collection of good star ratings. Just like what you’d see on multiple other review based platforms such as eBay and AirBnB.
- Pick a Platform
Fiverr began its service mostly geared towards the creative industry needs. It’s now scaled and grown into lots of different areas of outsourcing.
SoundBetter and niche platforms can also be good as there’s less traffic from non-related potential customers.
Lizzy decided to create her profile on Fiverr because of the amount of traffic that’s on the platform.
2. Create a Profile
Spend some time filling out the profile information that’s requested. It’s a kind of online CV and presentation of yourself that people will see before they decide on hiring you. Your presentation / CV / pitch is very important.
Show who you are, what value you can bring and how you deliver that value. It’s also a great idea to add some accomplishments if you have them.
Take a look at Lizzy´s profile:
Your description and your presentation of yourself is everything. You need to present your passion and your expertise. Since you are presenting yourself as an expert, you also should present some achievements and education.
3. Create Your Gigs / Products
Yes you can actually start forming products around your music and talent. Where do you even begin? First of all, you need to know your expertise areas. What are you good at? Then before you create your products, see what other experts in your field (or sometimes out of your field) are doing. What type of products do they have?
The helpful thing is, with these platforms, it’s easy to see how popular the products are by seeing how many reviews they hold. So if you see something in your expertise area that others are selling like crazy, there’s obviously a market for it. Start forming your products around it.
The name of the game when you are using these platforms is reviews and stars. You need to find a way to get tons of reviews – and fast. The easiest way to do this is to create some cheap products. You see lots of products for $5 on Fiverr (hence the name). So start thinking what can you do for $5 and that will not take you too long to complete.
Lizzy V told me: “You need to set your ego aside for this one”. And this is the name of the game in online business. You need to have different tiers of products. Start cheap and then work your way up.
Heck, I have loads of FREE products that I give away on my website (such as a 25 minute course on how to grow your Instagram as a musician). And every Friday I give away useful resources for musicians as free downloads.
By offering a cheap product (or several) you then open yourself up for volume – which is what you want in the beginning on these platforms to build up a presence. You need to start showing to the world that people are using you and benefiting from your expertise.
Make sure you are using a video to present yourself and your expertise. You can even use several videos and put them into a carousel.
But also present the gig with text. Here it’s very important to bring in your expertise again. You need to constantly sell them on your expertise throughout the whole sales process. But also the value you will give them by working with them.
The better you are to present yourself in your profile and in your gigs (each gig/product lives on its own website where people will visit before they even get to your profile). So always make sure that every entry point into working with you is valuable and describes who you are efficiently.
Use all medias available – video, pictures and text. This will take you some time but it’s worth the investment. The better the presentation, the more gigs you will get. And you need to be personal. People want to work with a person after all, so you need to tell them what makes you unique and what they should expect working with you.
4. Create Your Up-sell
What’s great about these platforms is they’re specifically built to generate revenue for sellers. They’re not interested in your customers only spending $5, when they could easily spend $10.
This is where the easy up-sell comes in. Do they want you to deliver the project sooner? You might charge an extra $10. Do they want more depth to the project? Then charge extra.
If they’ve come this far and they’re ready to buy – you will want to optimize the buying process by giving the option of extra add-on services.
Fiverr operates with a basic, standard and premium version of each product.
Here are Lizzy’s different tiers she’s using to up-sell her services. As you can see, it is easy for a lead to come in and get interested with the $5 product – so they read your profile and get to know you better. Then when you have sold that product they realize they not only want you for 30 seconds, they need you for 90. Woop! $5 just turned into $40, perhaps.
5. Go Live
These marketplaces usually push traffic in the direction of new users to help bring in the first orders and get the ball rolling. Just like a free trial on a gambling site, they want to hook you in and make you feel like a winner so you continue to make money (for them as well as you).
So enjoy and take full advantage of this beginners gold rush.
You will begin with zero stars or reviews, so you need to make sure your first customers will leave happy. This means you will need to OVER DELIVER. Go above and beyond what is needed. Whether it’s communication, deliverable time, everything. You want every single review to be a glowing success to build up your respect on the platform.
6. Start Working Up
The same as any business, once you’ve established yourself and gotten comfortable with the processes, you need to start taking on more and test out new products. See what works, revise it, change it, try it again.
Find what gives you a good, consistent flow of inbound leads and revenue.
Lizzy V started doing mostly $5 gigs in the beginning and put all of her focus and energy into getting the good reviews in. She then started feeling she was getting too many requests than what she could handle. This is when you raise your prices.
When you’ve successfully gained the reviews/stars, started to receive more requests than you can handle and raised your prices – you can then begin to offer bigger gigs for better reviews and continue working your way up.
Time is EVERYTHING
You need to invest time into this. You need to answer the requests you get on time. You need to deliver on time. Timeliness will be one of the major factors of working yourself up.
How fast you respond to requests and if you deliver on time is of paramount importance. Is your communication with the seller on point? Are you professional? Timeliness has never been a musicians strong point and will be the deciding factor of whether or not Fiverr will make you good money.
Final Thoughts
After just 2 months on Fiverr, Lizzy V now get an average of 15 inbound leads per week with the average order size of $30. She will take some gigs and not the others; if she doesn’t have the time.
What happens when the entertainment market picks up again and she cannot commit to her new online business? Well, she is going to raise her prices because she isn’t looking for volume any more. She’s after quality.
Through the pandemic killing off her other income streams she had to resort to undercharging online clients in the name of getting good reviews for a new business. By the time she goes back to gigging in the physical world, she’ll have a solid side business that she can pick the best jobs at a much higher price.
Not only that, by being active on these platforms, you’re pushing your name out to more people. You’re creating connections with people you wouldn’t have previously. These are all opportunities to create networks and build your following on your other platforms too.
