The Piano Guys
The Client
Who are The Piano Guys?
They’re just a bunch of ordinary guys playing classically influenced instrumental “crossover“ music in videos that showcase incredible locations.
Hold on for a second. What is crossover music?
Classical crossover is a genre that hovers between classical and popular music, and is usually targeted at fans of both types of music. So back to these guys: The Piano Guys: a miraculous meeting of “guys” with the same intrinsic purpose:
to make a positive impact in the lives of people all over the world.
The Challenge
The Broadway Ticket Hungary and the successful hungarian show “Virtuózok” was about to organise together a fantastic Piano Guys concert in Budapest. But they needed a little help, so thanks to our similar vision, we had the honor to launch the campaign.
Our main task was to sell 5500 tickets in 2 months
Surprisingly, the “Youtube star band” Piano Guys, with 500 million views wasn’t well-known in Hungary. We started with little samples like asking our acquaintances about the band, and collected the client’s former experience about the band’s popularity. All things considered, we came to the conclusion, that they have hardly 1-2% brand recognition rate. The other main problem was, that the target audience wasn’t precisely defined.
The Solution
The client consulted with our marketing team and arranged for a campaign that would meet their marketing needs. Here’s our step-by-step transcript of what exactly we did:
We trust only in data.
Start with test and market research
First of all, you always need to know your audience. The key questions are: “Who are interested in your product?” & „What should be your message?” We started with checking who is already a fan of the client. According to Facebook insights, the hungarian Piano Guys fans are mostly from the age group of 18 - 24.
How would we know who is really our target group?
The answer typically comes from research in the following core areas, and USP (Unique Selling Proposition) testing always helps. The results of these tests should help you to choose the best positioning statement.
USP testing in practice
A unique selling proposition (USP) is what makes your business stand out from the crowd and tells your customers what is special about you. USP tests are based on behaviour, so we get conclusions from the people’s conduct. Simply the people told us what to pick by click. In this case we combinated 5 -10 different visuals and 36 headlines. It’s important for define the final sponsored Facebook ads and for other appearance later. Eventually we got plenty piece of unique variations. A unique selling proposition (USP) is what makes your business stand out from the crowd and tells your customers what is special about you. USP testing are designed to maximize the value of each test to achieve the greatest long-term value in the shortest period of time.
USP testing in practice
In this case we combinated 5 -10 different visuals and 36 headlines. It’s important for define the final sponsored Facebook ads and for other appearance later. Eventually we got plenty piece of unique variations. Actions often speak louder than words, so the people told us what to pick by click.
Find pictures that sells
Each USP winner pictures had to reach at least 1000 click. At first our thought was that the red ads will able to stand out from the blue-and-white world of Facebook. Human behavior is more complex, than just reacting to colors. Contents like faces and emotions are equally important. The successful pictures were in natural milieu, with the guys on it, playing passionately music. Probably the red color triggered negative feelings, that explains why the USP losers were mostly red and white, high contrast pictures.
Find headlines which magnetize
It’s vital to find your product’s main message carefully. The USP winner headlines contained popular band names and musicians, which reinforces their popularity, like “One Direction and Mozart in one concert?” or “Meet the Youtube stars! Almost half million views!”
YouTube and TV Ads with the right message
To make it work, we used the USP test results to design the narration of the TV spot.
The Awareness
People are constantly bombarded with promotional messages. Be aware of promotional overload: people tend to look at subjects or issues that interest them and ignore the rest. There are a number of routes to choose from depending on your audience and the particular message. Our team defined the final sponsored Facebook ads. With a well organised AdWords strategy, we know that we could reach the target audience.
In about 8 weeks we got 14 200 page likes.
Branding
Usually when we love a band, we know loads of fun facts, and details about the members. Using this information we made some educational remarketing articles about the Piano Guys, such as “5 things you didn’t know about the Piano Guys” and “7 facts about why the Piano Guys are the craziest band in the world”. We changed our banners weekly to counter the decreasing efficiency to ad familiarity.
Create the Engagement
The things we invest energy into are the things we love.
Contests are great way to increase Facebook engagement because not only does this reward loyal fans, but also it creates excitement and will get users to visit your Facebook page frequently to check if they have won.
Facebook Hashtag contest with simple rules
Followers had to answer a simple question: “Why would you like to go to the Piano Guys concert?” and they had to use the #PianoGuysBudapest hashtag. It’s essential to offer relevant prizes, so our winners got 2 meet and greet tickets to the concert. The fans reacted quickly. They started to write touching, real and unique stories about themselves. We used them on the Piano Guys landing page too.
The contest received 150 + entries and 570 likes.
Finally the Direct Sales
As we are getting closer to the finish line and perfected the last 3 steps, it was time to put into action the serious sales processes.
When things are scarce, we want them.
If you know this, you know pretty much. In the last 18 days, we started the countdown posts. With a well organized AdWords strategy we able to finish a successful campaign.
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