Looking for ideas for monetizing my friend's guitar skills

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burningwater

Banned
Mar 1, 2010
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I have a good friend who is an awesome guitar player, guitar teacher and musician. He's been talking to me about how he can play fewer gigs and work from home - meaning he wants make a living online, and he is asking me for advice.

I told him he could set up a guitar teaching website, where he produces quality guitar lessons, and members pay a monthly fee for access. The drawback with that of course is that he needs to keep producing videos constantly to keep his customers happy. I guess constant pressure to keep producing more and more.

Another idea would be to make a few quality instructional DVDs and sell them online, via his own website. If he could get them into larger distributors and stores, that could work very well, but I am not sure how hard that would be accomplish. I bet those larger distributors are selective, but I don't really know.

The competition for online guitar lessons is very stiff though, so one question is how to market what he is/will be selling. I guess spending some money on PPC, some SEO, using sign up forms to email people with offers, asking other guitar friends to spread the word about him online, etc.

Do you guys have any other ideas how he can make money online through his guitar skills? He is very good, and I do think there should be a way for him to stop gigging so much and work from home.
 


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Build a blog, create good content (video, tutorials, trainings and shit like this), then traffic (don't ask me how) and performance marketing.
 
Come up with a unique twist on the niche.

Then hit video sites hard and get building a list.
 
burningwater said:
quality guitar lessons, and members pay a monthly fee for access. The drawback with that of course is that he needs to keep producing videos constantly to keep his customers happy. I guess constant pressure to keep producing more and more.
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This will work just fine. No need to constantly make videos. Just enough to fill several months or a years worth of material. Then sit back and collect

burningwater said:
Another idea would be to make a few quality instructional DVDs and sell them online, via his own website.
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Also a good idea and very simple to do. I have a DVD product that is produced and sent out via this website: DVD and CD Duplication & Replication, Printing and Packaging

Very affordable and literally hands off. They hook up to your shopping cart and ship out automatically every time an order comes in. They also handle returns. $3 to send out. $3 to restock.
 
Have him give a lesson on a different pawnshop guitar everytime and then smash it at the end of every lesson. Now you've got a viral gimmick.
 
Make a youtube channel, give out some free tips and do some covers of some popularly searched songs build a fanbase and get a few thousand subscribers. Send subscribers of your channel to your website and hit em' with your products. You can also make some decent bank if you get asked to be a youtube partner and let em' put up ads on your channel and videos, nothing to write home about but it'll pay some bills.
 
megatabbers said:
This will work just fine. No need to constantly make videos. Just enough to fill several months or a years worth of material. Then sit back and collect
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This. i believe they call it "micro-continuity". Make a beginners guitar video course and just drip feed the content to them over a period of x months then end subscription when yer out of content.
 
So with a monthly fee setup, what to tell the members when the videos run out after x number of months? Not sure how many videos need to be available to make the members feel positive about the subscription. If it is a 12 month subscription, I would imagine a video every 2 weeks or so? That would mean he needs to make 24 quality lessons before starting this project.
 
I like the membership site idea so users have access to premium lessons and other stuff they can't get at other free sites. Make it so people could upload their own videos of them playing for analysis. If he knows other excellent guitar players, recruit them to do video lessons on their specialty e.g. finger picking, steel guitar, shredding electric, songwriting, etc. Just make it a huge place for guitar players to learn new skills and charge a fair monthly fee. If it's good, people will sign up. I play guitar, and I would.
 
burningwater said:
So with a monthly fee setup, what to tell the members when the videos run out after x number of months? Not sure how many videos need to be available to make the members feel positive about the subscription. If it is a 12 month subscription, I would imagine a video every 2 weeks or so? That would mean he needs to make 24 quality lessons before starting this project.
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market it as a x-month course. Also just make the first months worth of vids and see if you can get anyone to subscribe then go from there..
 
has he ever made his own notes to a famous song because he couldnt find them anywhere? advertise that against the fan base.

explore angles like videogame music and movie/tvshow scores/commersial jingles on the guitar.

teach parents to play childrens song. selling "complete mom"/"hero dad" is pretty easy.

holliday songs/religious songs/political songs/fantasy and medieval songs

good teaching is planned teaching.

podcasts with other guitarists about advanced techniques

some content should be free.

he must commit ALOT.

with enough new own content you can have a forum you wont have to fake to start/keep running.

facebook/myspace funnel with limited but very good content.

if he wants to work from home, then if he is really working 24 videos will take a fraction of the 6 months or whatever he wants to commit to this. make him write articles tailored for specific groups with an affiliate link or two to a guitarstore or whatever. maybe he can review shit like speakers and albums in genres he likes.

offer advice on subjects around the subject, like "how to keep a band together", "how to hunt for bandtalent", "things to think about when putting vocals to hardcore-trash" etc.

network for exposure with everyone not directly competing. Have something to offer. Links/content/exposure etc. GET GOOD REVIEWS.

DEFINE WHAT YOU HAVE AND WHY YOU ARE DIFFERENT. SELL THAT.
YOU MUST PRODUCE ALOT AND WITH QUALITY. SELL THAT.
YOU MUST HAVE GOOD REVIEWS. GET THAT.

Observe you might want to run your course through a couple of experienced guitarists/guitarteachers. I'm sure they have a forum somewhere. Pick their brains, work on your product before you release it. Take their time, use yours to produce and improve. Many people will give you time if you treat them with respect. Buy a few competing products and do them better, analyze for things you havent thought of.

The rest, as they say, is just marketing....
 
efeezy said:
I like the membership site idea so users have access to premium lessons and other stuff they can't get at other free sites. Make it so people could upload their own videos of them playing for analysis. If he knows other excellent guitar players, recruit them to do video lessons on their specialty e.g. finger picking, steel guitar, shredding electric, songwriting, etc. Just make it a huge place for guitar players to learn new skills and charge a fair monthly fee. If it's good, people will sign up. I play guitar, and I would.
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too many steps. musicians are fucking lazy. too much work for the lesson when you could just go down the street and sit with someone for 1/2 hour a week.
 
First thing he needs to do is figure out who he's marketing to - kids and newbs who want to learn fundamentals, or more advanced committed players?

If it's the latter, I agree as above - 101 courses on music business, networking, hell maybe even a retard-proof site builder, FB fan swapping, that sort of thing.

If he's marketing to kids and newbs it's a tough play...lots of competition with Randy's Guitar Shack down the road.
 
Claim to make millions playing guitar and tell people how for $97. Hey, it works for a lot of other people who aren't really making any cash.
 
Or analyze the behaviors and characteristics of people who do make millions playing guitar and sell that for $97. Shit like building a personal brand, selling the audience what they want (cheesy pop shit) not what you got (mad skillz)....
 
I signed up for this guy's newsletter a while back when I was still trying to play. He's got a really good thing going on over there, and at the very least you can sign up for it and mimic his pitches or brainstorm for ideas.
http://www.vguitarlessons.com/
 
Guitar porn. If something, regardless of how off the wall, can be inserted into somebody's orifice somebody out there is willing to pay to watch.
 
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