CASE STUDY: CHORDBUDDY

Transcription

1 CASE STUDY: CHORDBUDDY Shark Tank Entrepreneur Takes a Bite out of Google singlethrow.com

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3 SINGLETHROW.COM INTRODUCTION In February 2012, ChordBuddy Founder and CEO, Travis Perry, took a humble idea meant to help his eight-year-old daughter easily learn to play guitar to the hit ABC television show, Shark Tank. After striking a deal with Shark Tank Entrepreneur, Robert Herjavec, ChordBuddy has taken the most popular, yet most difficult instrument to learn, and made it among the most instantly rewarding, and best of all, easiest instruments to learn how to play. But despite the celebrity spotlight ChordBuddy enjoyed after being showcased on Shark Tank, the innovation still hadn t garnered the attention of millions of digital consumers clamoring for an easy-to-learn way to play guitar. ChordBuddy required a revolutionary approach to putting a revolutionary tool in the hands of a global digital searcher. With millions of people searching Google every day for guitar teaching solutions, ChordBuddy needed to become the digital answer to this popular digitally-expressed question.

4 SINGLETHROW.COM CHALLENGE ChordBuddy was designed to combat the wealth of popular reasons NOT to learn how to play guitar. Learning is a slow process, for instance. It can also be discouraging, as we learn to contort our hands into unnatural shapes. Perhaps worst of all, learning to play guitar is, at first, a physically painful experience too! The truth is that many trying to learn, would just give-up before ever enjoying any success. So ChordBuddy had a unique digital challenge ahead: Identify and target a Google searcher who not only wants to learn how to play guitar, but who also expresses as passionately, their disapproval for the conventional means of learning that are currently available.

5 SINGLETHROW.COM CHALLENGE (Continued) Like most guitar teaching solutions found online, too often ChordBuddy s digital footprint spoke only to searchers who didn t need a teaching system, because they already knew how to play guitar. In short, guitar players found ChordBuddy easily because ChordBuddy s digital presence was only appealing to other guitar enthusiasts. And so ironically, the people most motivated to purchase ChordBuddy, were also the least likely to find it online. ChordBuddy s digital presence was simply not intersecting with consumers eager to learn how to play guitar, but who were also fed-up with the wealth of dissatisfying methods they had tried in the past.

6 SINGLETHROW.COM THE PLAN ChordBuddy has transformed the way people teach themselves how to play guitar. It became Single Throw s responsibility to therefore transform the way digital consumers encounter this exciting, new approach to learning guitar. The consumer s digital experience consequently needed to align strictly with the brand s value proposition as an effortless, immediately satisfying alternative to other disappointing self-taught guitar instruction. To understand who is ideally suited to use ChordBuddy, Single Throw established the following buyer personas in an effort to isolate the perfect digital targets: the beginner guitar player, who is searching Google using phrases like easiest way to learn guitar, to find a learning solution aimed to match their experience with the instrument; the complete novice, who has no experience with musical instruments, but is looking to find more information on what the easiest instrument to learn might be; The next step guitar player, looking to advance their playing capabilities to include search terms like, how to learn guitar chords;

7 SINGLETHROW.COM THE PLAN (Continued) The beginner-to-moderate player, using search modifiers like, best way or fastest way and so on, and; the user with particular needs, who is looking to play the guitar, but is using modifiers like, arthritis, special needs students, autism, senior citizens, and so on in their search queries. But because there is a tremendous amount of irrelevant digital noise surrounding learning how to play guitar, the plan also had to ensure ChordBuddy is a front-and-center authority on guitar teaching. In this way, ChordBuddy would separate itself from the commotion of less applicable content on Google. Thus, the strategy placed emphasis on demonstrating to Google, ChordBuddy s worthiness to be considered a digital subject matter expert as well. In making room in the plan for ChordBuddy to live among organic results as an authority on guitar learning, Single Throw positioned the brand as a lifestyle choice, every bit as much as the maker of a pioneering learning tool.

8 SINGLETHROW.COM EXECUTION After establishing ChordBuddy s buyer personas, and crafting a content and SEO plan that would solidify the brand s digital authority, Single Throw began executing the part of the strategy meant to target these personas at multiple points that encompass their buying journeys. Therefore, content, UX and SEO strategies coalesced around: Structuring the website navigational hierarchy to appeal equally to high-, mid- and low-funnel users; Creating additional conversations prized by Google that encircle reasons to search for information on learning, self-teaching and learning aids; Creating various paths to conversion throughout the website that synchronize with each persona s buying sensibilities and cadence, and; Simplifying the shopping (and check out) processes to equal the experiences consumers assume should be theirs.

9 SINGLETHROW.COM SEARCH POSITIONING The following are screenshots surrounding the phrase targeting of the strategy. Below each is a disclaimer that identifies both the phrase, along with Single Throw s analysis of where the phrase indicated the buyer was in the buying journey, based upon persona analysis. In the screenshot above, ChordBuddy appears in the third and fourth positions of Google s page 1 for the mid -to-low-funnel phrase, Guitar Learning System.

10 SINGLETHROW.COM SEARCH POSITIONING In the screenshot above, ChordBuddy appears in the first position of Google s page 1 for the mid-to-low-funnel phrase, Guitar Learning Tools.

11 SINGLETHROW.COM SEARCH POSITIONING In the screenshot above, ChordBuddy appears in the second position of Google s page 1 for the low-funnel phrase, Guitar Lessons for Senior Citizens.

12 SINGLETHROW.COM SEARCH POSITIONING In the screenshot above, ChordBuddy appears on page 1 as the Google Answer to the question, How much are guitar lessons? On its own authority, Google automatically gives this coveted visibility to the brand that presents itself as a genuine digital subject matter expert. As discussed, Single Throw ensured that the ChordBuddy digital strategy communicated to Google its authority in the guitar learning space.

13 SINGLETHROW.COM RESULTS Within the first 45 days of launch, and compared with the same timeframe from the previous year, the results were both immediate and spectacular. 67% Decrease in Bounce Rate Bounce Rate ChordBuddy.com organic bounce rate decreased dramatically by 67%. 40% Increase in Time on Site Time on Site Organic traffic spent, on average, 40% more time on site.

14 SINGLETHROW.COM RESULTS (Continued) 74% Increase in Pages per Session Pages per Session Organic page visits per session increased by 74%. 55% Transactions Transactions Total organic transactions increased by 55%.

15 SINGLETHROW.COM CONCLUSIONS When ChordBuddy s buyers express themselves on search engines, the nuanced particulars of their queries reveal both the challenges they re facing, as well as the buying stage they re currently navigating. ChordBuddy needed a digital strategy that would both identify and diagram each search group s buying progression. Limiting the plan to merely knowing buyers for instance, would have left us without a solution for capturing them. Conversely, charting only how the buyer is likely to move through the purchase process, meant we were no longer targeting ideal prospects. In each of these scenarios, digital spend is wasted on half of an idea. Additionally, the plan needed to communicate to Google ChordBuddy s worth as an influencer and digital trailblazer in the category. So attention had to be shown to getting ChordBuddy rewarded with organic visibility only afforded to the highest authorities in its space.

16 SINGLETHROW.COM CONCLUSIONS Single Throw launched an accountable approach to solving ChordBuddy s digital acquisition challenges that empirically studied buyers, authenticated our assumptions and supported key targets throughout the entire sales cycle. In so doing, ChordBuddy s digital marketing not only improved digital visibility, engagement and sales, as expected. As importantly, the strategy transmitted to Google the brand s value to the guitar learning public and controlled digital spending by limiting the plan s focus to only targeting that which constituted verifiable, conversion and intent-focused buying events.

17 Want to gain more insight into your digital marketing strategy? Feel free to talk to someone about Single Throw s services, solutions and offerings at singlethrow.com.