Melissa Auf der Maur Amplifies Her Fan Base with DTF Works

Melissa Auf der Maur, former bassist for Hole & Smashing Pumpkins, was preparing to release her second solo album. Despite a long career with well-known acts, Melissa did not have a modern, centralized online presence. She wanted to update her website and strengthen her direct-to-fan marketing channels before launching her album. With the help of Topspin partner DTF Works, Melissa doubled her email list, connected with over 15,000 new fans and built a vastly-improved website to help promote her upcoming release. How did she do it?

Engage with a Topspin Partner:
Melissa hired DTF Works, an agency run by Topspin-certified marketer Jason Kadlec, to develop and execute an 8-month campaign covering the release of her EP and full album. Jason’s expertise in building websites and running Topspin-powered campaigns offered the skill-set that Melissa and her team needed.  Jason worked closely with Melissa to develop a style and strategy that best fit her needs, and he applied his deep knowledge of best-practices to build the right digital assets for her.

Upgrade Website:
At the beginning, Melissa had a blog on Blogspot.com and an official website that had very little content and few updates. DTF Works replaced her old website with a WordPress-powered site and migrated her old blog over to the WordPress platform, which made it easier to build a custom page and publish fresh content. The new website included regular updates from Melissa and Topspin-powered streaming players, as well as deep integration with Google Analytics.

Collect Fan Emails:
Melissa’s pre-existing email list of 5,000 addresses was imported into Topspin, and a test email was sent to establish a response-rate baseline. Then, DTF Works created an Email-For-Media (E4M) widget with a “welcome” audio-message that helped capture 2,000 new email addresses. Another E4M, which was deployed for the release of the EP, featured the lead single “Out Of Our Minds” and collected another 3,000 emails. Email blasts were sent to the new list, and the response-rates were significantly higher compared to the baseline.

Establish Social Media Presence:
Melissa did not have official Facebook or Twitter accounts, so DTF Works created them. Jason taught Melissa how to use Twitter effectively and helped her grow a network of followers through consistent, high-quality interactions. DTF Works also utilized Topspin’s Facebook-For-Media widget, which offered “secret artwork” to fans who Liked Melissa’s page and shared the “Out Of Our Minds” streaming player on their wall.

Website:
• Traffic to her new website increased five-fold (from 5,600 monthly uniques to 25,000).
• Average time spent on-site grew from 2 min. to 4 min.; peaked at 15 min. during album launch
• Percentage of returning visitors (vs. first-time visitors) increased as more new fans returned to the website multiple times

Fan Base:
• Acquired 6,500 Facebook Likes and over 5,000 Twitter followers in 8 months
• Acquired over 5,000 new email addresses
- more than doubled the size of her pre-existing email list
- emails to new fans showed increased Open and Clickthrough rates

• With just a few basic steps, DTF Works made major improvements to Melissa’s online presence. The new website and channels of communication established a strong but flexible foundation upon which to grow a thriving direct-to-fan business.

• By engaging with DTF Works, Melissa benefited from the expertise and focus of a highly-qualified professional. Using a Topspin partner allowed her to coordinate fan engagement, e-commerce, and marketing through one central platform. Her whole business can be run from one place, and she can continue to engage DTF Works and other Topspin ecosystem partners for future campaigns.

• Analytics data showed clear trends of increased fan engagement. Higher traffic, more time spent on the site, and more returning visitors illustrated the success of her new website design. Increased opens and click-through rates showed the improved quality of her email database.
• Melissa learned how to comfortably engage with social media; she “found her voice” with Twitter and established a direct line of communication to over 10,000 fans through Twitter & Facebook. The blossoming of her social media fan-base provides a huge new opportunity for future marketing efforts

Stay tuned for a look at Melissa’s album-launch strategy in another case study coming soon!

Learn more about DTF Works here:

.
Listen to Melissa’s album “Out Of Our Minds” and snag a free track here: