Texas Music Scene Used Inbound Marketing To Increase Its Page Views By 365%

(Fig. TMS Logo)

(Fig. Ray Benson)

About The Texas Music Scene

“The Texas Music Scene” is the brainchild of nine-time Grammy winner, Ray Benson. He started it as a regional television series and he had been its host since its inception. Later, he launched TexasMusicScene.com, popularly known as the digital companion to the television series. Initially, the website was developed to accelerate the popularity and expansion of the show throughout the country. It could not generate the expected benefits and sought professional help from SmartBug Media. After SmartBug redesigned the website, the page views increased by 365% and ultimately the web  page got the shape of a potential revenue generating business.

The Texas Music Scene’s Business Objectives

• Increase monthly unique visits and page views,
• Increase average time spent on the site,
• Decrease bounce rate,
• Continuous improvements to the overall user experience and
• Generate revenue through attracting loyal advertisers.

Strategy Adopted By The Texas Music Scene

Approaching to SmartBug Media to redesign the website was the major strategic decision of the company. Then the company along with SmartBug Media conducted the strategic analysis of four major components of Inbound Marketing, such as  (i) Content Management (ii) Website Layout (iii) Embedding Video Links and Video Presentation and (iv) Visitor Engagement. On the basis of the findings of the evaluation, several strategic changes have been brought into the following four strategic components:

1. Content Management: To remove the tedious process of copying and pasting from multiple sources, a screen was developed and attached to the website. That screen was created as a single and convenient interface with required number of content boxes. Once an artist’s biography was entered, posting of his/her other details, such as video links, social media profiles and auto-sizing images became much easier and faster.
2. Website Layout:  Earlier it was not user friendly and effective for smooth viewing and advertising. The size was not compatible with smart phones and tablets. Now, it has been dynamically re-sized so that it can equally satisfy the viewers on smart phones and tablets.
3. Video Links and Presentation: Earlier it was difficult to embed a specific video and organize the sequence of popular and other videos on the web page. Now a simple drag-and-drop option is added which helps to manage display and order of videos on the website. Also, it enables more cross-marketing with other advertisers and artists.
4.  User Engagement: Previously, it was difficult for the users to navigate to the appropriate landing page. Now that has been solved and additionally many more engaging activities have been added to attract more traffic and e-mail subscribers for future lead conversion.

Results Achieved by The Texas Music Scene

• The meticulous strategic plan and innovative approaches have resulted in the following outcomes.
• No further broken links on the website.
• The stickiness of the site improved and resulted in an increase of page views by 365%.
• Enhanced and smooth content management.
• More than 99% of the visitors navigate to other pages and hence average time spent on the site has been increased from 1.50 minutes to 18.00 minutes.
• The bounce rate has been reduced to 3% from more than 50% earlier.
• Increased participation by advertisers with more number of banners for contests.
• Phenomenal increase of direct visitors to videos page from the home page.

Learnings

• A compelling and sticky content and its effective management is must for yielding benefits from Inbound marketing.
• The space of Inbound Marketing is extended from Desktop to tablets and smart phones. So the content,size and layout of websites must be dynamic to fit into the screens of modern devices.
• User engagement and lead conversion largely depend on quality of contests and videos and flawless navigation to the required landing page.
• Choosing an appropriate and credible technical consultant is very much important to get strategic inputs and guidance.
• A strong online presence is possible only through effective inbound marketing plans and actions.

Sources: Google Images