If you’re in the music industry, you’re probably wondering how you can gain recognition and success in a short time.
You have questions like:
“How can I build buzz around my brand?”
“How do I get my music to be heard and loved by my audience?”
“Is there a way that I can sell my music successfully online?”
This may be hard to believe. But Gabe Schillinger managed to pull it off with a pre-launch campaign using UpViral that generated:
🔥41, 985 total leads
🔥$200,000 in sales in one week, by selling a $17 product
🔥207, 667 visits
🔥10,321 shares on Facebook
See the stats:
Here’s proof that Gabe’s campaign got massive engagement, especially on Facebook and Messenger:
Insane, right?
Chances are that if you’re reading this…
👉 You’re new to the music industry or have been struggling for quite a while.
👉 Or you may be a business owner in another niche who wants a smarter, proven way to grow a massive email list, brand awareness, and sales along the way.
Either way, Gabe’s case study will show you how to do it from A-Z.
Who is Gabe Schillinger?
After getting a sneak peek of his results, anyone can say that Gabe Schillinger is a pretty big deal.
Gabe is a producer, and the founder and CEO behind Legion Beats — a music production company based in California that provides high-quality beats (instrumentals) for singers and rappers. Legion Beats usually sells their beats as a non-exclusive license.
Gabe has worked with major artists like Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and BoB. 😮
The first time I met him was at the Funnel Hacking Live Event in the US. (For those who don’t know, it’s a yearly conference where thousands of people meet to share and learn from successful people’s funnels).
I didn’t know at the time that Gabe was an UpViral user, and only learned that after seeing him share his amazing results with UpViral on stage:
Blown away by his UpViral campaign, I figured to reach out to him to pick his brain so we could discuss in detail exactly how he did it.
First Things First. What Got Gabe to Use UpViral?
I asked Gabe how he got started with UpViral. According to Gabe, he learned about it from a friend who also sells beats online.
His friend was using UpViral to grow a waiting list for his upcoming launch. On his Share Page, people could win a prize for getting 3 friends to sign-up.
Gabe thought that this was a cool strategy because it brought more people in. He decided to try UpViral too and replicate his friend’s process, until such time that he took things to the next level.
When I asked Gabe about the number of times he did an UpViral campaign, he said, “Once a year for the last 4 years, I do a different version of the same contest.” This once a year campaign is usually for a big launch.
His “best year” was when he got over 41,000 leads and $200,000 in sales.
Gabe was especially proud of his results.
“At that time, nobody has ever done a 6-figure launch in my industry. With the power of UpViral and this whole strategy, I was able to pull it off.”
Considering the value of Gabe’s product, the number of leads he collected was impressive. Not just that, but Gabe would also be able to use that audience to fuel his future campaigns.
👉Want to get our super simple 14-minute video review of Gabe’s campaign, click this link.
Let’s Dive Into Gabe’s UpViral Contest
Overview of the Campaign
THE GOAL: Gabe did the contest to build an audience before an upcoming launch. This resulted in more people anticipating his launch and buying his product on the big day.
TIMING: He did the launch on a Black Friday — a time when shoppers were more likely to buy online and hunt for the best deals.
DURATION: Gabe’s giveaway lasted for about 4-8 weeks. Gabe said that longer campaigns work well for him, saying, “As the contest goes, more people tell more people.”
How Gabe Picked the Best Incentive to Give Away
One of the key elements of a successful contest or giveaway is the prize itself.
The right prize attracts people who can become your loyal fans and customers, while the wrong prize does the opposite.
Gabe’s grand prize was a package that entailed:
- Flying the winner to Legion Beats’ studio
- Recording, mixing, and mastering their song
- Shooting and editing their music video
- Spending $1000 to promote their single
The winner would also get a hundred beats — basically every single beat that Legion Beats made in the same year.
Here’s a screenshot of how Gabe presented the prize on his UpViral landing page:
I asked Gabe about how he came up with the prize. His strategy? Give something that’s VALUABLE and LOW-RISK.
For Gabe, having these two elements would make any prize a win-win. Let me explain more:
- Valuable – The incentive should be valuable to your ideal customer. Meaning, it solves their problem or meets a specific need. (Because some prizes entice everyone in general, but are not really specific to an audience in a niche or industry.)
- Low-Risk – A low-risk incentive is one that will not cost you a lot to fulfill on. Gabe said, “Anyone can start with a prize that provides value like a digital download that will not cost you a bunch of money.”
Take note that in Gabe’s case, he started with a small prize in his first contest and eventually made the prize bigger and bigger in his succeeding contests.
(As mentioned earlier, this isn’t the first time that Gabe did an UpViral contest.)
Gabe’s initial success gave him the confidence to spend more money on bigger prizes for future campaigns because he already knew how things would turn out based on previous results.
FYI: During his first launch, he earned $10,000 and for him at that time, that was already A LOT.
So he asked himself, “What if I could do this contest again? Could I get more people to enter if I made that grand prize something bigger?”
💎 The Takeaway: If this is your first time to do a contest, don’t go for a huge prize right away. Like Gabe, start with the smallest possible prize (that your ideal audience will find irresistible). Use the results of that campaign to gauge the success of a future campaign, in case you’re planning to offer a bigger prize for that campaign.
Incentivizing His Audience Along The Way
You might think that the grand prize was all that Gabe gave away.
But because he wanted to keep people hyped up and motivated, he offered another incentive, a smaller one, that everyone could win.
This incentive was a collection of 10 free beats.
To win those, all they needed to do was refer 3 of their friends into Gabe’s contest. Simple, right?
Related Resource: How to Choose a Contest Prize That Attracts Qualified Leads and Helps You Go Viral>>
Gabe’s Contest Opt-In Page and Share Page
Gabe created a separate opt-in and share page where he integrated UpViral.
On these pages, people entered and shared the contest, respectively. Together, the opt-in page and share page was part of one funnel.
But that’s not all. There’s a second funnel in Gabe’s campaign, and this is where he got sales from his $17 product. We’ll get into that later.
I. OPT-IN PAGE
First, let’s take a look at his opt-in page:
I’ve noted a couple of things that made Gabe’s opt-in page work really well for his audience. It had the essential elements of a successful landing page:
1. Logo
At the top of the opt-in page, you can see the Legion Beats logo. Adding the logo helped with his branding – it’s clear who hosted the contest. Your logo doesn’t have to be big – it just needs to be visible enough for your audience.
2. Pre-headline
The pre-headline, “Contest for Rappers & Singers,” does an amazing job of calling out Gabe’s audience. When people read it, they immediately know who the contest is for.
Don’t underestimate the power of a pre-headline. It grabs your audience’s attention, singles them out, and tunes out those who aren’t your ideal prospects. If you want to keep random people out of your campaign, having a pre-headline that speaks directly to your audience is important.
3. Headline
After Gabe calls out his audience in the pre-headline, he entices them with the grand prize in the headline – “GET FLOWN TO CALIFORNIA AND TAKE OVER A PROFESSIONAL STUDIO.”
I like how the headline was written. Gabe writes it in bold and mentions the prize in just a few words.
4. Prize details
This is where things start to become exciting. Gabe gets more specific about the prize by mentioning (in a bullet point format) what’s included. The emojis beside each detail effectively grab attention, prompting a person to read.
5. Social proof
Who wouldn’t want to join a contest hosted by a company that worked with famous artists like Snoop Dogg and BoB? Gabe clearly knew how to persuade people further by adding social proof on his opt-in page.
Tip: Need more ideas for social proof? You can also feature testimonials, customer logos (in case you are a B2B business), or the size of your community.
6. Call-to-action
Gabe wrote a strong call-to-action by going with the first-person speech: YES, I WANT TO GO TO CALIFORNIA!
The red button color stood out against the white background. It conveyed urgency.
Now, take a closer look at the text below the main call-to-action:
It says, “GET 10 FREE BEATS JUST FOR CLICKING HERE.” At this point, people find out that not only do they have a chance to win the grand prize, but they can now get 10 free beats. It’s an irresistible bribe for just clicking the button…
Which leads them to the next page 👇
II. SHARE PAGE
Here’s a screenshot of Gabe’s share page:
Gabe wanted his share page to accomplish three things:
- Build rapport with his audience
- Explain the contest
- Introduce the first offer
Setting these goals made a huge impact on his campaign. Everything Gabe included on the share page was in line with the goals. And because of that, he was able to drive action.
Let’s discuss each:
Build Rapport
Gabe didn’t make his message all about inviting more people into his campaign and getting more sales.
In an explainer video (see the share page screenshot above), he also introduced himself and his company.
But more importantly, he wanted his audience to know his mission and how that contest would fulfill that mission. That way, people would understand what it really meant to share the campaign. At the same time, they would feel good doing it.
Gabe noticed that because people knew about his mission, they were excited about sharing. “Of course they were excited to win the contest, but now they were also excited about spreading the word about that mission.”
Explain the Contest
Gabe gave an explanation of how his contest works.
Also, below his explainer video, people will be able to start sharing the campaign with their friends. They can copy and paste their unique share link or simply click any of the social share buttons below (except for the last button).
Notice that the last button says “Follow us on Instagram.”
This is a Custom Action button, a special feature of UpViral.
With this feature, you’ll be able to incentivize people with more points in exchange for completing a certain action. For example, you can ask them to follow your channel, subscribe, answer a survey, and more.
Introduce the first offer
Remember the 10 free beats that people could win after referring 3 of their friends? Although not seen in the screenshot, Gabe actually embedded that prize on the share page.
The Sales Page
Here’s what’s super cool about Gabe’s sales page:
Not only does it contain an explainer video, social sharing buttons, and free beats… But it also contains a link that leads to a sales page. Now this gives everyone a chance to upgrade their free beats! 💰
💎 The Takeaway: One strategy to increase your sales from your contest, even before it ends, is to offer a smaller prize that people can easily win by referring X friends. When someone gets the prize, give them an opportunity to upgrade to a premium version of that freebie.
The Big “Winner Announcement” Live Event
Some people show leaderboards on their contest share page to spark competitiveness. But for Gabe’s case, he didn’t include a leaderboard.
Here’s why:
Gabe wanted to keep the results a secret until the winner announcement day. This kept his contest participants wondering who the winner could be, and that compelled them to show up on Gabe’s Facebook Live event.
What Gabe did really well to increase the attendance to his live event was to tell his audience that even if they didn’t win the grand prize, they would still win other free items, get to ask questions, and more.
Right before announcing the winner on the live event, Gabe did another thing to keep the momentum going…
(Note: This is where his second funnel starts) 👇
He made one of the prizes that people were hoping to win available at a huge discount, for only $17, for the next 5 days.
This was where Gabe got $200,000 in a week. 🔥🔥🔥
Gabe said, “First of all, you’ve got their attention. They’re tuning into that live event and opening their email later that night if they missed it. They’re excited about winning this thing… And now all of a sudden, it’s available for sale at a big discount. Of course, they’re going to buy that.”
Promotion and Engagement Strategies
To bring people into his campaign and motivate them to stick until the end, he did a couple of things:
💻Paid Ads
For Facebook Ads, Gabe spent about $15,000 to $20,000 and profited around $20,000 to $25,000. Considering that his main goal was to get tons of leads for his launch, he was happy that the whole campaign ended up being profitable.
Gabe also mentioned that because so many people were already sharing the campaign in various places like FB groups and forums, he ended up getting 11,453 referred leads for free. (He would have easily paid for those leads for what they’re worth.)
🤝Affiliates
Although not discussed in-depth in our interview, Gabe said that he used affiliates and partners to help spread the word.
📧Emails
Gabe sent a series of emails to those who entered the contest. The first few emails focused on onboarding people. They were about the mechanics of the contest and getting everyone excited about winning.
A few days or weeks before the winner announcement, he sent scarcity emails. Gabe also emailed those who weren’t able to attend the live event so they would be able to avail the $17 product.
👥Membership invitation
In our interview, Gabe briefly mentioned that he started talking about his membership program sometime during the contest. That membership was made available for a limited time and at a discount.
Gabe’s Biggest Takeaways
Before you go and start running your own UpViral contest, take these lessons home with you:
1. Make sure that you’re giving away a grand prize that your dream customer or client finds irresistible. Don’t try to impress everyone – focus on your ideal audience.
2. Spark sharing by letting your audience know about your vision. Instead of making your message about selling and getting more customers, make it about the vision. That way, people will be inspired and feel good about spreading the word.
3. Incentivize people along the way. Because while some people go for the grand prize, others don’t have a huge audience and might think, “I don’t have many friends on social media to share the contest with.” Gabe offered 10 free beats to anyone who referred 3 friends. This could be achieved with minimum effort.
4. Nail your opt-in page copy. Call out your audience on your pre-headline or headline. Let them know what they’re getting. Use social proof if you have it.
5. Inform your leads about your next contest, in case you plan to have another one. That way, you already have a big audience to start promoting your contest to.
👉Bonus Material: Our Super Simple Video Review of Gabe’s Campaign>>
What Does Gabe Think About His Entire Campaign?
Gabe’s success has inspired him to share his methods with other producers in the music industry. He doesn’t only sell beats now, but he also teaches producers to market themselves.
(If you want to reach out to Gabe, you can find him on Instagram and Facebook.)
Over to You…
I love Gabe’s campaign. Do you? We hope that you gained so much value from this case study.
As you can tell, Gabe’s contest is a “hybrid” in that it incorporates aspects outside a usual contest – additional incentives, a live event, and a second funnel where sales happen.
But keep in mind that Gabe started with a small contest. He then used the insights from that first contest to go further… make the campaign bigger and more advanced. The campaign that we discussed in this case study is the result of those insights gained over the years.
What about you? Do you want to get more leads into your business as well? Generate buzz? Sales? I invite you to leverage the power of UpViral.
👉Get started with UpViral today>>
