Creative people are pretty brilliant at creating excuses and avoiding the ‘sale’.
“I am not a marketing guy, I only make music.”
“I don’t want to bother my fans with emails.”
“376 people joined my IG live. I think I am finally successful”
Drop the damn excuses and let’s learn how to make money from music.
This guide will walk you through the fundamentals of email marketing - how to build your list, what emails to send, tips to create emails that are valued, and how to choose an email marketing software.
All in this quick post. Let’s read on.
Email offers personal access to your fans, which isn’t always the case when it comes to social media.
On Facebook, we see the decline of organic reach so you generally have pay to ‘boost’ your post to reach your entire audience.
On Twitter and Instagram, anyone’s attention is as little as that of goldfish and on top of it, you’re striving for your followers’ attention against the hundreds of other accounts they follow and see in their feed.
With email, people are actively allowing you to send them messages. Meaning, they really want to hear from you. Your messages are much more likely to be seen.
Being a marketer will only help you avoid depending too much on music labels or big companies. They probably won’t understand your vision and choice. So why don’t you build up your own successful music career with a bit of effort in email marketing?
That’s why it’s vital to place high importance on building your email list.
In 2008, Reznor gave away NIN’s album The Slip in exchange for fans’ email addresses. Coldplay did the same with their album in 2009.
Can you do that too? Well, that’s one of the ideas out there.
Let’s see what else can be done:
Update your bio on social media, on dating profiles, on LinkedIn with a link to your website, and put up a subscription form on your website.
You can create quality blogs related to music, music industry and other artists to attract the audience to sign up.
The first one should always be, of course, a Welcome email. Thank them for joining your list. Talk about what to expect in future emails and how often do you email. Share your social media links & ask them to whitelist your email address. This can be automated pretty easily in your email marketing software.
After a show where you have collected some email addresses, write an email to your new subscribers thanking them for coming to listen to you. You might have to upload the list manually or through an excel.
Then you have your regular broadcasts going out for which you can choose a set of content & check the audience’s response. Then if the engagement is high, send more of such content.
Some ideas:
There is no magic number of the days in a week when you should email but once or twice in a week is pretty good. You can also test out the engagement by sending emails at different frequencies.
You will need email marketing software to do the following basic things:
The cost of an ESP today is nothing compared to the benefits you get. So yes, shop for an ESP.
Ideally, I suggest going for an ESP that’s easy to use, affordable and can help you scale as your list grows. SendX is a great choice. It has all the things I just mentioned and some more…
You can check it out today and get a 14-day free trial. It’s easy to signup and doesn’t require you to add your credit card.
Now you have all the basic elements of email marketing and all you need to do is to sign up for an ESP and send your first campaign. Let us know what you think of email marketing in the comments section. We respond to each one of the comments.
1) What is the need of email marketing for musicians?
With email, people are actively allowing you to send them messages. Meaning, they really want to hear from you. Your messages are much more likely to be seen. Therefore you can really boost your musical business using email marketing.
2) Why build an email list for musicians?
As musicians, it is essential to connect with your fans on a regular basis. Therefore it is crucial to build an email list full of fans you can reach out to and engage with instantly.
3) What kind of emails can I send as a musician?
In addition to welcome and thank you emails, you can send emails to your fans for the following purposes:
- Give out downloadable lyrics sheets
- Host private streams or Q&A sessions
- Share exclusive coupons code or discounts
- Promote your new album or show Behind the scenes of writing a song or composing music
4) Can you give some tips to really do well in email marketing as a musician?
In order to be really successful, here are some tips you can use as a musician in email marketing:
- Keep a consistent branding
- Strike a balance between content emails and sales emails
- Include a CTA in your emails
- Go for responsive emails