With more tools and services promising to help musicians grow than ever, you might be surprised to learn that the best marketing approach is also one of the oldest.
Every musician faces the same problem: How do I reach my fans?
Answering that question has never been easy. Before the internet, artists had to get on the radio or appear in a music magazine to have national coverage. The musicians able to establish a fan club did so without the assistance of a third-party platform or service. Bands like The Monkeys, KISS, and The Beatles would physically mail fans updates about new music and tours, which could end up costing a ton of money in shipping and handling that other, smaller acts couldn’t afford.
Now we live in the digital age, which supposedly brings us closer together, but finding and reaching your fans has never felt more difficult. Finding your fans is hard enough between the multiple social media platforms, streaming services, forums, and other random corners of the internet, let alone getting a message to them. Facebook, for example, only allows Page owners (artists/groups/labels) to reach around 5.2% of their total following. More can be reached, of course, but only if the artist is willing to pay for boosted promotion.
Buying ads to reach your fans is a surefire approach, but what about the artists and labels that don’t have a large advertising budget? How can everyday musicians hope to reach their fans in an increasingly expensive and corporate-controlled world?
The answer you’re looking for is a mailing list. Maintaining an email list offers the highest probability of reaching your most engaged fans at the lowest cost. There are several mailing list services (MailChimp, Substack) with free tiers for those just starting. You may need to spend money in time, but you can reach hundreds, even thousands, without spending a cent. All you need is an email address, and everyone has an email address.
Let’s say you have 1,000 Likes on Facebook and 1,000 subscribers to your mailing list. A single FB post announcing your new tour is only guaranteed to reach 52 people. You don’t know who those people are, and you have very little control over how the content is distributed throughout the Facebook ecosystem.
If you send that same announcement to your 1,000 mailing list subscribers, you can rest assured every last person will receive that email (unless there is an issue on their end). Thanks to email analytics, they might not all open it or click the links inside, but you will know how fans engage with your announcements. You will be able to see, often in real-time, what content your fans engage with the most.
From there, the possibilities are endless. You can use the most successful content to create ads that draw in new fans, all of whom you will work to convert to newsletter subscribers in time. Your mailing list will become a marketing funnel unto itself, with your most devoted fans identifying themselves their behaviors you view with analytics.
In an age of endless options, artists need a way to communicate with fans that guarantees reach without high costs or exhaustive effort. Email is the answer. Don’t waste another day. Start your email list, engage your audience, and take back your ability to communicate with fans.
Everyone is suffering from content overload, but email newsletters remain one of the strongest tools in any musician’s marketing arsenal.
In the age of abundance, how much is enough? How much money do you need to achieve stability? How many songs do you need to write a track that people will love? How many song streams will pay your rent? How many followers do you need to build a sustainable career? What is an ideal number of email newsletter subscribers?
There is no clear answer to any of these questions. The answer is different for every person or group, even if the goal is always the same.
One thing is sure: The number of subscribers (or followers) needed to build a sustainable career is smaller than you think.
Social media has trained us to dream big when it comes to fans. The names everyone knows have millions of online followers. Thousands upon thousands of people engage with every post a celebrity makes, and they, in theory, support every announcement that person of interest shares.
But you don’t need one-million people to support you to have a full-time career in music. An audience of one-thousand can make a more significant impact as long as they are engaged with your art.
Ask yourself: Do my fans see themselves as individual supporters, or are they part of a community built around your artistic output?
If the answer is the latter, you’re in a good place.
When artists can cultivate a community around their music, anything is possible. An email newsletter with one-thousand engaged subscribers who want to support your continued success will bring in more money and meaningful support than a million people who never buy a shirt or catch a tour. Any follower is sweet, of course, but unless they take the extra step to support you financially, their interest in your art does not help your bottom line.
If you don’t have a community around your music, then consider this:
What can I do to make people feel more involved in my music?
There are many ways to engage your audience, but making people feel involved in your career comes down to whether or not you take an interest in who they are as people. Where do your followers live? Why do they like your music? What do they want more or less of? What are they doing this weekend? Do they have families, or are they in school?
When musicians understand their audience, they can engage with them in a meaningful way that leaves followers feeling seen and appreciated. If you can make people think that way about you and your music, the community aspect will begin to take shape. Followers will follow one another; they will plan ways to attend your shows and arrange meet-ups in cities where they live. Your music will have a life outside your own, one that gives it added value to the people who enjoy it.
When people care about something, and I mean care about it, they will go above and beyond to see it continue. This is true in life and relationships and art. Don’t underestimate the value of making your fans feel good about being your fans.
So, don’t worry about reaching one million followers. Don’t even worry about hitting ten-thousand. Focus on building meaningful relationships with everyone who cares about your music and getting them to join your mailing list, and if that is one-thousand people, great! If it’s thirty, that’s good too. Don’t worry about the number of people engaged as much as you do making them feel important. If you can make them feel as good as their support makes you feel more followers will come in time.
Haulix now allows users to schedule their promotional campaigns up to two weeks in advance, and there are many reasons to celebrate.
Promotional campaigns are the heart and soul of album rollouts. Everything, from the first single, to the final review, relies on good emails reaching the right tastemakers at the right moment in time. A poorly planned campaign can result in coverage opportunities being rushed or missed altogether, and in a market flooded with talent, there is no good reason to risk such a fate falling on your next release.
Haulix is built for promotion. Our customizable album promo screens enable artists and labels at every level to reinforce their brand and aesthetic while securing sharing their latest releases with tastemakers. In April, we took these efforts further by adding a scheduling feature that allows users to schedule their promotional campaigns up to two weeks in advance. You can try the system for yourself by signing up today on our official website.
But what are the benefits to scheduling your emails? That’s a good question:
Time zones
Tastemakers in New York City are usually up and working before the those on the West Coast. Tastemakers in London are eight hours ahead of Tastemakers in Chicago. Any influencer living in Australia is working sixteen-hours ahead of those living in Colorado. Confused? Us too.
Campaign scheduling empowers users to easily reach their contacts at the best times for those tastemakers. In a matter of minutes, a Haulix user can schedule campaigns for connections in different time zones.
Staggered Campaign Schedules
Not all tastemakers are the same, and they shouldn’t be treated as such. Instead of sending everyone a campaign at once, Haulix users schedule their campaigns to roll out based on the needs of their contacts and the preferences of their clients. High-priority contacts may get an album a month from release, but contacts with lower reach/importance may not be serviced an album until a week or two later.
Premieres
Great artists publicists know that the demand for access to the material they are promoting will spike immediately following a single release. If your new single is going to premiere at noon on a popular blog, then scheduling the advance to roll out to high-priority contacts a few minutes later can increase the likelihood of immediate engagement.
The problem is, the moments following a major premiere are hectic. Artists and publicists have to promote the release through their social media channels, monitor conversations, and engage with fans in real time. Campaign scheduling solves this problem, and even allows for creative subject lines to help further the narrative. For example, “Pup’s new single is out now, and here is the album!”
Campaign summaries
As an added bonus, the rollout of campaign scheduling also marked the debut of Haulix Campaign Summaries. Now, every campaign sent through Haulix generates a standalone activity page where users can view email engagement and promo engagement in a matter of clicks. Users are also empowered to easily send follow-up emails and direct links to their promos.
Look busy, even if you’re not
The music industry is a 24/7 business that does not care whether or not professionals have healthy personal lives beyond the office. Work comes first no matter what, but scheduling allows you to get ahead, if only long enough for a quiet lunch or a stroll around the block. Let’s face it: Everyone deserves a few minutes to relax, including you, but that doesn’t mean you campaigning has to stop. You just have to be more creative the competition!
A simple trick that will greatly improve your emails
There are more ways to communicate today than ever before. From text messages and phone calls to Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, SecondLine, WhatsApp, GroupMe, Line, and a million competing apps in between, reaching people far and wide has never been easier. Still, none of these methods of communications are as efficient in the world of business as email. Each and every day hundreds of millions of emails are sent all over the world, and the vast majority are attempting to convince the reader to take action of some kind. Does your message stand out? We hope so.
With the right search query, you can uncover countless articles written with the sole intent of helping you craft better emails. Most of these include information you have heard your entire life, like using link shorteners to track clicks or using the receiver’s name in the message. These tips are great, but they mean very little if the receiver does not read beyond the first few words of your message.
Recent research has found that many people stop reading an email after just a few words if they do not immediately feel engaged. There is no secret combination of words and phrases to guarantee engagement that quickly, but there is evidence to support the word that should be avoided, and that word is ‘I’. The use of ‘I’ gives the impression you, the sender, are more important than the recipient. It says “you are expected to do this” and/or “you need to listen to me because I am above you.” This kind of language may work in an office where ranking dictates who must follow orders and who dictates what the orders are, but in most interactions that faux hierarchy does not exist.
You must learn to think through an issue and frame the conversation in the receiver’s context (rather than your own). This not only makes the receiver feel recognized and important, but it allows your request to be received as something you both need to do in order to move forward. You’ve heard the old adage about how there is no “I” in “Team” and the same logic applies here. You want the receiver to feel you are writing as a teammate, someone who is working with them to complete a mutual goal.
All great leaders understand it is not their leadership alone that makes a team or company a success, but rather the cumulative effort of everyone involved. A great leader takes interest in their team. They make everyone else feel as important as they are because they realize their goal cannot be realized without every individual’s participation. When we lift one another up everyone is able to succeed, and the process of uplifting begins with communication.
The following post is the latest in our ongoing collaborative series with the fine folks at Sonicbids.
I’ve been to a lot of music conferences. At nearly every single workshop or Q&A session, the question is asked: “What are the dos and don’ts of sending emails to industry people?” Most of the time, the answers are pretty generic and simple, but to be honest, it’s a good question. A lot of people suck at sending emails.
I’ve spent quite a few years learning the ropes of the music industry, and in that time, my band and I have developed a pretty solid email game (if I do say so myself). In fact, we’ve literally received compliments on the detail, efficiency, and organization of our emails.
After you’ve read this guide, you should have a clear idea of how to send a killer email to anyone in the music industry. If you have questions, leave them in the comments below, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
1. Be concise
Have you ever met somebody who tells really long stories with way too much detail? Don’t be that guy. Aim to send an email that includes as much detail as possible in as few words. For example, if I’m trying to book an opening slot, I’ll put this in the subject line:
Subject: May 21st – Opening Slot Inquiry – The Middle Coast
Right away, whoever is receiving this email knows what I’m asking for, who’s asking for it, and on which date.
Then, in the body of the email, I’ll say something as simple as this:
Hey there Dave!
My name is Liam, I play in a Canadian band called The Middle Coast.
We would love to jump on the opening slot for the May 21st show at Your Cool Bar with This Cool Band.
I’ve included live video and a link to our EPK where you can stream our unreleased record below.
Thanks for your time,
Liam
Fifty-nine words. That’s all you need. You don’t need to include your bio. You don’t need to include 20 different press quotes. You don’t need to pander and ask this person a bunch of questions about his or her personal life. You don’t need to humblebrag. Just be straight to the point and professional.
2. Be up front and tell people what you want
When you send an email, you’re hopefully sending it with some sort of goal in mind. You need to tell people what you’re emailing them about, otherwise they won’t give it a second glance. I get it – you don’t want to play all your cards, and you don’t want to look desperate. But if you don’t tell people what you’re looking for out of this email, you’re probably not going to get a reply.
An example: I have a friend who runs a label and manages bands. He gets a ton of emails every week from people, and many of them simply say, “Hello, check out my music.”
Concise, but not enough information. You need to tell people what they’re looking at. When I send my music to someone at a label, my email would typically look something like this:
Subject: The Middle Coast – The Basement, July 1 – Unreleased Record
Again, telling people who they’re talking to, letting them know that I’m playing a show in their city, and that I have an unreleased record.
Hey there Laura,
My name is Liam Duncan, I play in a Canadian band called The Middle Coast.
We are just wrapping up production on our debut album with Bigwig Producer. We play ‘70s-inspired pop with big harmonies and great hooks. You can stream the album in its entirety at the streaming link below.
We are building our team for this release, and would appreciate your consideration.
You can catch us in Your City, TN at the Basement on July 1st. I can put you on the guest list.
Thanks for your time,
Liam
Laura now knows where I’m from, what kind of music to expect, who produced the album, what we’re looking to do, and has a streaming link for the entire record. Perfect. If she likes what she hears, she’ll come to the show.
3. Have a detailed email signature that includes your EPK
The vast majority of the information anyone could need from me is in the email signature that accompanies almost every single email I send. This is a screenshot of exactly what it looks like:
As you can see, I’ve included a description of what you’ll find in our electronic press kit (EPK), which is more helpful than simply linking “EPK.” I also included a Facebook link, because everyone wants to see it anyway. And last, but certainly not least, I list our website and a personal phone number.
Every important piece of information can be found in this email signature. All our social media links are in the EPK, as well as more video, press, biographies, downloadable promo pics, and downloadable tech/hospitality riders.
People love that they don’t need to go searching for every single bit of information. It shows that we are organized, professional, and have been around the block a few times.
4. Don’t send attachments
MP3 attachments take up space in people’s inboxes. They can slow down an email app and are otherwise just annoying. Most people prefer streaming links. Make your songs in the EPK downloadable, just in case they do want to download your music. Or send them a Dropbox link.
5. Don’t be afraid to follow up
You should never be afraid to follow up with someone you’ve emailed. If you’ve followed this advice, your email should be very polite, professional, up front, and concise, so there’s no reason for you to be shy about following up. I think following up once every 10 days or so is reasonable.
6. Be nice
It seems weird to me that musicians are ever rude or arrogant, because pretty much everyone I know is very nice. Yet I hear countless stories from people in the industry about artists who throw a fit when they don’t get what they want or are just plain rude.
The least you can do is be polite and professional. You don’t need to suck up to anyone and you don’t need to be shy, but you do need to be friendly, accommodating, and polite.
Steven LaClair, founder and editor for Nothing Original, joins us today to share some thoughts on email, publicity, and why many in the industry need to think about the way they communicate with music bloggers/journalists.
The time I have available to spend blogging about music has decreased dramatically over the last three years. There was a time when I could wake up at 8am, catch up on any emails I received during the night, respond, and post accordingly in a surprisingly small amount of time. Sadly, that is not the case anymore. It’s a full-time job trying to keep up on the world of music. The news cycle never stops, and falling behind can be detrimental to a blog. When I decided working 15-18 hours a day for a few dollars wasn’t worth it compared to a full-time job, I scaled everything I did back and believed I could still make my site, Nothing Original, work. I was dead wrong.
I always preferred to have a constant flow of fresh content on Nothing Original. I’d consider it a good day if I could get post somewhere around 10 articles, if not more. Going through emails and albums trying to figure out what I care about and what I think my readers would care about was fun, but it took a toll on me day after day. I kept at it though, because I love writing about music and I love sharing my opinions on music with others. I wish I could still do it, but there’s only so much time in a day. When I do have the time, I open up my email to over a hundred pitches that are a mix of press releases, requests, album advances, and whatever else a publicist or band is trying to get posted that day. It’s simply overwhelming.
Some publicists share three to four press releases a day, if not more based on the amount of clients they have and the number of releases being worked on that particular day. With ten or more publicists doing the same thing I’m receiving well over fifty emails daily, which makes determining what’s worth posting incredibly difficult, and that is before I scan the net for stories or streams I may not have been directly pitched. I have to figure out what is the best material to post and then find a way to say it that actually engages an audience that is already inundated with an untold number of headlines, advertisements, and clickbait-readied tweets before myself or the Nothing Original team even make an attempt at grabbing their attention, and I have to do all that in a very little amount of time. There is no possible way to make every publicist and every reader happy, but I do my best. Still, even on the good weeks, a lot of potentially great material gets discarded.
This is not the way writers should feel about receiving email. The idea of checking for pitches should not incite an overwhelming sense of anxiety or stress, but it does and that can lead one to wonder why they bother trying to be a writer at all. Most of us only have so much time in a day, and when we spend half of it going through just emails on things that honestly don’t really matter. What makes the first pitch from a publicist on a particular client different than the four follow-ups they send in the next two days? Writers cannot meet every request, and if we’re going to meet any while delivering quality content to our readers then writers’ schedules needs to be considered. I’m not asking for a world where we only receive one email a day, but I am asking for those pitching writers to be more considerate in the amount of content they shovel our way. Make the headline grab our attention, ensure the content is remotely interesting and keep it short. Also, don’t follow-up more than once in 48 hours.
I love writing about music and I wish I had more time to do it, but the truth of the matter is that adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it make writing for next to nothing a hard hobby to justify. When I do have the time, I wish looking through requests wasn’t a chore. Let us care about your band. Make each band try and seem special to you. Making them feel special to you will make the band feel important to us and then hopefully we can write about it. Make your emails and requests count. I can’t meet them all, but I’d like to at least try.
“So what’s the next big thing online to get the word out?”
The singer from a popular hardcore band asked me this recently. They’re no slouch, with 5+ albums and a few European tours under their belt. But most smart bands are always looking ahead, no matter how big they are.
Years ago Facebook worked great, but now they charge you to reach all your “Likes.” Twitter is fun, but have you looked at your analytics to see how many people who actually see your updates? Toss in Snapchat, WhatsApp, Vine, Instagram, YouTube – what works? What’s the easiest way to reach your audience? What will work next month?
Email. Email will work.
Two amazing statitiscs:
According to this report from the Radicati Group, “there are three times more email accounts than Twitter and Facebook accounts combined.”
Chances are 99% people of your last gig had an email address. Think that many people were on Twitter or Instagram?
When your main “getting the word out” message is via networks that some people – believe it or not – aren’t using, you’re talking to a brick wall. Telling your fans “Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!” means nothing to people who aren’t on either.
And from Campaign Monitor, “you are six times more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet.
Seriously – look at your analytics! Amongst the barrage of marketing messages, pleas for clicks and RTs and “share this” – this is 2015! It ain’t gonna get better in 2016, folks.
And yes, 10’s of thousands of social media followers looks great. But take a look at the Bit.ly links of some media outlets (by adding a + sign to the end of the URL); some have six-figure followers and can’t even get 1% of their audince to click a link. If less than 1% of your fans are clicking, what’s that make the other 99% of your followers?
If you’re looking to magically convert your 10,000 Twitter Followers and 50,000 Facebook "Likes” to email subscribers, good luck. Remember, if you’re “fortunate" to have 1% of your fans click on ANYTHING (let alone a link to join an email list), it’s going to take months to grow your list from your social media following.
But you should start doing that now. Remember, MySpace was the #1 music site online in 2006 and now it’s gone. Do you think we’ll still be talking about Twitter and Facebook in 2020? There’s a chance we might not, but you can be sure that email will still be around.
And those “Likes” may not be.
Seth Werkheiser is the quiz master of metal trivia at Skulltoaster. He’s also the founder of some music sites you may have heard of, including Noise Creep (2009) + Buzzgrinder (2001). He’s anti-Facebook, anti-clickbait, and anti-growth hacking. You should most definitely follow him on Twitter. Yes, right now.
One hard truth about working in music that you will never see glamorized in movies or through song is the seemingly endless stream of emails that pour through your digital inbox every single day of the week. Whether you work as a journalist or someone hoping to pitch journalists, I am certain not a day goes by where you feel as if you’ve received too few emails. With that in mind, we’ve partnered with our friends at Muddy Paw PR to provide you with a guide to email etiquette that will help you maintain professionalism through all forms of digital communication. Enjoy.
Dear reader: Are you in a band, managing a band, working their PR, or writing about them? Perhaps you’re about to send off that all-important request to photograph a live show of your favorite artist or apply to write for a major publication?
Regardless of what area of the music industry you work in, there is one universal aspect that connects all of us: emails are every bit as important as phone calls and Skype meetings. In our world, an opening email is often your first and best chance to make the right impression. Make a good first impression with a band or company and you can be set for years. Make a bad impression, however, and it is extremely difficult to recover.
As a publicist, managing editor and former hiring manager, I’ve seen nearly everything over the last five years. A few of my email experiences with bands and industry clients include: alcohol-driven rants, smiley faces after every sentence, misspelling my three-letter name (if I had a nickel for every time I’ve been called Jo or Joy…), being called Insert Name Here, and being outright insulted.
It’s a roller coaster, this music business. But with five years of experience across multiple fields, I’m here to share with you some tips on maximizing your email correspondence. Whether you’re in a band looking to get a label’s attention, applying for that dream paying job, sending a request to your favorite band’s PR team or just looking to expand your relationships with the right people, these are a few do’s and don’ts to make you look as professional as possible in all your industry dealings.
DO: Get straight to the point.
This is essential, regardless of what industry field you work in. Whether you want to speak with a label executive, get your band some coverage or send a job application, don’t overload your message with unnecessary text. A quick 1-2 sentences for a polite introduction, then get down to business.
Use your first main paragraph to outline your reason for contact and what you’re looking for. For publicists in particular, state the artist’s genre and who they sound similar to. With many industry workers forever fighting losing battles against their inboxes, if you take too much time getting to the point, your message may be deleted. Always make your language clear, concise and professional to give yourself the best chance of getting your desired response.
DON’T: Try to fake sincerity.
Sounds incredibly obvious, right? Well, just like measuring someone’s tone in person or on the phone, it is also easy enough to judge a person’s sincerity in e-mail correspondence. Do your in-depth messages receive a sentence or two in response? Are there a lot of basic spelling errors? Sentences with no punctuation at the end? Particularly blunt language? All of these imply a level of laziness, a lack of respect, and too little desire to be helpful. An insincere person can often be spotted a mile away, even through e-mail messages, and news of an unpleasant experience spreads quickly in this industry. So how can you maximize your chances of making the right first impression?
DO: Be as kind and accommodating to the other person as possible.
The music industry is all about building relationships, and chances are you’ll be dealing with a lot of the same people over and over. If you make yourself easy and pleasant to work with, new friendships will emerge and the number of great opportunities you receive will grow very quickly. This quality could make the difference between being approved or denied from that “dream opportunity” you’ve been waiting for.
DON’T: Introduce yourself with “What’s up?”
For job applicants in particular, this is a must. During my hiring manager days, the number of applications I received that started with “What’s up Joe?” was startling. More often than not, that intro was followed by a poorly written application letter and no resume attached. When you’re looking to get your foot in the door of your chosen field of work, keeping your language proper and professional (and, of course, actually having a resume) is essential if you hope to land that all-important interview.
DO: Always click “Reply All”.
Bands, this one’s for you. Before a recent meeting I had with a potential PR client, we introduced ourselves through e-mail and I kept my boss on CC so she could see how the talks were progressing. A total of 10 messages were sent back and forth, and not once did the client hit “reply all” to keep my boss in the loop. This was a red flag – one of several throughout the correspondence – because it told us the client was not reading my messages carefully (despite me repeatedly mentioning my boss’s name). After a not-so-great start, the meeting resulted in my boss and I deciding this was not someone we wanted to work with, despite being incredibly talented.
Obviously there were more important factors than the client’s lack of CC knowledge, but bands, it is vital to keep ALL parties involved in your correspondence. Many of us have bosses, interns, managers, editors, etc. who need to know what is going on at all times and can offer insight when necessary. It’s a simple task to check if anyone is CC’d in a message, but if you really can’t remember to do it, Gmail even gives you the option to make “reply all” your default setting.
On behalf of every industry friend, co-worker and acquaintance I’ve ever known, please use “reply all” so we can stop tearing our hair out!
DON’T: Put your subject line in all caps.
DO YOU SCREAM AT PEOPLE IN PUBLIC TO GET THEIR ATTENTION TOO? Unless you’re in a crowded bar or at a concert, I doubt it. An all-caps subject line makes us feel like we’re being yelled at, and although some believe it increases your chance of getting the other person’s attention, it often does more harm than good. Just like the message itself, keep your subject line short, to the point, and with normal-sized letters. As long as your words are clear and attention-grabbing, you’ve done your job.
DO: Respond Promptly Whenever Possible.
Now, I’m not saying be a slave to your e-mail inbox. Many of us get overwhelmed with hundreds of messages every week and sometimes it’s not possible to respond quickly. But this isn’t Facebook, where everyone plays the “click on the message notification to see the first few words and if it doesn’t look important, I’ll respond 10 hours later” game. Many music industry workers use apps like Mandrill or SendGrid which lets them “track” the e-mails they send to see if and when they are opened by the recipient. Personally, if I read a message and see that it doesn’t require an essay in response, I try to reply within 24 hours. Look at it this way: do you take days to respond to a call or text from a friend? Of course not, so why should professional work-related messages be any different?
Responding promptly tells the other party that you are taking them seriously, you’re dedicated to the cause, and you’re being accommodating to their needs. Amazing how many details you can see through someone’s online correspondence, isn’t it? However…
DON’T: Respond to important/lengthy messages with your phone.
Have you ever sent a super-embarrassing text to a friend or family member thanks to the ultimate frenemy known as auto-correct? Yes you have – don’t lie. Unless it’s just to say “thank you” or it’s absolutely time-sensitive – in which case a phone call is better – hold off on responding to your most important messages until you’re in the much safer confines of your laptop. A later, well-written response is always better than the virtual foot-in-your-mouth typo that phones often bestow on us.
Joe Ballard is a music writer and publicist. He cares as much about the words used to promote music as he does the music itself, and that is part of the reason we love him. Learn more about Joe and his work with talented up and comers through the Muddy Paw website.
Hello, everyone! I know we took a little time off yesterday without warning, but a close friend of the Haulix family passed away and we needed some time to mourn. Fortunately, many of our close friends in the industry reached out to help us continue our content creation efforts while we reflect on our recently deceased friend. The piece you’re about to read was created by Seth Werkheiser, and it offers insight that could help bands and artists of all sizes improve their digital marketing efforts.
This blog exists to promote the future of the entertainment industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your entertainment-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
I’ve talked to a handful of musicians and bands lately about the subject of “social media.” I usually steer the conversation towards email marketing, and explain how it converts better than the “social media flavor of the week.”
“But I don’t want to just email out our tour dates,” they usually say, explaining that they don’t like those emails.
There’s a simple solution: don’t be like the lazy bands who do just that.
Copying and pasting your tour dates into an email is very boring. An unpaid intern could do it. In their sleep.
Instead, try this: out of the 34 photos you posted to Instagram and Facebook during the course of your last few shows, or tours, pick a handful that “clicked well.” What dose that mean? That means the photos that got the most "likes,” or shares. Take those, and put a few of them into your next email.
Now, here’s the part where an unpaid intern can’t do what you do.
You write the back story. The location. Explain what happened. You lived it, bled it, slept in it. You drove all those hours, got sick, met an amazing character in a small town, hung out with coolest people.
Everyone loves a good story, and as a traveling musician you’ve got stories to tell, so stop “blasting” your tour dates every five minutes like every other hack band out there.
As Betabrand founder Chris Lindland says, “the assumption is that not everybody wants to shop every single time they get a newsletter.”
Think about that for a second: not everyone is ready buy tickets to your next show or watch your new music video (they might be watching Netflix at the moment). But if you tell a story about how cops nearly shut down your video shoot, you might distract them from ‘Orange is the New Black’ long enough to at least get a click!
For example, there’ a new video out from the Cancer Bats, for their song ‘Satellites.’ In the video they shoot fireworks at their drummer in a field the whole time.
Wait, they what?
How did they not get arrested shooting that video? Did anyone get burned? How much did they spend on fireworks? Who came up with that idea of shooting fireworks at their drummer?
Their YouTube description field? "SATELLITES!! Hope you like it!” Snooze.
So don’t do that with your own email newsletter. Get creative. Just because every other band out there sends a list of tour dates and nothing more doesn’t mean you have to do the same.
Share some photos, stories from the road, and then paste your tour dates at the bottom of the email. Heck, list the mileage between stops, or the tourist destination you’re planning on visiting. Ask your fans for suggestions on places to check out, the best food stops in town. Invite a few out for pre-show pizza.
These are the people who might may to come see you, right? Maybe buy a CD or shirt?
Remind your fans what you’re about, not just where you’ll be two months from now.
Seth Werkheiser is the quiz master of metal trivia at Skulltoaster. He’s also the founder of some music sites you may have heard of, including Noise Creep (2009) + Buzzgrinder (2001). He’s anti-Facebook, anti-clickbait, and anti-growth hacking. You should most definitely follow him on Twitter. Yes, right now.
Hello and welcome to another week of music industry discussion here on the official blog of Haulix. We are thrilled to have you join us, even if it’s only for a few short minutes. The content we have planned the coming days has been in production for weeks, and we truly believe it’s some of our best material to date. We’re starting with some advice, but in the days ahead there will be interviews and additional features as well.
This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
We have made this point several times in the past, but in a time where everyone is constantly vying for attention on social networks there may be no better way to reach your fans than through maintaining an email newsletter. Some may think email is becoming antiquated these days, but that is in fact not the case. Email is the only way many brands and artists are able to reach their audience that allows for in-depth discussion on multiple topics, and though it may never make you a star maintaining such outreach can aide in developing a sustainable career in music. We have talked about how to make great newsletters in the past, and if I had to guess we will probably revisit that topic in the future, but today we are looking at how to increase signups for this outreach at your upcoming live events. The advice we have is not all that complex, but if you follow our guidance and apply the concepts to your audience you will see results.
Contests connected to signups.
One of the easiest ways to gain additional signups for your email newsletter at shows is to lure in curious music fans with the opportunity of a lifetime. Maybe you cannot offer a trip to Italy or a summer in Hawaii, but you could offer free tickets, free merchandise, or even a chance to contribute gang vocals to your next album. Find a prize that is feasible without breaking the bank and promote it at your merch table, requiring everyone who wants to participate to signup for your email newsletter. If longtime fans complain that they cannot enter, consider launching a digital counterpart that allows people to gain ‘entry’ in exchange for encouraging friends to signup.
Everyone loves a free download.
This one takes a little bit of extra computer work, but it’s worth the effort if you are willing to make time to do it right. Many people who signup for your email list at shows will have seen you for the first or second time that evening, which means there is a good chance they do not already own your music. One way to convince them your email list is worth their time is the promise of free music in the immediate future. Tell interested participants that everyone who signs up during the show will be given a free download following the night’s events, in addition to being added to your newsletter. This conveys to music fans that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get them interested in your music up front, and it also gives you an excuse to connect with them after the event as well. When sending out downloads you will have the opportunity to contact people individually, which could help develop a street team down the line.
There’s an app for this kind of thing. More than one, in fact.
For many years, the fastest way to collect emails for newsletters was to keep a pen and paper on your merch table, but in the digital age that format of record keepings is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Today, as long as you have an iPad or some type of tablet device you are able to collect information and store it in a fraction of the time the same activity required even five years ago. Apps like ProspectSnap, SignupAnywhere and Chimpadeedoo for instance, allow you to instantly add people to your email list. These programs are often used at conferences, but they work perfectly fine at concerts as well. You can even customize the signup form to reflect your band and image. The best part? You do not need a wi-fi connection for these apps to work. That said, you will want to keep someone at your table at all times to ensure the safety of your tech.
You have a voice – USE IT.
Might as well close with something a bit more obvious. No one can promote you and your music quite like you and the people who help create the sound you hope to make your career. That is a long way of saying you are the best advertisement for your efforts, and that goes as much for your new album as it does signing up for your email list. While on stage, mention the signup list. When your meeting fans by the merch table, mention the signup list. When you’re loading out and people want to hang and/or grab a bite to eat, make sure you mention the signup list. People will want to know what’s in it for them, and if you’ve applied any of the other tips in this piece to your efforts it should not take you long to formulate a fitting response. Sell yourself. If you cannot do that, how can you expect anyone else to?
…One last thing
Above all else – be human. Talk to people and let them know that you would like to stay in touch with them even when you do not have a show or album to promote. Newsletters are as much a place for promotion as they are a place to share where you have been and where you are headed. They bring together communities that would otherwise be unable to connect and strengthens them through meaningful messaging.
