As things wind down this year, I’ll keep this email light. There’s enough to digest seemingly every hour, and I don’t want to overload you.

If you put out a release, wrote a song, sold a print – I celebrate your success. Putting your magic into this world when everything is on fire is no small feat.

This focus here at HEAVY METAL EMAIL is pretty obvious, but if it’s not let me make it clear:

I want to help heavy metal folks start and grow email newsletters in 2022.

Bands, labels, photographers, writers, podcasters, designers – you could all benefit from an email newsletter, and I promise it’s not as hard as it looks.

First, with Substack you could be up and running this evening.

Second, your social media posts could easily be repurposed for your newsletter.

I know being an “email marketing expert” or “newsletter writer” wasn’t another job you wanted heading into a new year, but trust me, someday you’re going to want to move “social media expert” off your job description.

I believe you can siphon your social media audience to a your email list, and then you’ll spend less time being an “online marketing expert,” and more time working on your craft, and I think that’ll be better for everyone in the new year.

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Here’s a timely example of a band with a new video coming out, and using that as a “lead magnet” to get people to subscribe to their email list.

Ithaca posted this with a clear URL and a 17 second preview (it’s got 9K+ views a few days later).

You click that link and it takes you here:

First to know? SIGN ME UP.

And that’s how it works, friends.

Do this for every video, every single, every tour announcement, merch drop, new product – drive people to a sign up page, and turn your social media followers into email subscribers.

There’s a reason why Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, LiveNation, etc. don’t give you the emails of people who support your work; they’re gold.

Reaching your fans on any social media platform is a war.

It will continue to get harder to reach your fans, and the longer you wait to develop your social media escape plan, the further behind you’ll be when you finally decide enough is enough.