Category: Email MarketingCategory: Email Marketing

Jon Davis of Conan wrote a great piece on LinkedIn, talking about how bands (or any creative project) can sustain themselves by selling directly to their fans.

Aside from social media, boosting posts, and making a quality product, he also spoke of my favorite thing:

Use email marketing. This is incredibly powerful. Yesterday, after some exporting data from Big Cartel and into EmailOctopus, I wrote to every single person who has ordered merch through the Conan UK page (approx 4700 people) and every single person who has ordered merch through our USA store (approx 3200 people). I was raising awareness of one of my releases. I sent the mail at 15:00 Friday afternoon, and since then (it’s 10:10am the next day now) have sold almost £1500 worth of items.

He sent an email to just under 8,000 former customers, and made £1500 ($1,923) in not even 24 hours.

Can you email everyone that bought your recent thing?
If you can, that’s big business.

From Shopify – “Repeat customers have a higher (customer lifetime value): The more repeat customers trust you, the less they hesitate to buy from you. That’s why promoting new products to repeat buyers takes less effort than promoting the products to new customers.”

From HubSpot – “Acquiring new customers costs 5 to 10 times more than selling to a current customer.” Think about it – make five more REELS, or just email a former customer – which is gonna make you a dollar faster?

From Mailchimp – “The success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 20%.”

From Paychex – “Little to no additional marketing is generally required to attract a repeat customer back, as opposed to starting from scratch with people who know nothing about your company.”

The allure of the NEW FAN / NEW FOLLOWER / NEW CUSTOMER is exciting, sure, but don’t neglect the customers you’ve already had over the years.

Like Jon Davis of Conan demonstrated above, he sent one email and made about $2,000.

That’s a lot easier than making a bunch of vertical videos and carousel posts and hoping 30% of your audience will even see them.

And don’t be afraid to sell. Give your fans a chance to give you money. Let them exchange currency for something you make, or offer, or do.

Linking to Spotify is fun, and all the “engagement” of likes and comments are cool, and it’s part of the game, but putting for-real dollars into your bank account is nice, too.

If you don’t think you have anything interesting to send an email once a week to your fans, tell me: what are you posting multiple times per day across several social media platforms?

It’s more mullet marketing.

Party in the back: social media is fun and loose!
Business in the front: email is for transactions! Sales!

All that stuff you share on social media (that a fraction of your audience even sees) are all things your fans enjoy and read and share.

You know this by the likes and comments.

And how many times have we seen metal blogs make an entire story about a band member’s social media post?

And who doesn’t love peteY? Business in the email (LOGO, TEXT, BUTTONS), party on the socials:

Yes, I know peteY’s whimsical videos on socials are the marketing for his real-life music which seems to be doing very well (this email was sent via UMG), but… as a fan which feels more familiar? This adorable face on the screen, or… big pre-save buttons?

And while Stray From The Path probably won’t send out an email of Craig’s rants (but shit, I’d subscribe), well… there’s no email list to subscribe to on their website anyways, so what’s any of this even matter?! Hah!

GET TO THE POINT, SETH.

What I mean is this: the audience you’re reaching on social media seems to enjoy your photos and writing and videos and commentary.

Why not share some of that with your email list audience?

Do I want free donuts? Yes.

Do I want rewards? Well wait, what are the rewards? How do I get them?

I went out for a donut and iced coffee today.

The owner and I got talking about websites, social media, and email marketing of course – yes, I’m loads of fun at parties!

The owner told me the challenge of getting people into their reward program (buy enough donuts and coffee, get free donuts).

Her pitch is basically, “do you want to join our rewards program?”

And those go (usually) three ways:

1. Yeah, sure.
2. No, thanks.
3. Wait, what’s the rewards program?

For me, if you ask someone who’s buying donuts if they want free donuts, I think that changes the response a bit, to something like:

1. Uhh, yes.
2. Wait, what?

➡️ Think of this when writing subject lines.

Your “West Coast Tour Dates Announced” subject line is great for fans on the West Coast, but a horrible subject line for everyone else.

For someone like me in Pennsylvania, I have no incentive to open that email. Go have fun, West Coast!

But a subject line that says, “Do you remember when those cowboys got us back on the road when our van broke down?” – that’s for everyone! I want my van-repairing cowboys!

Then, of course (ahem), include your West Coast tour info later in the email, for your West Coast fans.

➡️ Think of this when asking your social media followers to subscribe to your newsletter.

When you say “sign up for updates,” people who’ve been on the internet for more than five seconds can already assume what they’re signing up for; deals, discounts, sales, bargains, big BUY NOW buttons.

Boring.

Make it easy for your fans to say “yes, I want that.”

Do you want free donuts? Yes.

Do you want more of my art? Yes.

Do you want more photos of my travels? Yes.

Do you want more writing? Yes.

Don’t tell me to sign up for updates, tell me what I’m getting.

Make your ask so good I have to say yes.

I’ve heard the mullet described as, “business in the front, party in the back.”

Usually, an artist’s social media feeds is the party.

Loose and free, filled with witty rants, spontaneous photos, and lengthy captions.

The likes pour in, the replies, the engagement.

That’s the “party in the back.”

But then you subscribe to an artist’s email newsletter and get their “email blast.”

Some images, text, a button that says “BUY NOW.”

No lively text. No attitude. No swagger.

That’s “business in the front.”

Please, go ahead and break my inbox and my heart with your sad tales from the road. I can take it.

Show up in my inbox like you do on my social media feeds.

Make me laugh with your snarky videos, and your dry humor.

Include some photos from tour, the studio, and your practice space.

Instead of giving Zuck & Musk your best material for them to monetize, pour your magic into the emails that you send to your fans.

Since social media is burning to the ground, here’s a thought about getting people to sign up for your email newsletter.

Avoid using, “sign up for updates.”

Like, it’s great to say “social media is a hell fire and we can’t reach our fans.”

The the context of that is great, yes. But saying “sign up for updates,” I’m sorry, it’s boring as f*ck.

Think about this – if you have a tour coming up, what are you gonna post on social media?

During your tour it’ll be, “we’re gonna post, exclusive, behind the scenes photos from our tour, and the adventures driving around the country to visit all these different cities and all these places that we eat.”

Oh, wait – that sounds exciting!

Say that.

Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you, you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”

There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”

It’s because stories sell. Stories are what make movies!

Tell stories, not updates.