Category: Email MarketingCategory: Email Marketing

You probably didn’t hear that Axios sold to Cox Enterprises for $525 million, and why should you? We’re ARTISTS and MUSICIANS!

But let’s take a look at this nugget from ‘4 things Axios did right,’ by Simon Owens (he’s done PR, content marketing, and social media strategy for Google, Comcast, Forbes, ESPN, Nike, etc):

Whereas sites like BuzzFeed became overly reliant on Facebook, Axios was able to benefit from social media virality while simultaneously focusing on capturing as many email addresses as possible. This allowed it to have more ownership over its audience and protected it from the vicissitudes of social media algorithms. 

Say what?

Well, replace BuzzFeed above with, “every fucking band and metal news site,” and well, now you see why so many folks are losing contact with their fans.

Let’s break down that quote:

Axios was able to benefit from social media virality while simultaneously focusing on capturing as many email addresses as possible.

Yes, they used social media, but they used it not just for the clicks, but for the emails.

This allowed (Axios) to have more ownership over its audience and protected it from the vicissitudes of social media algorithms. 

If you’re like me you have no idea what “vicissitudes’“ means, but it means, “a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.”

So when Instagram decides that your photos aren’t “engaging enough,” and now you have to become a part-time video editor, yeah, that’s a change of circumstance.

But if you have an email list, you send an email to your fans, and if you do it right 40% or more of your fans open it and read it. And you don’t even need to make a dancing video for TikTok.

😡 Social media has conditioned us that if we’re not on their app several hours a day promoting our work, then we’ll get left in the dust.

Fuck that.

I’ve seen music reaction streamers on YouTube gripe about this – that if they don’t post stuff every day, the algorithm throttles their channel and less people see their videos.

But if you have an email list, you could send out an update once a week of all the stuff you’ve made – your videos, your new songs, new photos – and link all your new things! Then you’re done, and you can get back to making your magic.

Here that strategy in action, from this interview I did with Joan Pope, who is constantly making art and sends out a newsletter every week:

The weekly compilation of all my creative works helps me reflect on my own work each week and it keeps my audience in the loop. It seems like people like it. A lot of people will tell me that they can’t keep up and the newsletter helps them do that.

So yeah, Axios sold for over half a BILLION dollars, and had an email marketing strategy that probably played a part in that.

An email list might be valuable for what you’re doing, too.

🎁 BONUS

If you’re spending all this time on social media like a good online marketer, how are you supposed to make time for preparing an email newsletter?

“It’s so much work,” you say.

Except, you already did the work.

You wrote the Tweets, you made the images, you uploaded the audio… that’s the hard part, the dreaded “content creation” process.

Now you just copy and paste that into an email newsletter, so your fans who aren’t following you on every social media platform can see it!

I wrote this post about you can use your already published social media posts as the core of your email newsletters.

QUICK BITS:

The Metal By Numbers column over at Metal Insider hasn’t been updated since July 23rd. I’m bummed!

Congrats to Leo Mascaro and his Shuffle Sundays newsletter for hitting 1000 subscribers.

This ‘Bringing your Instagram followers to Substack’ post is a good example of how to get fans to your email list / new video / your store (not just your Substack).

GOOD TWEETS:

Just because you don’t read newsletters doesn’t mean your fans don’t read newsletters (also: your fans need an email address to buy tickets online, sign up for social media sites, order vinyl, etc.)

Reminds me of Seth Godin’s “No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.”

James Shotwell (@JamesShotwell_) is much too kind, but I’ll take it!

DUE BY FRIDAY:

It’s gonna be September when Friday hits. Here’s some things for you to do this week:

ADVANCED: With the holidays coming up, it may be a good time to start up a re-engagement campaign.

Donate to your local women’s shelter (find yours on Google), and / or donate to the Trevor Project by way of the Pride 5K I’m running in October.

Brush up on this ‘Holiday Rush Calendar’ and ‘Quick Tips for Holiday Selling’ from Big Cartel, which are still useful even if you don’t use Big Cartel.

“Last Saturday we drove by REI and I ended up with a new bike. Whoops.”

The quote above is typically not the sort of intro you’d expect in a newsletter from a music-themed podcast, but hey – why not?

Bryan Patton runs the As The Story Grows podcast, and his newsletters aren’t just links to his latest episodes. Yes, he links his latest interviews, but he also includes his thoughts about albums and singles and all the other things that make for an interesting character on the internet.

Because if you do something long enough – be it a podcast, a photo studio, a band, whatever – chances are you’ve got fans.

You want fans of your work.

Fans spread the word about what you do. They share your posts. Sometimes they buy your stuff.

If you did an interview with a media outlet discussing your work, who would you share that with?

YOUR. FANS.

You’d post that shit so fast on social media, wouldn’t you?

Well, don’t sit around waiting for that to happen. Take a few minutes and explain some of your process, your techniques, your magic.

Dive into the pain, the misery, the joy, the… everything that goes into your art:

“… I’ll be working on a memoir for Feral House, scheduled to be released around the same time that Love’s Holiday is. May or thereabouts. After reading every single memoir there is that touches on times I’ve been part of I’ve decided to do the one thing that none of the rest of them have done. Instead of simply describing events I’ve dug deep into thoughts and thought processes throughout without concern for feelings of those involved including mine.”

The above from Eugene S. Robinson, from his newsletter ‘Look What You Made Me Do.’

Your story deserves to be seen and read by more than 30% of your audience on social media, and that figure is very generous.

So go start an email list, get people to subscribe by offering them something worth reading, and go from there.

QUICK BITS:

“Create one piece of main content per week (for me it’s a blog post), and then find ways to re-work that content to also work on your other channels or platforms,” says film maker Noam Kroll in his newsletter.

“There is value in focusing on the depth of your work, rather than just the breadth of its reach,” says Iam Vanagas in ‘You Don’t Need to be a Poster.’

“We can read every book, listen to every podcast, think all the good thoughts, but nothing changes until we do,” writes Jocelyn Aucoin.

“48% of freelancers said that client referrals are—far and away—the best way to bring in new clients,” says Mailchimp in ‘The Power of Referrals for Your Business (and How to Ask for Them).’

GOOD TWEETS:

I could just turn this section into ‘Sto’s Tweets,’ but for real, you should follow him (@BigSto) if you need some extra motivation to start a newsletter and website for your magical endeavors.

When I see stuff about “the next big thing for bands” or whatever, I just think about how most bands won’t even Tweet more than twice about their latest video, or learn how to include a link in an Instagram Story. But sure, Roblox is the answer!

DUE BY FRIDAY:

Here’s some prompts to get your moving this week.

• Tell your email subscribers how you got started in what you’re doing now – most of them probably have no idea.
• Get three people from social media to join your email list.
• Write down ideas on how to get people to your online store this holiday season.

As an artist you can sit around and wait for a media outlet to do a cool feature on your project, or you can do it yourself, then share it directly with your fans.

Back in 2010 when I was running Noisecreep for AOL Music, we worked with The Devil Wears Prada to promote their upcoming video ‘Assistant to the Regional Manager,’ with this post ‘Behind the Scenes at the Devil Wears Prada’s ‘Almost Shocking’ Video Shoot.’

(DISCLAIMER: I work with Atom Splitter PR who is working their new album)

As you can see, the format would work well in an email newsletter; photo, text, photo, text.

We did it for the ad impressions. We kept the lights on with stories like this.

And you, fine reader, have my full blessing and support to copy this idea and use it to promote your own music and art and magic.

Look, you already have “behind the scenes” photos on your socials from three years ago that you posted once and never shared again.

And since that time three years ago you probably picked up more fans who have no clue about that old video, or that design collaboration you did, or that photo shoot you did for a magazine cover, or that art gallery opening.

Right now you have fans that don’t know everything you’ve done.

Hell, you have fans that don’t know what you did last month because not everyone sees your social media posts, and not everyone opens every single email you send.

Listen to what Tyler, The Creator says in this clip, about all the effort that goes into one song, and people post about it once, put it on their IG stories, and forget about it (watch from the 43:08 mark):

People, please – your art has LEGS, people. It is magic! Fans get tattoos of lyrics, of band names, of album art.

But I know, I get it… you’re an artist. You don’t want to come off too spammy, or promote your project like it’s a used-car.

THEN DON’T.

Make some cool shit like that Devil Wears Prada post that we posted back in 2010.

Document your video shoot (or whatever the heck it is that you’re doing), and promote that. Promote your process, a “day in the life” of making an album, or setting up a photo studio.

You’re already posting these shots and clips on socials for a small subset of your fans to see. Get your fans on your email list, throw these goodies into a newsletter and send it direct the people who love you the most!

NOTE: this offering of “behind the scenes,” probably never seen before images and stories is a far better selling point than “sign up for updates” as you try to get people to sign up for your email list.

Then… shhh… I know (looks around for the ‘Scene Police’), we’re all artists here… you should include a link somewhere – not too big and flashy – to actually (ahem) BUY YOUR STUFF.

Give people something to click to pre-order an album, or book you for a session, or whatever it is that you do.

We’re all creative wizards here, and selling things is, “eww gross,” but I’m sure you like to pay rent and drink an iced coffee on occasion, so let people love you and support you.

Media outlets use those cool behind-the-scenes studio reports, and day in the life posts to sell ads and pay their rent, so make sure you’re sharing direct with your fans so you can keep paying your rent.

QUICK BITS:

This piece (‘‘‘People love to feel part of the process’: how the TikTok teaser turbo-charged the song of the summer race”) focuses on TikTok (of course), but I think it can be applied to other channels, too (SoundCloud, YouTube, Twitch, your newsletter, etc). Oh, and TikTok joined forces with TicketMaster, too.

Bandcamp’s ‘Best Metal for July’ round up includes Ashenspire, Wormrot, In Nothingness, and more, while Loudwire’s ‘Best New Rock + Metal Songs of July’ round up includes Architects, Bring Me the Horizon, Demon Hunter, Lorna Shore, and tons more.

“Someone reading your email on a screen reader would have no way of knowing what the link is or why they should click here,” which is a good reason (among others) to not hyperlink “click here” in your emails. I’m so guilty of this.

“One thing that COVID demonstrated was that you could stay home, stream everything and not go out,” said show promoter Peter Shapiro, ‘‘but in the end a lot of people realized how important the live experience really is.”

“I want to continue to show others that you can craft an income, a hobby, a passion project, a business, an art career, without any social media or social capital or twitter or a footprint that feels out of alignment with your values,” Cody Cook-Parrott

GOOD TWEETS:

Social media rewards you if you spend lots of time on each network, replying, commenting, sharing – all in the hopes that your posts will get seen by a few more people. Remember, “Social Media Manager” is a full time job at a lot of places with health benefits and a 401K – it’s a lot of work.

Hey wait a minute – aren’t bands supposed to just Tweet about their new release once and then disappear into a boggy swamp?! It takes a minute to hype your release a week later, a month later, six months out. Same for your music videos, press hits, and tour dates.

YOUR TURN:

Are you gonna send that email to your fans this week?
Start an email list?
Ask your social media followers to subscribe?
It’s Monday – what are you working on?

If you’re a talented host and actress and presenter (and a million other things) with a big following on Instagram and TikTok – you should still have an email list.

Whitney Moore is super active on the socials – videos! photos! witty observations! – but she also has a website (hooray)!

So when fans get clicking and visit Whitney’s website, they can sign up for her email newsletter for “weekly exclusive pics, info on projects, and fun stuff from around the web.”

As you can see the email is mostly text (‘Always Bet On Text’), so it’s probably easy to set up each week. There’s the ‘Photo of the Week,’ too, but you’ll have to subscribe if you want to see that.

An email newsletter is still a solid way to stay connected to your fans when the social media algorithms throttle your reach, or when you get locked out of your account.

And you don’t have to be skilled in video editing, or learn how to make those fancy audio teasers for your podcast, either.

You just… write an email, instead of contorting yourself into 13 different job titles, like Professor Pizza from Axeslasher said in an interview we did:

Creating on those platforms feels an awful lot like working for Facebook and not myself. The mental math equation went from “What do I think our fans would like?” to “What do I think will break through the algo that our fans will tolerate?”

The short answer is you have to start looking at and leveraging trends, which by-in-large, are fucking lame.

We’re a thrash band comprised of ghosts of vengeance. We shouldn’t be doing funny hand dances, or the running man.

And don’t put all your eggs into baskets you don’t own. Don’t rely on Facebook to be the website for your business, or your label or band.

Leverage the attention that you still might have and drive folks to your website so you can build your email list.

As I said last year in ‘Cut Your Social Media Time in Half:’

Set up an email list, get your fans from social media to subscribe, and send them an email once a week.

As you grow your email list, it’ll start to be more effective.

You’ll spend less time preparing and sending an email than you do on social media, and it’ll sell more albums, more tickets, more shirts.

So yeah – even if you’re doing a video show on YouTube or TikTok, or a podcast, it’s still a good idea to partner it with a written component, sent out once a week direct to your fans.

You’re already making videos, or publishing podcasts, or getting your photos featured in magazines, or putting things on your website – now just wrap them up nice in a weekly newsletter so your fans can actually see the cool stuff you make.

QUICK BITS:

Metallica “sold more tickets than any other hard rock, metal, or punk(ish) artist in the last 40 years,’“ BeReal is maybe the hot new social media thing, while Twitter “is supporting a group that is seeking to revoke reproductive rights nationally.’ Yowza.

Tegan (of Tegan and Sara) writes ‘How To Craft a Set List and Why,’ which is a great example of an artist writing about something which might be super interesting to their fans, and while “Zero-Click content is uncomfortable but it’s worth it” might sound confusing, you should make some coffee and read it (and take some notes).

While Sunny Day Real Estate may not be heavy metal, I saw them post recently and felt their announcement process could serve as a good lesson.

First, a cryptic post on Instagram. The red letters spell out ‘We owe you nothing. You have no control,” which is a line from the song ‘Merchandise’ from Fugazi.

The post wraps up nicely with the usual “link in bio” song and dance, of course, which leads to the band’s website.

Now, this next part is important. You got people to click – which is a miracle in today’s internet world!

So for the people who absolutely MUST know about your new song, new merch, or new video – ask for their email address:

It might be hard to read above, but the website asks “Want exclusive updates?” There’s an email sign-up form which we’ve all seen a million times before, and I’m sure a few people signed up (I did).

Your results may vary (you’re probably not Sunny Day Real Estate), but getting emails from five fans a few times a month adds when you do it for a year.

START YOUR NEXT NEWSLETTER

You know you want to start a newsletter for your band, label, photography, studio, etc., but ahhhhh, what will you even write about?

1. Repurpose your social media posts. Probably over 70% of your followers don’t see your posts anyways (because of algorithms), and not all your fans are even on social media (more examples here).
2. Share stories like the music sites post. We all see the nice press pieces (track by track, inspiration behind the album, behind the scenes photos in the studio) – try doing your own from time to time. Show off your guitar pedals, your camera set up, your new studio, etc.
3. Anniversaries. Don’t just post about your music video or EP release a few times and forget about it – post about it six months later, a year later. Most likely you’re brand new subscribers don’t even know about your older material.

Those should get your started.

Remember, you’re an artist, a photographer, a producer; sell your damn journey.

There are syndicated TV shows that revolve around people baking cakes, and cleaning out storage lockers, sponsored by major brands that sell sugar water.

Mundane shows, sponsored by commodity items, and they’re all doing a better job at marketing themselves than 95% of the music world.

Do the dance on socials, drive people to your email list, then regularly connect with your fans with stories, photos, exclusive looks, and the occasional link to a record or photo print.

People tune into reality TV shows for the story. Heck look at all the stories that Tegan & Sara share with their newsletter.

Don’t just link to your new video – tell me why it took 19 hours to make. Tell me how you got chased out of an abandoned building. Tell me where you found some of the props, how you hired the director, and then tell me about why making music videos in 2022 is still important.

ANOTHER REASON WHY YOU NEED A NEWSLETTER

If your live-stream shits the bed, it’s easy to send a message to your fans and let them know you’re working on the issue, or maybe send a new link when it’s all back up and running.

QUICK HITS

📺 Seth Godin on ‘How To Reach Your Audience?’ (as a good friend says, “write a good song.” Yeah, I know, pretty simplistic, but if there was a map, anyone could do it.) Via Marketing 411

⚫️ ‘Ask Me About Abortion Anger’ from Eugene S. Robinson

⚫️ How To Add A GIF To An Email Newsletter

⚫️ ‘U.S. FCC commissioner wants Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores’ – ooops, can’t export your TikTok followers!

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Remember – your email campaigns don’t have to be clones of every email campaign you’ve already seen. Just as your music, your art, your vision is unique, you’re allowed to color outside the lines and craft emails that your fans will want to open.