No one skips through all the episodes of reality TV shows to get to the final episode just to see who wins.

The dating shows, new movie releases, the latest books; while you could save a lot of time and skip to the end, why even bother?

We’re all in it for the journey. The story. And you should treat your project the same way.

Yes, it’s tempting to just Tweet “something in the works,” two weeks before you head into the studio. And then again the week before the release date, when you post some boring “hey, pre-order now” link.

Where’s the journey in that?

That’s like a dating show where you meet all the contestants in the first 20 minutes, then after the last commercial break they come back and they’re like, “well, congrats Joe and Sarah!”

No journey. No story. So sub-plots. No drama.

And 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.

You can do this.

FOR YOUR NEXT NEWSLETTER:

Screen shot some recent press, or nice things that people have said and put them in your next email – like this:

Lisa and I work in music, and have followed each other on Twitter for many years. Then finally in 2021 it happened – I started working with her company Holdtight, and her wonderful team, doing email marketing for a few of their clients, and it has been am absolute delight!

See? Now you know a little bit more about me, and what I do, and the good folks I work with!

Remember those Spotify Wrapped graphics? You posted ‘em on socials and thanked your fans, but what about your email subscribers? They’re fans, too! Try adding a nice call to action to your Bandcamp, encouraging your fans to support you by buying a shirt or album (and I bet you’ll sell a few albums).

Oooh, behind the scenes photos! A perfect “lead magnet” to use for capturing emails. Think of using photos from your next show, video shoot, or recording session like this, and saying something like, “to see more photos like this, join our email list.”

Feeling lost but you know you need to get your email list going for 2022?

In the war against social media algorithms, you’re going to have to engage in some hand to hand combat, as perfectly illustrated here by @Breezyb215:

If you’ve fighting and clawing your way for every listen and fan, do things that don’t scale – take Brianna’s advice and reach out.

(more…)

It will get harder to reach your fans on social media in 2022.

The best time to start an email list was 10 years or 10 months ago. The second best time is right now. Today.

Buckle up.

In the world of email marketing, there’s something called a “lead magnet.” It’s a freebie, like a digital download (PDF, video, etc) that people use to get people on their email list.

People will say, “sign up and get my free guide on how to gain 1,000 Twitter followers in 10 days.”

Why do this?

EMAILS ARE VALUABLE

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.

So how do you get people to sign up for your email list?

Use your own lead magnet; offer something your fans want, and give them a way to get it in exchange for an email address.

For instance, we’ve all seen this sort of post on social media.

Not even 50% of your fans will see a post like that. And when you’re ready to release your hot new song, you have to start the attention-roulette game all over again.

Instead, let people sign up to be reminded when your hot new song is available.

Run those posts for a week or two, in between all your other posts.

Now that you have their email address, when your new song is ready you can email those fans directly, without worrying about social media algorithms.

This isn’t easy, though. It takes some planning. Much more planning than tossing up a social media post on a whim (and then wondering why it didn’t do much).

COLLECT THE EMAILS

In the example above, I used Tally to gather emails (I just used it for my Black Friday give-away, too). For my day job we’ve used TypeForm to collect emails for new project campaigns. You can get fancy with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Elementor, Carrd, or even Substack, or Revue (which ties in super well with Twitter).

SEND THE EMAILS

Once you’ve collected the emails from your fans, don’t you dare send them to a BCC list in Gmail. Sign up for a Mailchimp account at the very least. You could also use Substack or Revue from above, though, though they offer less design options.

All that to say – when you’re ready to go live with your new song, video, or whatever, you send an email to your email list audience first. These are people who said “hell yes, let me know,” so treat them like the royalty that they are.

Statistically speaking more of your fans will see the email and click it than social media.

Example:
100 email subscribers, 29 people opened it: 29% SAW IT
1000 followers, 125 people saw it: just 12%

Sure, you probably won’t have 100 people on your email list right away, but you’re probably just starting out with email marketing, and you’ve been on social media for HALF A DECADE. Give it a minute.

Use this method multiple times over months and years, and you’ll grow a solid email list.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A LOT

The allure of social media is that most everyone can do it. You see what other people are doing; you just write some text, add a link, and hit publish. Then you’re done!

Unfortunately, most of your posts aren’t even seen, which means you have to keep posting, and staring at your phone, and “engaging,” to get any sort of results. This is hours of time that you could be working on your craft.

Or you could send one email a week and probably get the same results.

So, if you have some questions, reply to this email.

If all of this seems like too much, you could hire me to set it up for you, too (for about the cost of selling 10 CDs, or five vinyl records).

Reply to this email and we’ll make something happen.

ALSO:

“Without an email list, you might lose out on potential clients or customers just because they found you at the wrong time. But when you collect their email address, you get to show up in their inbox at regular intervals to strategically educate them until they are ready to buy,” from ConvertKit.

“People love to feel special and even though it’s a little silly, we all get that sense of pride when we get something first. And you can totally incorporate this into your email strategy. The general idea is that before you release anything, be it a blog post, tour tickets, new merch, or an album, you give your email subscribers first pickings,” TuneCore

Useful for when telling people about your new video or getting people on your email list!

And please, steal this idea:

Don’t just hand over all your photos from tour to social media outlets – put them on your site! Link to them from socials and your email list. Drive people to YOUR site. Make your site THE place to go for your art, your magic, your music!

You send questions, I answer them for all the world to see. A rising tide lifts all boats, so make sure you steal, er…. adapt these answers and ideas to your own email marketing sends!

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Q. I was going to start an email newsletter, but someone told me it’ll probably just end up people’s SPAM folders. Is this true?

A. If you’re just sending to a big BCC list using something like Gmail account – probably, yes. Don’t do that.

“There are a lot of spammers using @gmail.com to send out mass emails. So to protect their sender’s reputation, Google has strong anti-spam policies that often block bulk emails, whether it is spam or not,” says Email Octopus.

Use a for-real “Email Service Provider” like MailChimp or Substack. They’re built for sending to lots of people (unlike Gmail), and have better tools to get people to subscribe to your list, too, with landing pages (a fancy term for “a website where people can sign themselves up for your email list).

If you send with something legit, your email probably won’t go to spam. That said, you can still fuck things up! Check out Mailchimp’s ‘How to Avoid Spam Filters,’ and “only email people who have given you permission!”

Q. I’m thinking of starting an email list to let people know about my upcoming shows. I’m thinking about starting a YouTube account to post video, too. Google says Constant Contact is the best platform for embedded video in email. Do you think this is true? (from SH)

A. The way I’ve been “embedding” videos is screen shots of the YouTube player, and putting that into Mailchimp (or Klaviyo, or Substack), like this:

Adding a button helps, too. People love buttons.

“Using a call-to-action button instead of just a text link got us a 28% increase in click-throughs,” says Campaign Monitor in a test they did.

“Lastly, don’t assume the reader only clicks on the CTA button. Curious people often try to click different elements in the email like the logo, headlines, and images. Consider adding the same link to those elements if you think it will help the reader,” says MailerLite.

This is why I always link video screen shots to the video, too!

You could also use an animated GIF for your video, too. Just be mindful of the file size. “Ensure you GIF is sized at 0.5 MB or 1 MB maximum,” says Send In Blue. Check out ‘A guide to animated GIFs in email’ from Litmus for lots of insight.

Video is tricky in emails, so I’m a big believer in using the most “basic” method, to makes sure it works for everyone.

Many thanks to RH, our first reader-submitted specimen for EMAIL AUTOPSY!

If you’re new here, I dissect email campaigns from bands and labels, breaking them down to show how other metal folks do it!

This week we have the mighty Conjurer from the UK, who signed to Nuclear Blast back in February.

SUBJECT LINE: ‘We’re Back, Baby’ from Conjurer

CLINICAL SUMMARY: Laid back tone from a laid back bunch of guys. I had the pleasure to talk to these guys a few times over the years, and the messaging here totally reflects their chill demeanor.

Above is a good example of “giving.”

Yes, we sign up to get updates from bands all the time. And 99% of the time those emails are pretty self-serving; pre-order our album, watch our video, buy our shirt. And that’s fine – we know what we’re signing up for!

But then Conjurer goes ahead and does something like this, linking you to another band entirely.

This is a nice surprise, and they’re linking to a good band. Perhaps they’ll link to another band in their next email? Oooh, that means I better open their next email they send, right? SMART.

Turns out Sugar Horse is pretty good, too.

HEAVY METAL EMAIL RECOMMENDS: If you’re a goofball, be a goofball in your email marketing. Don’t ever be afraid to share you personality throughout your messaging.

“The more consistent you are with voice and tone, the more recognizable your brand will be to customers who receive your email. That consistency helps your email stand out from all of the other messages in their inbox,” Square

“In general, your marketing is better served with a more personal touch that lends it some distinctness. This is especially true in an age where society craves authenticity,” Axel & Associates

“Blueprinted emails quickly bore the boots off your readers,” says Copy Blogger. Think about it – how many bands just say “new album out now,” or “check out our tour dates?” Don’t be afraid to spice things up.

BLACK FRIDAY IS COMING UP!

Consider sending an email on Monday (Nov 22) with some sort of offer for the week – you’re competing with Target and BestBuy, along with family get togethers, and travel, so make it easy for your audience to purchase something from you this week. Send sooner than later.

Don’t worry about being “spammy” by sending an email campaign to your audience this coming week.

“Spam” is unwanted, not relevant, a waste of time.

But your audience signed up to get your updates! They bought something from you. They gave you their email address.

Lead with a photo that you posted to Instagram that got a lot of likes. Expand on the original caption (not everyone saw that post in the first place). Include a story – a wild Thanksgiving memory, a show you went to, something from your youth.

Then, sure… include that record you put out earlier this year, or that zine you printed over the summer. IT’S OKAY. Especially during the holidays. Give your fans a chance to support you!