Category: NewslettersCategory: Newsletters

I like this quote from New Creative Era:

THE CREATIVE STATUS QUO HAS MADE US LONELY CONTENT MACHINES
PRESSURED TO POST WITH UNNATURAL QUANTITY AND FREQUENCY
TO PURSUE OUR LIVELIHOODS AND EXPRESS OUR WORK
WE PLAY SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME

I’ve been thinking about that first line a bit, as I sort of felt isolated as a writer, as someone trying to offer up ideas. I feel like it’s me vs everyone, stacking up against everyone else trying to offer solutions and ideas in a busy, hyper-competitive world of music and culture.

But I found some comfort in two podcasts recently, that sort of set me at ease, the first being with Bobby Hundreds on the Tim Ferris show:

The one thing that stuck with me was building something within a community.

Think of artists working together on various projects, like Turnstile working with BADBADNOTGOOD and today releasing this EP:

Working with other creative people is good energy, and good energy spreads. As the effectiveness of social media wanes, think of the creative people you can work with.

Next is ‘Common Shapes’ from Cody Cook-Parrott and their episode ‘The Art of Newsletters.’

Here’s a quote:

“Just hit send. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, I imagine people might see your imperfections and think “me, too. I feel that, too. I have typos. I misspell things.” Whatever it is, let your anti-perfectionism be an invitation to your readers that it’s ok to be clumsy and start anyways. It’s ok to be mediocre and still hit send.”

I’ve botched subject lines, missed typos, and sent emails with broken links – life rolls on. Learn from it, and start work on the next one.

It’s most likely no one died from a tiny error in your newsletter. Let your humanity have some space in your work, in your social media posts, in whatever you do.

Things don’t have to be perfect, they just need to be done / shipped / out the door. And like I mentioned above, you don’t have to do it alone!

If you haven’t started your email list because you’re still debating between Mailchimp or CovertKit or 1000 other servives, you’ve got until the end of this email to pick one.

Don’t watch 18 hours of people you don’t know talking about things you might not ever need.

If you want to learn guitar, find a guitar and fucking go. You can always buy a better one later.

Same with learning photography – pick something you can afford and just start.

Which snare should you get? Which cymbal manufacturer is the best?

What paint brushes should I use? What brand of paint?

JUST. GET. STARTED.

If you start with Mailchimp, you can send five emails and decide you hate it and use something else.

Just export your subscribers and leave.

I did this recently with a client.

We sent two email campaigns and jumped to Substack.

Did you start using Klaviyo and now you hate it? Export your list and move somewhere else.

Hate Substack? Fine. Export your email list and move to Flodesk. I know someone who uses BOTH.

Some cost more money if you have more subscribers.
Some cost more money if you send more emails.
Some cost zero money, but then charge for other things.
Some can integrate with Shopify, other’s can’t.

SIGN UP FOR ALL OF THEM

Put down your phone for an hour and create a free account on all of them and start poking around. Just go crazy.

Find out how easy it is to upload your logo.

Find out how easy it is to start a new email.

Find out how easy it is to enter your basic info.

Stuck? Check out their help docs, or search for the answer on YouTube.

You’ll quickly figure out which service just doesn’t work for you.

My picks?

If you just need basic and free: Substack

Basic and pay a little: Buttondown

If you need something with lots of options and integrations with online stores and SMS: Klaviyo

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. You’re gonna send an email with a typo, or a wrong link. Professional email marketing folks make mistakes (like me) – no one is perfect!

As my friend Jocelyn wrote in ‘It’s fun to be bad,’

“There’s always something to learn, isn’t there? Even when we’re good. If we’re honest, there’s always something we’re bad at. Something that needs working, practice, etc.. This is true in art and in life. Which is why you should just try the thing and learn to love the process of learning.”

Like your first song, or your first photograph, or album cover, or album you produce, or course you offer – the first one will be rough, and that’s okay.

Make cool stuff, and you show it to your friends, like Rick Rubin says. That’s what all of this is about.

Yes, it’s a new thing to learn, but it’ll be worth it, I promise. Starting and running an email list will help you reach a higher percentage of your fans, who will then be more likely to check out your cool things, and support you in your wonderful creative endeavors.

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?

We’re all uploading video to social media, then sending out email newsletters with vinyl mock ups.

If you don’t know what I mean by vinyl mock ups, I mean stuff like this:

I get it – there’s definitely a place for that (like your online store), and for some of you with 10,000+ email subscribers it does the job, but this takes me back to my idea of mullet marketing.

Your social media is fresh videos!
IG stories are fun and spontaneous!
Your Twitter takes are sassy and smart!
Your feeds are bursting with amazing concert photos!

Then your email newsletter is… an image of a record.

How boring.

This isn’t even a matter of budget or time – you already have the images and videos uploaded to social media, and they’re sitting there unseen by (sometimes) 70% of your fans – fun!

Host your videos somewhere like YouTube or Vimeo. Use WordPress? Upload right to your site with VideoPress. Use SquareSpace? You can upload 30 minutes of video direct to your site. Upload videos direct to Substack.

THEN, screen shot your video for your next newsletter, and link to YOUR SITE.

Your website, the place where you sell concert tickets, vinyl, shirts, and all your other products that your fans like to buy.

More people to your website means more people buy things.
I’m not even good at math, and I know it works.

Getting 10 people to your site might not lead to many sales.
But get 100 people to your site, and see what happens.
Instead of sending 1,000 fans to YouTube to watch a video, or a DSP to stream a song, put your best material on your site and include a link – your fans will click it!

This bit from Julia Evans is about email lists, and the myth of “you have to trick people into signing up for your email marketing list.”

If you clearly communicate who your mailing list will help, then people can easily filter themselves in, and the only people on the list will be happy to be on the list. And then you don’t have to send any unwanted email at all! Hooray!

I want to break down that first line a bit, and how it applies to all of us here at SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB:

If you clearly communicate who your mailing list will help…

Maybe not help, in our case, but delight. Excite. Who will love seeing our email pop up in their inbox?

Fans, right? People who enjoy what we write, what we do, the songs we play, the products we ship, the podcasts we produce.

So if you “clearly communicate” that, you’ll have “people on the list will be happy to be on the list.”

This means you can finally stop worrying about being spammy.

People signed up, right? So don’t be afraid to show up in their inbox more than once a month. Most of your fans won’t see your posts on social media because of algorithms, but most of your fans will open your next email.

Read the rest of Julia’s post, ‘A few things I’ve learned about email marketing,’ for sending out emails with less MARKETING vibes (via Kottke).