Category: NewslettersCategory: Newsletters

Here’s a new video drop I made for Sean King O’Grady from their Substack Note, but figured it might be helpful for other folks.

1. Double check all the links in your profiles

On your profile (Substack, socials, whatever), this person has a website URL listed. On desktop, you can click it and it works — but on mobile, it doesn’t. In this case edit your Substack profile and add that link as an external website so it works everywhere.

---

2. Should You Start a Separate Newsletter?

If early on in the process, no, I wouldn’t. Put all your effort into your main newsletter and get as many people on that as possible. Tell people there about whatever else you’re doing and selling. Once you’ve made some sales, you’ll have email addresses of people who bought from you — that can become your second email list.

---

3. Should Your Newsletter Have a “Name?”

You’re the artist — trust your gut. If your name works, your name works. The success you see from others doing it differently isn’t your path. You’ve done great work so far — keep doing it your way. People who care about what you’re doing will sign up and stick around, no matter what it’s called.

I’ve been saying that your email newsletter isn’t your permanent address, it’s a delivery truck – just make sure you’re delivering your audience to your permanent address!

I see so many artists hype their latest video in a newsletter and link it to YouTube. YouTube is a platform where you give up all control over branding, design, layout, vibes. The entire site is built to keep users (your fans) on their site – not yours.

Instead, put the video on your own site, and link to it. Deliver your fans to your permanent address.

Put something new on your website this weekend, and link it in your next newsletter.

Your newsletter isn’t your permanent address, it’s a delivery truck. Build an archive of work on your website and link to your stuff from your newsletter!

I hear it all the time – “my inbox is overflowing, I can’t keep up,” which usually leads to the idea that your newsletter is going to get lost in the shuffle of your subscribers inbox.

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. I’m drowning, too. But there are names that pop up in my Newsletter folder that I will absolutely read. Names that make me smile. Newsletters that I know I will read and get something from.

You can be that for someone else. Believe that.

If you’ve got four subscribers, 40, or 400 – there are a certain number of people that will make time for you, week in and week out. Not everyone, but a subset of your total subscriber count. That’s the way it works.

So don’t be dismayed by the numbers, the trends, whatever – celebrate the few people who love the work that you do.

People are getting tired of all the notifications from news apps, even to the point of uninstalling them from their phones. This from The Guardian:

Too many alerts could cause problems for the whole industry. The big smartphone software operators such as Apple and Google have routinely warned publishers about sending too many alerts. This has led to concerns that these platforms could further restrict or mediate their notifications in the future.

You couldn’t accuse most artists from sending too many emails. The general vibe is “I don’t wanna be too spammy.” So then many in the creative world end up sending once a month, or even more infrequent.

There is a balance to be found – for your personal bandwidth, and what your audience will tolerate. Everyone is different, and every audience is different.

But keep the “alert fatigue” in mind – it’s not that what you’re sending is too much, but you’re message, your post, your invite – it’s easy to get lost in the unending torrent of everybody else’s updates.