Make it as simple as possible for your fans to subscribe to your email list.

Streamline the f*ck out of your landing page.

You want as few distractions as possible.

Less options.

Make it so easy to understand that a person can’t help but give you their email address.

A few notes about your landing page:

• Include your photos, your images, your logos, your branding. Do NOT let your landing page have any sort of DEFAULT look.
• Explain what they’re signing up for. Avoid the boring “sign up for updates” text – that’s for car dealerships and Kohls. Think of all the things you post on socials – I bet subscribers would love to see more of that!
• Don’t ask for a lot, in fact I recommend just asking for an email address. No need to go overboard with last name, city, town, zip code, phone number – you can ask for that later when you’ve developed your email list!
• Send a welcome / thanks email afterwards (if possible). You can use this email to link back to your website to watch your latest videos, or see your newest products.

There’s a few ways to build a landing page. Some are simple, and some more feature rich. Some are free, some will cost you a bit. Here’s some I’ve worked with over the years:

• Substack – (Free, then 10% if you turn on payments) they give you a pretty basic WELCOME page, which just asks for an email address, and if people have signed up for other Substack newsletters, their email address may already be filled in!
• Flodesk – ($35/mo) They offer some nice pre-built designs, and you can automate all sorts of responses.
• Tally – (Free) Can be bare bones, and provides a nice THANK YOU page when people sign up.
• Mailchimp – (Free up to 500 subscribers) A standard in the email marketing industry. Can be as complex or as simple as you make it.
• Your own website – Squarespace, WordPress and lots more offer some built-in ways for people to join your email list.

If you’ve got questions about any of these, get in touch!

1. Clean up your “link in bio” links – seriously, there are some messy ones out there.

2. Update your social media header images – use a photo you’ve taken, or find something for free on Pexels

3. Promote someone doing good work – like my pal Bariann Tuite Smith, who is crushing it lately!

Social media can be a full-time job – if you let it become a full-time job.

Let me explain Parkinson’s law; “work expands to fill the time allotted to it.”

So if your online marketing plan is just, “ehh, whenever I get to it,” great – you’re now a full time social media person.

After all, you’ve set no boundaries or limits. You get to always think about social media, and fret about if you’re doing enough, and if you should post something.

“Oh man, I haven’t posted on Facebook is weeks!”

Instead of that amateur-hour nonsense, set up a plan that fits your life, since you probably have better things to think about than social media.

Open up Google Calendar, we’re going to create an “editorial calendar.”

If you’ve got a new song coming out, put that in there.

Now, plan a social media post two weeks before that date.

Then seven days. Then three.

Oh, the new song is out! That’s another post.

Now, plan a post for three days after it comes out.

And seven days.

And 14 days.

Your numbers may vary, but you get the point.

Go into Twitter, write out your posts, include an image, and schedule them.

Use Facebook’s Business Manger thing and do the same to schedule posts on Facebook and Instagram.

Congrats! That’s the bare fucking minimum to have a seemingly active social media presence, and 95% of bands in your scene can’t be bothered, so you’re a star.

But what about when you don’t have a new song coming out, or a new tour?

Figure out what major holidays are coming up, then plan a post around something that matches the vibe and feel of your creative endeavor.

57 days til Halloween! Spooky things! Horror movies!
79 days til Black Friday! Special deals!
112 days til Christmas!

You get the idea.

Or search “[genre] albums released in 2013” and find albums that are 10 years old (or 15, or 25).

Write about your favorite albums on your website, link to it from you social media platforms, and in your newsletter.

For example, ‘Surgical Steel’ from Carcass came out September 13, 2013.

Instead of just writing your homage to this epic album on Instagram, put it on your website instead.

Then, on September 13th, tell your followers on socials to read you post on your website (that’s what Loudwire will be doing).

Send the link to your email list, too.

You can do that with movies, books, shows you went to, albums you’ve released, and all sorts of various other milestones you’ve had in your career.

Now, when you sit down and write out these ideas, it makes your “content creation” a lot easier, and the job takes less time.

You’re not just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. Instead, you’re being deliberate.

You can take an hour a week, write some stuff, schedule it, and be done. DONE.

Then, since you’re putting out solid stuff, it just makes it easier for your audience to click, comment, react, and subscribe.

And it’s also how you keep from making social media your full time job.

Found Publish Something Online via the Naive Weekly newsletter.

I remember visiting the old Asterisk Studio website and hearing the guitar loop of ‘Bullet to Binary’ from Me Without You, so this must’ve been 2002 or 2003.

Yeah, auto-playing audio on a website is typically frowned upon these days, but for Asterisk (now Invisible Creature), it worked, especially for that era, the early internet.

Rick Rubin had quite a media tour a few months back, but it’s a quote from this 2014 interview that stuck with me:

“Everything was trying to make something cool to play for our friends that they would like.”

When you change this to “make something cool to post on social media,” you’re in trouble.

There’s a chance it might take off. But most likely most of your fans won’t even see it.

Social media algorithms are designed to limit your reach.

That’s why you should have an email list that your fans can subscribe to.

You can call email lists old fashioned, but so are vinyl records, and everyone who buys them online gets a receipt and shipping info delivered direct to their email inbox.

Send an email to your fans more than once a month. It’ll be okay, your fans signed up because they wanted to hear from you.

Instead of posting a funny meme on social media, message it to a friend.

Call a buddy and tell them you’re sending them something to check out.

Set up a Zoom call with your creative community and make art together (like my friend Robin does, every other Friday with her Creative Drop-In).

Make cool stuff, and show it to your friends without social media.

I love this quote from Rick Rubin.

“Everything was trying to make something cool to play for our friends that they would like.”

You run into problems, though, when you turn this into “make something cool to post on social media and hope people see it.”

Yes, there’s a chance it might take off. A slight chance. Hell, there’s a slight chance your existing fans will even hear it.

Better to have an email list that your fans can subscribe to, so when you make something cool, you can send it out and know that most everyone on your list will see it.

Maybe they won’t open it – things happen, people are busy. That’s why you send an email more than once a month, because people don’t open every email. Just the way it is.

So email your fans. Email it direct to friends. Call a friend and tell them you’re sending them something to check out.

Make cool stuff, show it to your friends.

Just make sure your friends actually see it.

When you share your super cool DSP playlist placement on socials, you know like maybe just 2% of your audience sees it, right?

I’m not saying don’t share it on socials.

I’m saying you should also put it on your website.

Next week you might not be on that playlist, and then no one will even know you got such a cool placement.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Start a new post
2. Embed the audio player (here’s how with Spotify & Apple Music)
3. Make sure people know they can pre-order your new album, or buy a shirt, or see you on tour.

Once you’re done, send a newsletter and link to the news post.

Drive your fans to your platform, not a 3rd party site.

When you drive your fans to that cool playlist you’re on, they see this (as of Tuesday, August 29, 2023):

This is great for Asking Alexandria, Avenged Sevenfold, Corey Taylor, Nita Strauss… but, oh wait… you’re #62 on that list? Ooops.

And hey – if you’r a photographer, a writer, a crafter, an artist, whatever – this applies to you, too!

Own your wins. Keep a record of them. These wins are leverage to get more fans to your site and hopefully buy merch, your music, or tickets to your next show

Here’s the slowest, least-scalable way to grow your email list – “just ask, man.”

Want to reach a new audience that could help grow your fanbase?

Ask to be on a podcast.

Offer to write a cool feature for someone’s site that you like.

Did you make friends on a Discord? Don’t be a jerk, but maybe ask for someone to check out your newsletter on occasion.

Meet someone in real life and hit it off by talking about your art, your business, your offering? “Hey, I write about this stuff all the time, here’s the link to sign up for my newsletter.”

Have a cool back-and-forth on social media in the comments. DM them and ask them to subscribe.

Have a QR code on your merch table – people who sign up for your email list get 10% of their purchase, or a free sticker.

Neil Mason (LinkedIn) spent $3,000 on a photo booth to set up at shows. It runs on an iPad and captures people’s email addresses:

Since purchasing the photo booth, we’ve averaged 80 emails captured per show.

We’ve played 63 shows in 2023, with 62 to go.

80 x 63 = 5040 emails

I know not everyone reading this is in a band, or if you are, maybe you’re not interested in setting up a freaking PHOTOBOOTH, BUT… take these ideas and run with them.

Do interesting things, meet interesting people, and, on occasion ask them to check out your stuff.