I’ve been at this for 20+ years, first on the editorial side running music blogs like Buzzgrinder and Noisecreep, then on the PR / label side of things.

Every day, a hundred bands have a new music video to promote, but these creative, gifted, genius artists only seem to know one way to announce their new creative vision to the world:

NEW VIDEO [link]

Hours of planning, hiring a director, gathering equipment, location scouting, lighting, permits, and a long ass day playing in the woods or in an abandoned warehouse, and when it’s time to announce it to the world – the creative well is empty.

Now obviously the videos below don’t need my help.

Let these serve as a imaginative starting point for your own creative projects – videos, new songs, new products, whatever you’re offering to the world.

Imagine each of these examples below as an email subject line, or a social media post, with a still shot from the video, and the short blurb as the caption.

1. We just shot a video at Giants Stadium in NJ!
2. Recognize the NYC music stores we hit while filming this video?
3. Hey you! Stop making out in the pit and watch us perform!

1. Boiling heat, summer stench – our new music video has it all
2. Baby goats, a dead bee keeper, lizard ladies and more
3. Put another Barbie on the grill!

1. How many Dave Mustaine’s can you count in our latest video?
2. Mankind has got to know… his limitations.
3. Zero human brains were injured in our new video

1. Most everything on the set for our latest video is from Rob’s house
2. See what it’s like to jump around in our singers house in our new video
3. We paid our friend $50 to walk around LA in a robot suit

These are tongue in cheek, of course, but you have to find the style and vibe and tone for your own work.

Make your announcements as creative as the work you’re promoting.

As is the case with most people that give advice, I’m good at telling people to have websites, while seriously neglecting my own.

So today, Monday, August 7, 2023 I’ve come full circle, having a fresh WordPress install (thanks Tom at I Heart Blank), and ready to get back to it.

Why have a website for your creative project? Why not just have a Bandcamp, or set up several social media accounts?

Well, you can have everything on Bandcamp, but as we saw earlier this year, there was some friction from ownership when their employees moved to unionize. Things worked out, I guess, but still.

And social media platforms are about as stable as crypto currency these days. Hell, Twitter is now X, even though their domain name is still Twitter. Instagram is a half ads, half people you don’t know, and Facebook? Dear lord.

Set up a website. Put all your press and accolades on it. Like I said in ‘DON’T MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUR TROPHY CASE,’

Don’t spend all your effort on the “billboard,” then neglect your own establishment.

Playlist placements are amazing. All that hard work. The song writing. The recording. Years on the road.

All posted on platforms we don’t own, just so 10% of our social media followers can see it.

Websites close. DSPs will fail. Magazines will fold.

So make sure you got screen shots and photos of some of the big cool “earned media” on your own websites, set your domain name to auto-update, and pay for hosting every year.

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.

Jon Davis of Conan wrote a great piece on LinkedIn, talking about how bands (or any creative project) can sustain themselves by selling directly to their fans.

Aside from social media, boosting posts, and making a quality product, he also spoke of my favorite thing:

Use email marketing. This is incredibly powerful. Yesterday, after some exporting data from Big Cartel and into EmailOctopus, I wrote to every single person who has ordered merch through the Conan UK page (approx 4700 people) and every single person who has ordered merch through our USA store (approx 3200 people). I was raising awareness of one of my releases. I sent the mail at 15:00 Friday afternoon, and since then (it’s 10:10am the next day now) have sold almost £1500 worth of items.

He sent an email to just under 8,000 former customers, and made £1500 ($1,923) in not even 24 hours.

Can you email everyone that bought your recent thing?
If you can, that’s big business.

From Shopify – “Repeat customers have a higher (customer lifetime value): The more repeat customers trust you, the less they hesitate to buy from you. That’s why promoting new products to repeat buyers takes less effort than promoting the products to new customers.”

From HubSpot – “Acquiring new customers costs 5 to 10 times more than selling to a current customer.” Think about it – make five more REELS, or just email a former customer – which is gonna make you a dollar faster?

From Mailchimp – “The success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 20%.”

From Paychex – “Little to no additional marketing is generally required to attract a repeat customer back, as opposed to starting from scratch with people who know nothing about your company.”

The allure of the NEW FAN / NEW FOLLOWER / NEW CUSTOMER is exciting, sure, but don’t neglect the customers you’ve already had over the years.

Like Jon Davis of Conan demonstrated above, he sent one email and made about $2,000.

That’s a lot easier than making a bunch of vertical videos and carousel posts and hoping 30% of your audience will even see them.

And don’t be afraid to sell. Give your fans a chance to give you money. Let them exchange currency for something you make, or offer, or do.

Linking to Spotify is fun, and all the “engagement” of likes and comments are cool, and it’s part of the game, but putting for-real dollars into your bank account is nice, too.

Carter Vail recently had 400 people pre-save a new song.

In a recent Instagram video, he shows how 1,072 unique users clicked through to the pre-save page.

Now, that’s a 37.3% conversion rate, and in the world of “getting anyone to do anything on the internet” that’s a fantastic rate.

The scary part though is that he’s got 211,000 followers, which means just 0.1% of his fans pre-saved his new track.

I’m using Carter Vail to illustrate that a huge following on Instagram doesn’t guarantee huge pre-save numbers or sales or people signing up for your thing.

But, I’ve worked with a client who had “just” 5,000 email subscribers, sent three emails, and sold over $3,000 in vinyl and shirts.

This is all about getting the right people to know what the fuck you’re doing, which is hard when you rely on third party platforms that limit your ability to reach your audience.

Like Rick Rubin says, “make cool things, show it to your friends.”

But it’s hard when those 200K friends are all on Instagram.

This also goes for who’s willing to pay and support your cool things.

Ira Glass lays it out pretty well in an interview with Vulture:

It’s just crazy to me that people are having a hard time earning money making something so many other people clearly want.

Well, part of the problem is that people aren’t paying for it, right?

Right. They’re accustomed to getting it for free.

That’s the hole in the business model.

Artists are having a hard time earning money making something so many people clearly want.

But most people ain’t paying for it.

A few are, though, right?

Do you know who?

Who bought your last album? Do you have their email? Can you let them know you’ve got a new record coming out?

Do you know who your top supporters are? Do you know who spent $1,000 in your store in the last three months?

Are your west coast fans aware of your upcoming west coast tour? Or did 70% of your social media fans miss that one post you made about it two weeks ago?

It won’t get any easier to reach your fans on social media, and all the time you spend building a following there means shit when over half of them never see your posts.

Take your power back.

Start an email list.
Send emails that entertain, with a few less BUY NOW buttons.
Update your website once in awhile.

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!

Since I’ve left Twitter and deleted Instagram from my phone, I’ve been missing some stuff.

I still see things (friends send me links, or I find stuff from my day job duties), but damn, everyone is still mullet marketing.

I saw some amazing photos of bands killing it at Download Festival. Then I go to their website, and see album art and YouTube embeds.

I see bands hyping their new album, re-sharing all the cool DSP playlist adds, the heartfelt thanks to media outlets, and the fans. Long, finely crafted Instagram captions paired with inspiring photos!

Get pumped!

Then I get their email newsletter and it’s just album mock ups and a BUY button.

No magic, just business.

Not all your fans follow you on every social network. And even if they do, only a small percentage are going to see your posts.

“Don’t spend all your effort on the “billboard,” then neglect your own establishment.”

Put your best stuff on your website.
Put it in your email newsletters.

Remember – when someone buys a record, or a concert ticket, a receipt gets sent to their email account.

And every smart phone comes with an email app pre-installed.

You can write an email directly to your fans. Your customers. Your biggest supporters.

Your website could look like a full page magazine spread with big photos and YOUR branding all over it.

Instead it’s low effort, so-easy-an-intern-could-send-it “email blasts.”

Like Seth Godin says, the problem with the race to the bottom is you just might win.