The year 2005 or so was the height of the music blog explosion. Having started Buzzgrinder in 2001, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just wanted to write about bands that I thought the “bigger sites” weren’t covering.

One day I checked our stats and was surprised to see our post about Warped Tour dates had like 10,000 views in a day, which was huge for us!

Turns out if you Google’d “Warped Tour Dates 2005” our site was near the top of the search results.

I had no clue, but I that’s how we found out how SEO (search engine optimization) worked.

And this is something I stress to all my creative clients – find it out by doing stuff, don’t try to figure it out.

We can plot and scheme and think we have a handle on things, but then when it’s out there in the real world, it’s not ours anymore.

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Before we launched Noisecreep in 2008 (other names we were considering at the time included Vection, Bedlam, and Crank Pit), I wrote out a whole schedule; Tuesdays will feature thrash! Wednesday will be doom! Thursdays will be…

Yeah, then we launched and that went right out the window, and it was entirely okay. We did very well without a rigid schedule like that.

All that to say – you don’t need to plan and figure out a perfect email newsletter strategy. You just need to start it.

Filmmaker Noam Kroll recently wrote (in his newsletter) “How To Not Finish Your Film” (subscribe here):

1. Be a perfectionist
2. Don’t set deadlines
3. Wait to be inspired to work
4. Be afraid of what people will think

The same can be said for starting your email newsletter, or dusting off your old list.

Just like writing a song, or shooting your first live show, those first few

So pick a name, and commit to sending something as often as you can muster, but start something this week, not next year.

You’re going to FIND OUT what works before you FIGURE OUT what works.

Your fans will let you know.

QUICK BITS:

“Just because everyone is telling you to take the highway, doesn’t mean you can’t take the side roads to get to where you want to go.”

From Maria Bowler’s email newsletter. Just because everyone is saying you need to be on TikTok (even though you haven’t posted anything in Twitter to your 1,943 followers in a year), doesn’t mean you MUST.

“Comparison anxiety is a common phenomenon that can be heightened through our access to the lives of others via social media. Seeing a rose-tinted view of another’s life may lead us to believe that everyone else is happier, richer, or more successful than we are.”

Don’t compare and despair – you’re right where you need to be (via Ness Labs)

It’s not IF Instagram implodes and you stop posting there someday (just like Facebook, and probably Twitter), but WHEN. And when that day comes, you lose access to all those fans that clicked “follow.” Today’s the day to start up that email list.

QUESTION: I had a large mailing list it got 10% open rate / 1% click rate and was far more work than social media. So same reach w/o reaching new fans. Is it worth it? Younger crowds don’t even do email.

MY TWO CENTS: With a 10% open rate and a 1% click rate it just sounds like people were getting an email they didn’t care about.

Is there a hack, or technique, or process you can implement to fix that?

Yes. Send better emails.

This might mean that your email isn’t for EVERYONE. You can’t impress EVERYONE, not even all your fans.

Some love you and will buy your all your stuff, and some will like occasionally like your Tweets. There’s a difference.

So don’t tell your fans you’re sending out UPDATES. You’re an artist, a guitarist, a photographer, a painter, a writer, a producer – and you’re telling me you’re selling your magic as just “updates?”

We’ve got enough brands to “follow” and get updates from.

1. Maybe save some of the 9000 image you give away to social media companies every day and use them as a “lead magnet” for your email newsletter. Sort of like, “like these? Join my newsletter for more.”
2. Tell a story. Remember, you are someone’s HERO. You’re an inspiration. So tell some stories about who you are, and how you got where you are today.
3. Low number of clicks? Sell it with more than just “watch my new video,” or “listen our new song.” Include screen shots from the video, or an animated GIF like this one I made of Slash from ‘November Rain’!
4. As for “younger crowds don’t even do email.,” pop star Olivia Rodrigo recently sent a hand-written note to her email list, and it’s not on any of her socials (as of me writing this). So do something special for your fans! Anyone can include a fancy designed “new album, pre-order now” square image in their newsletter – but what can YOU do for your fans that no one else can?

Stop shoveling all your creative energy into social media platforms that will someday implode and leave you with nothing. Use your existing social audience to build your email newsletter audience, so when these companies disappear, you’ll still have access to your fans.

QUICK BITS:

“Our reach on social media is basically terrible… we’re going to run flash 50% off sales… the codes will be send to all of our newsletter subscribers.”

Church Road Records started doing their own order fulfillment (due to rising costs), and they’re looking to grow their email list because reaching their fans on social media is hard – even when you happen to be in a band as big as Employed To Serve!

“It’s rarely a single tactic that drives growth. Over time, if you do a lot of little things — creating good sign-up pages, making it easy for readers to share newsletters with friends, testing out both on- and off-site acquisition tactics, etc. — you’ll have a good chance to grow a big, engaged newsletter list.”

This bit from ‘Not a Newsletter: A Monthly Guide to Sending Better Emails’ rings loud and true. It’s the things you try, tweak, stop doing, try again, and figure out along the way that will get people on your email list.

“In the future all advertising gets replaced by content creation.”

I loathe the term “content creation,” and the idea that “all traditional brands are gonna die,” is pretty bold – BUT… I think of someone like Craig Reynolds of Stray From The Path and how he’s doing amazing things with the Downbeat brand, and it’s all driven by… Craig Reynolds.

Which leads to…

So the The Wall Street Journal got their hands on an internal document from Meta (the Facebook people, and owners of Instagram) titled ‘Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022,’ and it’s a doozy:

“It said that Reels engagement had been falling—down 13.6% over the previous four weeks—and that “most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.”

Making video content is hard work.
Writing an email is easy (if you use the right tool for the job).

Some of us (yeah, me included) have been working the social media game for over a decade. Hell, I ran Skull Toaster on Twitter (@skulltoaster) for SEVEN YEARS (nerdy metal trivia from 2011-2018).

But that bled into Metal Bandcamp Gift Club, which started in 2016, and we’ve helped sell 1000s of albums since then. We moved the operation from Twitter to an email list in 2019, and grew to 200 subscribers with a 40%+ open rate.

No dancing. No video. No trends.

It takes maybe an hour a week to send out our emails, and we send an email whenever there’s a birthday. Then people (usually) buy music for people they don’t even know.

It grows because the people involved talk about it with their friends.

All that to say; you make magic, too.

You’re in a band, you’re a photographer, you interview musicians, your record albums; you have stories, and tales, and experiences that some people dream about. The mundane part of your journey is someone’s fantasy world.

So don’t just copy and past your tour dates into your next “email blast” – include some of the (probably) 900 photos you posted on Instagram in your next email newsletter, and write about something funny, or tragic, or wonderful that happened on the road.

Got to shoot a band at a small club? Don’t just put the photo on socials with a few bullshit hashtags.

Tell people to sign up for your email list to hear the full story about how you broke down on the way to the show, but you caught a ride with a bunch of circus clowns, and they dropped you off at the show in a car shaped like a hot dog.

The work you’re doing is amazing and deserves more than 12 likes, which just disappear the next day as the algorithm growls like a hungry dog expecting to be fed more “content.”

Fuck Reels, start an email list.

QUICK BITS:

“One of the most common mistakes new publishers make is to go after the widest possible audience. Just because you have a large audience, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be willing to pay. Often, it’s the smallest segments that have the highest reason and ability to pay.”

Don’t be dismayed that only seven people clicked through from your email – this is the seven people that cared enough to click a link. Socials have skewed our expectations so much!

“For any gamers out there, one of the oldest tricks in the book is giving your younger sibling an unplugged/disconnected controller, so they feel like they are “playing”, while you are in control the whole time.

Many “jobs” today are simply unplugged controllers. The work would get done, whether or not we take part in the process. We are simply moving numbers, smashing buttons, and staying busy, with no regard for actual productivity.”

Social media has us “working” four hours a day creating content and “engaging,” all the while our posts aren’t even seen by 70% of our fans. The article above is about “quiet quitting” in the work world, but I think doing all the online marketing work for our projects with such minimal gain is also disheartening.

GOOD TWEET:

Sure, I could give tips for subject lines and Mailchimp hacks, but I’d rather write like I do and get you sharing your journey about climbing riff mountain instead.

People email me questions about all this email marketing stuff I write about, and rather than just share my two-cents with just that one person, I’m repurposing it for you, my dear reader. You deserve it.

QUESTION: Wondering how to reach out to existing and potentially new listeners for my podcast with an email list.

MY TWO CENTS: I believe the biggest thing is engaging your existing listenership and getting them onto an email list.

Don’t worry about finding new listeners or subscribers just yet. Establish a direct line of communication with your existing fans before you start trying to expand.

At this early point you need to hone what the heck you’re actually going to put into the newsletter. If you just say “sign up for updates,” well… that’s pretty bland and I wouldn’t expect a lot of people to sign up. I’ve seen lots of media outlets over the years do that. You sign up, then it’s just a bunch of copy and pasted links to their existing content.

BORING.

That’s a race to the bottom, and you don’t want to win that race.

Treat the newsletter like an extension of the YOU:

1. Transcribe a few key quotes from some of the stuff you’re talking about. Not everyone can listen to your newest episode all the time. Give them something to chew on. Trim your audio to something solid, then use a service like TEMI to transcribe it. It’s cheap and fast, so you might need to fix some things, but it’s pretty solid.
2. Take your show notes, copy and paste them into the newsletter, then expand on some of the links. They were important enough to mention in your podcast, so write something about each one. Provide insight and wisdom, not just links to a band’s social media accounts.
3. Get out and share more of who you are, and why you mention some of the stuff you do. I mean, you’re in the ears of your fans, which is a pretty intimate place already. Go further. You are somebody’s favorite podcaster – believe that! Don’t be afraid to go deeper with your art and reveal who the heck is behind the microphone (read this newsletter from the As The Story Grows podcast to see how it’s done).
4. Make it so good, people want to share it. Bands got big before social media, right? If your email newsletter is good, people will forward it to their friends. Think of HOW that would happen. What’s something you read or saw or heard that was so good you told a friend about it? Work backwards from there.

Make it a no-brainer for listeners to subscribe to your podcast. Not everyone will sign up, but that’s okay. Offer something of value, share your wisdom and insights, and I bet most of your devoted listeners will subscribe.

Let’s look at this conundrum that Dr. Joshua Wolrich (@drjoshuawolrich) has on Instagram.

He has 401,000 followers. Woo!
His Story on Instagram got 9,522 views. Yay!

Now, take 9,522 and divide it by 401,000, and you get 2.3% – that’s the percentage of his followers that saw his Instagram Story (sometimes called “impressions” in the biz).

It also means 97.7% of his audience didn’t see the story.

Are you okay reaching 2% of your audience on a given post?

Chances are your tour announcement, your pre-order going live, your new video, your last minute venue change isn’t seen by the majority of your fans.

But an email sent to your list of 10,000 fans with just a 10% open rate means 1,000 would see it.

An Instagram story to the same 10,000 fans with a 2% impression rate means 200 people see it.

Now, does building an email list of 10,000 fans take time? Absolultey it does!

But we’ve already spent hours every day on multiple social media networks trying to build a following (I’ve been on Twitter since 2006, say hi at @sethw)

Imagine if you spent the next seven months working on getting your social media following moved over to your email list.

It’s hard work, but what else you gonna do?

Start making dance videos for TikTok?
Figure out what the heck BeReal is?

Fuck that. Set up an email list, and start telling our thousands of followers to sign up.

QUICK BITS:

“I’d been looking for a simple way to share these shots alongside my music. 

As I started to think about how to best distribute this work, I craved a consistent space where I could calmly share my in-process and finished music, visuals, and thoughts in a more direct way than the usual channels allow for, away from algorithms. The technology never really existed in the way I envisioned it. That is, until I came across Substack, where I’ve been able to send you songs and visuals directly in a clean, minimalist format. Magic.”

From Matt of FogChaser who shares a piece of meditative ambient music and photo (and other goodies) every month in the FogChaser newsletter.

“Our audiences don’t care how much time was spent creating something. They don’t care if a piece is polished or it isn’t. They don’t debate 4K video vs. iPhone video or care if Photoshop or Canva were used to make a graphic. And, they especially don’t care if something went through a 100-person approval process.

Our audiences care if the content is interesting to them, period.”

From Jessica Smith who was the Senior Manager of Digital & Social Strategy for THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

GOOD TWEETS:

I know, I know… “email lists are for old people,” right? But the Olivia Rodrigo website has a newsletter link at the top of her page, and no Facebook button. Curious!

I’ve said before that ‘It’s Okay To Repeat Yourself,’ so don’t be afraid to Tweet more than once about your new video, your album from six months ago, or that song you love from three years ago – every fan doesn’t know everything you’ve done!

You probably didn’t hear that Axios sold to Cox Enterprises for $525 million, and why should you? We’re ARTISTS and MUSICIANS!

But let’s take a look at this nugget from ‘4 things Axios did right,’ by Simon Owens (he’s done PR, content marketing, and social media strategy for Google, Comcast, Forbes, ESPN, Nike, etc):

Whereas sites like BuzzFeed became overly reliant on Facebook, Axios was able to benefit from social media virality while simultaneously focusing on capturing as many email addresses as possible. This allowed it to have more ownership over its audience and protected it from the vicissitudes of social media algorithms. 

Say what?

Well, replace BuzzFeed above with, “every fucking band and metal news site,” and well, now you see why so many folks are losing contact with their fans.

Let’s break down that quote:

Axios was able to benefit from social media virality while simultaneously focusing on capturing as many email addresses as possible.

Yes, they used social media, but they used it not just for the clicks, but for the emails.

This allowed (Axios) to have more ownership over its audience and protected it from the vicissitudes of social media algorithms. 

If you’re like me you have no idea what “vicissitudes’“ means, but it means, “a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.”

So when Instagram decides that your photos aren’t “engaging enough,” and now you have to become a part-time video editor, yeah, that’s a change of circumstance.

But if you have an email list, you send an email to your fans, and if you do it right 40% or more of your fans open it and read it. And you don’t even need to make a dancing video for TikTok.

😡 Social media has conditioned us that if we’re not on their app several hours a day promoting our work, then we’ll get left in the dust.

Fuck that.

I’ve seen music reaction streamers on YouTube gripe about this – that if they don’t post stuff every day, the algorithm throttles their channel and less people see their videos.

But if you have an email list, you could send out an update once a week of all the stuff you’ve made – your videos, your new songs, new photos – and link all your new things! Then you’re done, and you can get back to making your magic.

Here that strategy in action, from this interview I did with Joan Pope, who is constantly making art and sends out a newsletter every week:

The weekly compilation of all my creative works helps me reflect on my own work each week and it keeps my audience in the loop. It seems like people like it. A lot of people will tell me that they can’t keep up and the newsletter helps them do that.

So yeah, Axios sold for over half a BILLION dollars, and had an email marketing strategy that probably played a part in that.

An email list might be valuable for what you’re doing, too.

🎁 BONUS

If you’re spending all this time on social media like a good online marketer, how are you supposed to make time for preparing an email newsletter?

“It’s so much work,” you say.

Except, you already did the work.

You wrote the Tweets, you made the images, you uploaded the audio… that’s the hard part, the dreaded “content creation” process.

Now you just copy and paste that into an email newsletter, so your fans who aren’t following you on every social media platform can see it!

I wrote this post about you can use your already published social media posts as the core of your email newsletters.

QUICK BITS:

The Metal By Numbers column over at Metal Insider hasn’t been updated since July 23rd. I’m bummed!

Congrats to Leo Mascaro and his Shuffle Sundays newsletter for hitting 1000 subscribers.

This ‘Bringing your Instagram followers to Substack’ post is a good example of how to get fans to your email list / new video / your store (not just your Substack).

GOOD TWEETS:

Just because you don’t read newsletters doesn’t mean your fans don’t read newsletters (also: your fans need an email address to buy tickets online, sign up for social media sites, order vinyl, etc.)

Reminds me of Seth Godin’s “No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.”

James Shotwell (@JamesShotwell_) is much too kind, but I’ll take it!

DUE BY FRIDAY:

It’s gonna be September when Friday hits. Here’s some things for you to do this week:

ADVANCED: With the holidays coming up, it may be a good time to start up a re-engagement campaign.

Donate to your local women’s shelter (find yours on Google), and / or donate to the Trevor Project by way of the Pride 5K I’m running in October.

Brush up on this ‘Holiday Rush Calendar’ and ‘Quick Tips for Holiday Selling’ from Big Cartel, which are still useful even if you don’t use Big Cartel.

“Last Saturday we drove by REI and I ended up with a new bike. Whoops.”

The quote above is typically not the sort of intro you’d expect in a newsletter from a music-themed podcast, but hey – why not?

Bryan Patton runs the As The Story Grows podcast, and his newsletters aren’t just links to his latest episodes. Yes, he links his latest interviews, but he also includes his thoughts about albums and singles and all the other things that make for an interesting character on the internet.

Because if you do something long enough – be it a podcast, a photo studio, a band, whatever – chances are you’ve got fans.

You want fans of your work.

Fans spread the word about what you do. They share your posts. Sometimes they buy your stuff.

If you did an interview with a media outlet discussing your work, who would you share that with?

YOUR. FANS.

You’d post that shit so fast on social media, wouldn’t you?

Well, don’t sit around waiting for that to happen. Take a few minutes and explain some of your process, your techniques, your magic.

Dive into the pain, the misery, the joy, the… everything that goes into your art:

“… I’ll be working on a memoir for Feral House, scheduled to be released around the same time that Love’s Holiday is. May or thereabouts. After reading every single memoir there is that touches on times I’ve been part of I’ve decided to do the one thing that none of the rest of them have done. Instead of simply describing events I’ve dug deep into thoughts and thought processes throughout without concern for feelings of those involved including mine.”

The above from Eugene S. Robinson, from his newsletter ‘Look What You Made Me Do.’

Your story deserves to be seen and read by more than 30% of your audience on social media, and that figure is very generous.

So go start an email list, get people to subscribe by offering them something worth reading, and go from there.

QUICK BITS:

“Create one piece of main content per week (for me it’s a blog post), and then find ways to re-work that content to also work on your other channels or platforms,” says film maker Noam Kroll in his newsletter.

“There is value in focusing on the depth of your work, rather than just the breadth of its reach,” says Iam Vanagas in ‘You Don’t Need to be a Poster.’

“We can read every book, listen to every podcast, think all the good thoughts, but nothing changes until we do,” writes Jocelyn Aucoin.

“48% of freelancers said that client referrals are—far and away—the best way to bring in new clients,” says Mailchimp in ‘The Power of Referrals for Your Business (and How to Ask for Them).’

GOOD TWEETS:

I could just turn this section into ‘Sto’s Tweets,’ but for real, you should follow him (@BigSto) if you need some extra motivation to start a newsletter and website for your magical endeavors.

When I see stuff about “the next big thing for bands” or whatever, I just think about how most bands won’t even Tweet more than twice about their latest video, or learn how to include a link in an Instagram Story. But sure, Roblox is the answer!

DUE BY FRIDAY:

Here’s some prompts to get your moving this week.

• Tell your email subscribers how you got started in what you’re doing now – most of them probably have no idea.
• Get three people from social media to join your email list.
• Write down ideas on how to get people to your online store this holiday season.

As an artist you can sit around and wait for a media outlet to do a cool feature on your project, or you can do it yourself, then share it directly with your fans.

Back in 2010 when I was running Noisecreep for AOL Music, we worked with The Devil Wears Prada to promote their upcoming video ‘Assistant to the Regional Manager,’ with this post ‘Behind the Scenes at the Devil Wears Prada’s ‘Almost Shocking’ Video Shoot.’

(DISCLAIMER: I work with Atom Splitter PR who is working their new album)

As you can see, the format would work well in an email newsletter; photo, text, photo, text.

We did it for the ad impressions. We kept the lights on with stories like this.

And you, fine reader, have my full blessing and support to copy this idea and use it to promote your own music and art and magic.

Look, you already have “behind the scenes” photos on your socials from three years ago that you posted once and never shared again.

And since that time three years ago you probably picked up more fans who have no clue about that old video, or that design collaboration you did, or that photo shoot you did for a magazine cover, or that art gallery opening.

Right now you have fans that don’t know everything you’ve done.

Hell, you have fans that don’t know what you did last month because not everyone sees your social media posts, and not everyone opens every single email you send.

Listen to what Tyler, The Creator says in this clip, about all the effort that goes into one song, and people post about it once, put it on their IG stories, and forget about it (watch from the 43:08 mark):

People, please – your art has LEGS, people. It is magic! Fans get tattoos of lyrics, of band names, of album art.

But I know, I get it… you’re an artist. You don’t want to come off too spammy, or promote your project like it’s a used-car.

THEN DON’T.

Make some cool shit like that Devil Wears Prada post that we posted back in 2010.

Document your video shoot (or whatever the heck it is that you’re doing), and promote that. Promote your process, a “day in the life” of making an album, or setting up a photo studio.

You’re already posting these shots and clips on socials for a small subset of your fans to see. Get your fans on your email list, throw these goodies into a newsletter and send it direct the people who love you the most!

NOTE: this offering of “behind the scenes,” probably never seen before images and stories is a far better selling point than “sign up for updates” as you try to get people to sign up for your email list.

Then… shhh… I know (looks around for the ‘Scene Police’), we’re all artists here… you should include a link somewhere – not too big and flashy – to actually (ahem) BUY YOUR STUFF.

Give people something to click to pre-order an album, or book you for a session, or whatever it is that you do.

We’re all creative wizards here, and selling things is, “eww gross,” but I’m sure you like to pay rent and drink an iced coffee on occasion, so let people love you and support you.

Media outlets use those cool behind-the-scenes studio reports, and day in the life posts to sell ads and pay their rent, so make sure you’re sharing direct with your fans so you can keep paying your rent.

QUICK BITS:

This piece (‘‘‘People love to feel part of the process’: how the TikTok teaser turbo-charged the song of the summer race”) focuses on TikTok (of course), but I think it can be applied to other channels, too (SoundCloud, YouTube, Twitch, your newsletter, etc). Oh, and TikTok joined forces with TicketMaster, too.

Bandcamp’s ‘Best Metal for July’ round up includes Ashenspire, Wormrot, In Nothingness, and more, while Loudwire’s ‘Best New Rock + Metal Songs of July’ round up includes Architects, Bring Me the Horizon, Demon Hunter, Lorna Shore, and tons more.

“Someone reading your email on a screen reader would have no way of knowing what the link is or why they should click here,” which is a good reason (among others) to not hyperlink “click here” in your emails. I’m so guilty of this.

“One thing that COVID demonstrated was that you could stay home, stream everything and not go out,” said show promoter Peter Shapiro, ‘‘but in the end a lot of people realized how important the live experience really is.”

“I want to continue to show others that you can craft an income, a hobby, a passion project, a business, an art career, without any social media or social capital or twitter or a footprint that feels out of alignment with your values,” Cody Cook-Parrott

GOOD TWEETS:

Social media rewards you if you spend lots of time on each network, replying, commenting, sharing – all in the hopes that your posts will get seen by a few more people. Remember, “Social Media Manager” is a full time job at a lot of places with health benefits and a 401K – it’s a lot of work.

Hey wait a minute – aren’t bands supposed to just Tweet about their new release once and then disappear into a boggy swamp?! It takes a minute to hype your release a week later, a month later, six months out. Same for your music videos, press hits, and tour dates.

YOUR TURN:

Are you gonna send that email to your fans this week?
Start an email list?
Ask your social media followers to subscribe?
It’s Monday – what are you working on?