If you’re a talented host and actress and presenter (and a million other things) with a big following on Instagram and TikTok – you should still have an email list.

Whitney Moore is super active on the socials – videos! photos! witty observations! – but she also has a website (hooray)!

So when fans get clicking and visit Whitney’s website, they can sign up for her email newsletter for “weekly exclusive pics, info on projects, and fun stuff from around the web.”

As you can see the email is mostly text (‘Always Bet On Text’), so it’s probably easy to set up each week. There’s the ‘Photo of the Week,’ too, but you’ll have to subscribe if you want to see that.

An email newsletter is still a solid way to stay connected to your fans when the social media algorithms throttle your reach, or when you get locked out of your account.

And you don’t have to be skilled in video editing, or learn how to make those fancy audio teasers for your podcast, either.

You just… write an email, instead of contorting yourself into 13 different job titles, like Professor Pizza from Axeslasher said in an interview we did:

Creating on those platforms feels an awful lot like working for Facebook and not myself. The mental math equation went from “What do I think our fans would like?” to “What do I think will break through the algo that our fans will tolerate?”

The short answer is you have to start looking at and leveraging trends, which by-in-large, are fucking lame.

We’re a thrash band comprised of ghosts of vengeance. We shouldn’t be doing funny hand dances, or the running man.

And don’t put all your eggs into baskets you don’t own. Don’t rely on Facebook to be the website for your business, or your label or band.

Leverage the attention that you still might have and drive folks to your website so you can build your email list.

As I said last year in ‘Cut Your Social Media Time in Half:’

Set up an email list, get your fans from social media to subscribe, and send them an email once a week.

As you grow your email list, it’ll start to be more effective.

You’ll spend less time preparing and sending an email than you do on social media, and it’ll sell more albums, more tickets, more shirts.

So yeah – even if you’re doing a video show on YouTube or TikTok, or a podcast, it’s still a good idea to partner it with a written component, sent out once a week direct to your fans.

You’re already making videos, or publishing podcasts, or getting your photos featured in magazines, or putting things on your website – now just wrap them up nice in a weekly newsletter so your fans can actually see the cool stuff you make.

QUICK BITS:

Metallica “sold more tickets than any other hard rock, metal, or punk(ish) artist in the last 40 years,’“ BeReal is maybe the hot new social media thing, while Twitter “is supporting a group that is seeking to revoke reproductive rights nationally.’ Yowza.

Tegan (of Tegan and Sara) writes ‘How To Craft a Set List and Why,’ which is a great example of an artist writing about something which might be super interesting to their fans, and while “Zero-Click content is uncomfortable but it’s worth it” might sound confusing, you should make some coffee and read it (and take some notes).

While Sunny Day Real Estate may not be heavy metal, I saw them post recently and felt their announcement process could serve as a good lesson.

First, a cryptic post on Instagram. The red letters spell out ‘We owe you nothing. You have no control,” which is a line from the song ‘Merchandise’ from Fugazi.

The post wraps up nicely with the usual “link in bio” song and dance, of course, which leads to the band’s website.

Now, this next part is important. You got people to click – which is a miracle in today’s internet world!

So for the people who absolutely MUST know about your new song, new merch, or new video – ask for their email address:

It might be hard to read above, but the website asks “Want exclusive updates?” There’s an email sign-up form which we’ve all seen a million times before, and I’m sure a few people signed up (I did).

Your results may vary (you’re probably not Sunny Day Real Estate), but getting emails from five fans a few times a month adds when you do it for a year.

START YOUR NEXT NEWSLETTER

You know you want to start a newsletter for your band, label, photography, studio, etc., but ahhhhh, what will you even write about?

1. Repurpose your social media posts. Probably over 70% of your followers don’t see your posts anyways (because of algorithms), and not all your fans are even on social media (more examples here).
2. Share stories like the music sites post. We all see the nice press pieces (track by track, inspiration behind the album, behind the scenes photos in the studio) – try doing your own from time to time. Show off your guitar pedals, your camera set up, your new studio, etc.
3. Anniversaries. Don’t just post about your music video or EP release a few times and forget about it – post about it six months later, a year later. Most likely you’re brand new subscribers don’t even know about your older material.

Those should get your started.

Remember, you’re an artist, a photographer, a producer; sell your damn journey.

There are syndicated TV shows that revolve around people baking cakes, and cleaning out storage lockers, sponsored by major brands that sell sugar water.

Mundane shows, sponsored by commodity items, and they’re all doing a better job at marketing themselves than 95% of the music world.

Do the dance on socials, drive people to your email list, then regularly connect with your fans with stories, photos, exclusive looks, and the occasional link to a record or photo print.

People tune into reality TV shows for the story. Heck look at all the stories that Tegan & Sara share with their newsletter.

Don’t just link to your new video – tell me why it took 19 hours to make. Tell me how you got chased out of an abandoned building. Tell me where you found some of the props, how you hired the director, and then tell me about why making music videos in 2022 is still important.

ANOTHER REASON WHY YOU NEED A NEWSLETTER

If your live-stream shits the bed, it’s easy to send a message to your fans and let them know you’re working on the issue, or maybe send a new link when it’s all back up and running.

QUICK HITS

📺 Seth Godin on ‘How To Reach Your Audience?’ (as a good friend says, “write a good song.” Yeah, I know, pretty simplistic, but if there was a map, anyone could do it.) Via Marketing 411

⚫️ ‘Ask Me About Abortion Anger’ from Eugene S. Robinson

⚫️ How To Add A GIF To An Email Newsletter

⚫️ ‘U.S. FCC commissioner wants Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores’ – ooops, can’t export your TikTok followers!

---

Remember – your email campaigns don’t have to be clones of every email campaign you’ve already seen. Just as your music, your art, your vision is unique, you’re allowed to color outside the lines and craft emails that your fans will want to open.

This is how you can start a Social Media Escape Plan.

Sign up for Substack, and tell people to sign up. In this case, Pissed Jeans put up this Instagram post, said “link in bio,” and now they have an email list.

Their reasoning sounds legit, too:

Rather than rely on the mercy of the proprietary Meta™ algorithms to let people know when we have a show coming up or new shirt or whatever, directly emailing you, the Pissed Jeans Enthusiast, seemed like it could be fun.

Because it’s TRUE.

If you have 1,000 followers on Twitter, there’s a good chance you’re reaching maybe 5% of your fans (Buffer, who knows a thing or two about social media, reaches about 2% of their audience on Twitter).

If you have an email list of 1,000 subscribers, you’ll probably reach 20-30% of your fans – and without having to stare at your phone six hours a day “making content,” (check out “You Don’t Need More Jobs” for more about that).

Un-opened and un-clicked emails look “bad” to the mysterious inbox servers in the email world, which is why your emails might skip the INBOX and end up in the “promotions” tab in Gmail, or even worse – the spam folder.

If your open rates are dipping down near 10%, it just shows those servers that emails from your domain aren’t engaging, or might not be wanted, so “eh, no need to put it right into someone’s inbox!”

This is sort of like an algorithm in the social media world, but there’s some easy fixes, and it doesn’t involve making videos of you dancing and pointing at words.

BEHOLD, THE WELCOME EMAIL

There’s a few things you can put into your welcome email when someone signs up to your email list, and that’s asking for the subscriber to add your email to their contacts.

“I hate making guarantees about anything in life, but getting your email whitelisted all but ensures you will always end up in a primary tab,” says Thanks for Unsubscribing.

I also like asking for a reply to the welcome email, which is worth a lot in the “staying out of the promotions tab” game.

“It’s amazing for boosting your deliverability and email domain reputation. ISP’s treat responses as the “gold standard” for engagement,” 100 Celsius

I do this for my Metal Bandcamp Gift Club newsletter:

Yes, it’d be nice if this was included in the sign up process, but this is an email list for people who buy music for people they don’t know on their birthdays, so it’s a unique audience!

What could you ask your subscribers when they sign up?

1. Producers: which album is their favorite that you’ve worked on?
2. Photographers: have they ever bought prints before?
3. Band: have you seen us live, and if so, where?
4. Writer: what’s the best review you read this year?
5. Store: what’s the last show you went to?
6. Tattoo artist: tell me about your first tattoo!

Again, these prompts are to get a reply, so keep them aligned with what you’re doing. And reply to these folks! Treat them like DMs on social media. They took the time to reply to your email, so take a minute and send a quick reply. You never know where it may lead (maybe a few more sales, jobs, shows, etc).

“Engagement metrics for welcome emails are eye-popping. On average, marketers enjoy 4x the open rate and 5x the click rate when using automated welcome emails over standard marketing emails. When someone subscribes to your newsletter, they expect to receive a welcome newsletter immediately. They’ll even visit their inboxes just to find it,” MailerLite

Consider using your Welcome Email to point your subscribers to the stuff you want them to see:

1. A link to your store, maybe with a discount code
2. Your website, or the tour dates section
3. Your Patreon – some of your biggest fans might not even know you have one!
4. Your Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music pages
5. Your latest video on YouTube

That click tells the “space cloud email algorithms” that your subscribers are engaged with your emails, helping you land each email in their inbox every time.

And honestly – not all your fans know about your store, your upcoming tour, your Bandcamp page. There’s nothing wrong with simple text links, casually letting people know all the stuff you got going on.

IT’S PROBABLY NOT YOU

You can do everything “right,” and emails still aren’t getting opened.

Relax.

Inflation, war, unrest, climate change – everything is happening all the time, and not every email will get opened, not every pre-order campaign will be a hit. Don’t take it personally. Adjust and tweak, and send another email next week.

My birthday just passed (I turned 46 this year, thank you), and because of the joys of email marketing I got a few celebratory emails from some brands I subscribe to.

In fairness, I won’t show off the birthday email from a client, but here’s an email from another label in the same genre:

Nothing fancy, but it works. Direct, simple, the colors are on brand – bravo!

Compare that with birthday email from my bank. They’re in the business of literally HOLDING ONTO EVERYONE’S MONEY, and I get dumb stock image:

If ANYONE should know what my interests are, it’s the one business who sees every damn penny I spend month after month. Instead I get no direct benefit – no discount, no exclusive offer, nothing.

All of this to say – if you have permission to send someone email marketing messages (very important), and you have their birthday info, sending someone an email on their special day can do two things: make the person feel good (it’s their birthday), and make a sale.

Yes, of course the second one is self-serving, but we all got rent to pay. And if they’re subscribed to your email updates in the first place, it’s not like it’s some egregious affront to their inbox.

Things you could send your fans on their birthday:

• Discounts on shirts, music, or other goodies
• Free shipping on select items, or at a lower than usual price point
• Special video performance, or message – make a new one every year
• Discount codes or guest list for upcoming shows

Hey – they’re your fans, you know what would resonate with them better than I would! Reply to this email and I’ll bounce some ideas around with you.

As part of my ongoing research in the world of heavy metal email, I buy albums from various record labels, (edit – and opt-in for future emails), just to see their email flow after I put in that order.

A handful send me a receipt for my order. That’s expected.
Then they never send me another email. That makes me sad.

The person most likely to buy from you is someone who bought from you before.

And if you know who bought a [THRASH ALBUM] then you know who to send an email to when you have a new [THRASH ALBUM] coming out in two months.

You own the store. You see the people who buy cassettes. Or shirts. You see it all, just like Amazon, but without being too creepy.

Make an email that features the things you sell, send them to people who buy those things, and make some money.

It sure is tempting to keep shoveling coal on the social media fire, then burn some more dollars to promote those posts in hopes that your followers actually see them.

Or, you could send an email to the 10,000 people you have on your email list every Friday and sell a bunch of records every month.

Yes – if you JUST make it BUY BUY BUY, that’‘ll get old. Everyone does that.

But chances are your bands posted videos this week. And songs. And got some cool playlist adds. Cool press.

The same stuff that you’re Tweeting that 70% of your followers aren’t even seeing.

Put it in an email every week.

Yes – EVERY. WEEK.

Try it.

Will a few people un-subsribe? Oh, you bet they will.

But the 98% of people who don’t? What about them? Those are YOUR PEOPLE.

I’ve said this for years – people actually watch shows like STORAGE WARS, which is people bidding on junk and then seeing who “wins” at the end.

You’re a record label, a band, a photographer, a designer, a podcaster – you’ve got stories to tell and much better products to sell.

---

I mean, these emails write themselves:

Social media algorithms limit who sees your new album pre-order, single, merch drop, ticket sale, or whatever else you’re trying to promote. Send emails to people who sign up and they’ll see your stuff.

No band signs up for social media and says, “eh, I’ll Tweet once a month, I don’t want to be too spammy.”

Then eight times a day they’ll post tour posters, YouTube links, and whatever else that capture on their smart phone.

Okay, you might not want to send eight emails a day to your fans, but you should probably send more than once a month.

See, the problem is we all get 14 emails everyday from companies and we get mad.

Don’t do that and you’re gold. It’s a low bar, but you can manage that.

But if you send BUY BUY BUY to your fans once a week that’s gonna get old real quick.

If you send a weekly email of the photos that usually post on Instagram (that most of your fans don’t see), or the song snippets you post on Twitter (that most of your fans don’t see), or the tour posters on Facebook (THAT MOST OF YOUR FANS DON’T SEE), then you’re not just coming off as a desperate retailer, or a needy politician.

You’re sharing what you do with people who probably don’t see your stuff anyways! There’s nothing spammy about that at all.

“Do the dance on socials, drive people to your email list, then regularly connect with your fans with stories, photos, exclusive looks, and the occasional link to a record or photo print,” from my post SELL YOUR DAMN JOURNEY

Pop star Olivia Rodrigo included this photo in her recent email (with a hand written note):

I mean, that’s an Instagram photo basically, right? And with algorithms, maybe 20% of her fans would see it anyways.

And not all of her fans follow on Instagram.

And someday she might get randomly locked out of her account, because that’s what Instagram does!

Start an email list. Yes, in 2022.

It’s your most direct connection to your fans. Your supporters. Your customers.

Building your entire brand on social media is like building a house on quicksand – someday it’s all gonna fall down.

HASHTAGS = SHIT*

Good thread. I’ve about had it with social media these days (if you couldn’t tell), and it’s why I’m so adamant about moving your social media audience to your email list as fast as you can.

* All hail Slipknot

---

“I’m not supporting myself entirely with Substack by any means, but it earns plenty for me to feel great about investing so much time into it.”

If you missed it last week, I interviewed Ryan J. Downey of the Stream N’ Destroy newsletter, which is in the top 20 music newsletters on Substack.

Other interviews I’ve done:

”A lot of people will tell me that they can’t keep up, and the newsletter helps them do that,” from my talk with artist / musician Joan Pope.

“The whole time I’m doing that, I’m back to thinking ‘what will our fans like?’ Which is exactly the head space I want to be in,” says Professor Pizza of Axe Slasher, on writing newsletters for his fans. Read it here.

“Email list is good for the real diehards, especially when it comes to new releases and big announcements like shows,” said Jeff Gretz of Zao.

RIP, TAYLOR HAWKINS

Absolutely horrible news to wake up to on a Saturday. Hug your friends, support the bands you love, turn up the music this weekend

Ryan J. Downey is a reporter, podcaster, writer, manager, and a million other things, and still finds time to publish his Stream N’ Destroy newsletter a few times a week – and it’s one of the Top 25 Top 20 (as of Sunday, March 20, 2022) music newsletters on Substack!

Why Substack, instead of something like Mailchimp?

Joe Escalante told me about Substack in November 2019. I liked the functionality, business model, and simplicity of the platform. Substack was far from ubiquitous at the time. In fact, it was new enough that my initial rush of subscriptions earned me a phone call from the CEO. I’m sure Stream N’ Destroy is small potatoes for them now, but I took that as another positive sign, encouraging me to continue down this path. I’m not supporting myself entirely with Substack by any means, but it earns plenty for me to feel great about investing so much time into it.

I was on MySpace in 2003; Facebook in 2005; Twitter in 2007; I’d like to think my early adoption of Substack is actually providing a great return.

The feedback (questions, suggestions, support) I receive from people is fantastic. They haven’t converted to the Substack comment section, but I suspect that’s because most of my readers are prominent figures (band members, managers, agents, label staffers, etc.) who don’t necessarily want to chat about this data in a public space. They just email me.

I enjoy finding new sources of data, organizing what’s relevant, and knowing that I’m making something that directly helps people I like and respect to put their art out there in the most effective and efficient ways possible.

In 2013 you planned to retire the email. Can you speak a bit to the work of just doing something like this for years? There’s up and downs, of course. What stuck with you, to keep doing doing this?

I sat at a dinner table with about a dozen colleagues after a show in 2013 when someone mentioned “Downey’s Scans email.” I made an offhanded comment about how I planned to retire it as it became harder to justify putting so much time into something I wasn’t sure meant anything to anyone else. A loud protest erupted around the table. People told me stories about how and why the weekly emails were of value to them. The positive reinforcement from that dinner propelled the newsletter for another six years.

Shortly afterward I moved the newsletter to Constant Contact (a platform similar to Mailchimp), primarily to give it a more “polished” look with a few graphics and space for a small amount of advertising. Over time, the metrics that matter multiplied. I changed the name from “A Few Scans…” to “Stream N’ Destroy” in recognition of the dominance of digital service providers like Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora over traditional retail sales and physical media.

Social media, YouTube, concert attendance, merchandising — my goal is to gather all of the relevant numbers and distill them into something easy to read, saving my subscribers the considerable time and effort involved in tracking all of that down on a regular basis. Moving to Constant Contact and selling a small amount of advertising was a great and necessary step. But as the newsletter continued to expand – in readership, content, and frequency – that ad revenue no longer covered the time invested into the posts.

With the holidays approaching in 2019 I decided to “flip the switch” with monetization. (I set the weekly subscription rate to the bare minimum the platform allowed.)

I prepared myself for a flood of indifference, or even scorn, but I was pleasantly relieved by the outpouring of support from longtime subscribers. That encouraged me to continue this thing indefinitely, to work harder at it, and to constantly evolve and expand it to meet the needs of the folks who depend upon it.

You said, “I prepared myself for a flood of indifference, or even scorn;” where do you think that comes from?

A handful of people I know, myself included, sort of scoff that we could be compensated for this “thing we do,” without realizing, oh wait, “I know what I’m talking about, this might be of value to someone, so here’s a price tag.” How long was the debate with yourself about the move towards monetizing?

It’s probably left over from my experience in the punk and hardcore scene, where the spirit of the DIY/counterculture values is often coming from the right place, but the practice is messy and complicated. I did have one colleague/friend tell me I should never sell advertising for the newsletter, let alone subscriptions, as I should “do it for the love.” This same friend is a record executive with millions of albums sold by bands he personally A&R’d and handled. I wouldn’t expect him to do that for free and the more I thought about it, I shouldn’t work for free, either.

I run a Danzig fan account, This Day In Danzig, with close to 30k followers on Instagram. That is a labor of love. I’m happy to continue doing that for free. The newsletter, however, is fairly labor-intensive to put together and provides a unique service to some great people who have told me they rely upon it for various reasons.

(Keep in mind, I DID write these emails up for free for many years.)

I suppose the internal debate was in stages. First, whether to sell a small amount of advertising and later, whether or not to offer subscriptions.

Thankfully, the response to both measures was overwhelmingly positive.

You also said, “I’m not supporting myself entirely with Substack by any means.”

I see this a lot, among artists who believe their “one thing” should pay all the bills, and if it doesn’t they’re not really a photographer, or artist, or musician… that they aren’t really “doing it.”

Can you elaborate on this “multiple income streams” thing, a bit? It sounds very BUSINESS-like but man, if we can’t pay the rent it’s hard to be this artist person in the first place. Like, you do several things, just like a lot of people that work in music.

You make an excellent point! The last full-time job I had was with MTV News and that ended in July 2004 (though I continued to freelance for them for another decade after that). I do believe in the adage “jack of all trades, master of none” but as with many things, it’s about balance. I like having a handful of things happening both in terms of personal fulfillment creatively and from a practical standpoint. I have a couple of colleagues who are now executives at MTV who started before I did. But dozens more were swept away during layoffs and reorganizations of many kinds.

In 2022 I’m aiming to get more out of fewer things, but I can’t imagine being married to a single “thing.” I abandoned that notion that something wasn’t “real” if it wasn’t my “one thing” a long time ago. I mean, as a teenager, I was playing in a hardcore band, publishing a fanzine, putting on shows, working with Anti-Racist Action, going to school, and doing restaurant jobs part time.

---

As Ryan says, “Stream N’ Destroy is tailored to hard rock, metal, and punk(ish) music and culture, delivering relevant data about streaming, sales, concert attendance, and social media, distilled it into easy-to-read metrics for industry professionals.” If that’s your thing, you need to subscribe!

What I love about Stream N’ Destroy is it’s not Ryan’s “main thing.” He could have started a newsletter about all the interviews he’s done, or talked about the bands he’s managed, but instead he covers topics and trends that are helpful to those in the heavy music orbit.

Hit reply or contact me at seth@socialmediaescape.club – absolutely here to talk about all things email marketing for your creative projects!