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.

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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!

A few years back I sent out a company-wide email for a client. After I hit send, a few emails came in.

I spelled the company’s name wrong in the FROM field.

I didn’t get fired, chewed out, no one unsubscribed. Life went on.

Was I bummed? Absolutely.

But it’s a learning experience. Every show you play, ever release you put out, and every email you send – each time there’s the possibility of royally fucking up.

And fucking up is how we get better.

If you’re a photographer, you tried some different settings, then learned what to use under different conditions.

If you’re a designer, you might be more happy with your recent work than the first few pieces you delivered.

Tattoo artists, producers, guitarists, song writers, editors – we are all where we’re at right now by learning from our earlier work and the mistakes we made.

I bring this up because I keep hearing about this fear of UNSUBSCRIBES.

Unless you’re losing DOZENS of subscribers per email, don’t sweat it.

Stop fretting over the eight people that unsubscribed, and pay attention to the 100+ that clicked a link to your new offering.

“Unsubscribes are not personal, but they’re beneficial to both the subscriber and you. If someone doesn’t want to be on your email list, you don’t want them there. Having people on your list who don’t actually want to be there is guaranteed to damage your deliverability, ultimately hurting your ability to reach those people who do want to be on your list,” says Alyssa Dulin at ConvertKit.

If people ain’t opening your email, that can damage your “deliverability.” Enough damage, and your emails might end up in SPAM folders, or the Promotions tab in GMail.

Don’t worry about unsubscribes. Let ‘em go.

Don’t worry about unfollows on Twitter or Facebook.

Don’t figure out – find out what works for you and your fans.

It’s a never-ending discovery, and you’ll get there quicker if you just keep your head down and keep in touch with your fans directly via you email list.

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YOU STILL DON’T HAVE AN EMAIL LIST?

Algorithms limit your reach. Platforms can suspend your account at any time. Make sure you’re able to reach your fans directly with an email list!

Your 2022 is going to be a bloodbath if you rely 100% on socials to keep in touch with your fans. Especially if you lose access to any of your social accounts.

It pains me that so many bands, brands, artists, and creative individuals are losing touch with their audience. If you’re lucky you’re reaching 5% of your fans.

The subject line of your next email campaign competes with the subject lines of everyone else in your subscribers inbox – so it’s worth taking a minute (or 30) and getting it right.

I always recommend sending weekly emails (“your fans subscribed because they love you, and want more of you”) so you can find out what “works” much faster than sending a once a month email, but if you’re still wary, you should at least be A/B testing your subject lines.

That just means sending your email with two different subject lines to a small section of your subscribers (Mailchimp and Klaviyo make this super easy).

After a few hours, the one that was opened the most is the “winner,” and the email gets sent to the rest of your subscribers with that subject line.

Sending with just one subject line might get you 11% opens. Or 20%! Sure.

But by testing two different subject lines with your audience, you might learn they like things short and sweet. Maybe they like super long, descriptive subject lines.

You won’t know until you try.

Let’s say you have a new video that just went live, and you want to let your fans know about it. You could write a subject line like this:

Subject line: NEW VIDEO!

Then maybe that gets a 24% open rate.

Or you could try A/B testing your subject lines, and try something like this:

Subject line A: NEW VIDEO!
Subject line B: Three cats, a car chase, and a surprise guest – check out our new video!

Subject A might get a 22% open rate, but Subject B might get a 34% open rate – that’s a lot more people opening your email by just testing out a different subject line style.

“On a list of 10,000 people, an open rate of 20% gets you 2,000 readers. If you can bump that up to 25%—which is totally possible with a great email subject line—you’ve earned another 500 readers.

Even at a meager 1% conversion rate, that’s 5 new customers,” from Active Campaign.

Think about that, too – you don’t need EVERYONE to place an order (though that’d be great). Increasing opens, or clicks, or conversions by 1% can add up when you do that week after week for a full year.

“Next time you’re writing the subject line for your email campaign, consider testing the order of the words to see if front-loading the benefit can help improve your open rates,” Campaign Monitor

Free shipping, a 10% discount, low stock – consider testing where you put that in your next subject line, as it could affect how many people open your next email.

Remember – you’re competing with maybe 100s of emails in someone’s inbox. There’s nothing wrong with writing 10, 20, even 50 different variations of a subject line, just to practice the craft. That could take you 15 minutes or more, yes, but it could also lead to 10 more orders.

“Email is one of the few direct to consumer channels, and the more data you have about your audience, the better you can share your music with them,” Berklee Online

“Try out different subject lines, images, layouts, and send times to see what’s working best,” from Mailchimp

Think about it – you could try different band photos, album art styles, or sending at different times, and increase the number of clicks from an email. That could mean more selling more records, or tickets for your next tour.

Someone just signed up for your email list.

Make sure you’re including links to “old content” in every email.

Promote your hot new thing, of course, but remember: not everyone opens every email.

Your most die-hard fans are busy, and missed your last two (or three) emails.

• If you’re a label, include some of your older releases (or low stock items).
• If you’re a podcast, include the most listened episodes in the last six months.
• If you’re a band, include links to your old videos.

I’m not saying pack each email full of links, but treat your fans like friends in this case; “oh hey, remember that video we made a year ago? Here’s a photo from when we did that.”

People still buy Metallica’s “Black Album,” because every day someone discovers that album for the first time.

You’re not Metallica, so keep talking about the stuff you’re proud of.

BUILD YOUR EMAIL LIST VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

“Creators know a long-term career can’t come from rented platforms, for example, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. These are all platforms you don’t own, which means you lose control over the percentage of your audience that sees your content. Growing to 100,000 followers stings when only 5% of your audience saw your latest Reel.”

From ‘How to use TikTok to grow your email list’ from CovertKit. Also this ‘TikTok For Musicians Masterclass’ from Amber Horsburgh is almost an hour and a half long and loaded with good ideas and insight.

“It hurt to face the thing I’d always feared – that we were a one-trick pony, sales wise. I always knew we needed another strong sales channel, but we came up during the Instagram storm and stayed in that space because it had always worked for us – it was where our customers lived digitally.”

From ‘Five things you learn when your social accounts are hacked’ from Courier. Check out ‘What’s Your Social Media Lock Out Plan?’ that I wrote back in December, too.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN

So what’s stopping you from sending an email on Monday? What do you need help with? Are you still picking between Mailchimp or Substack? Design? Reply to this email how you’re stuck and maybe I can help you out.

TO: folks that still haven’t started their email list, or are bummed at their “low” subscriber count:
SUBJECT: What’s the best way to learn how to not lose $1,000?

Lose $1,000.

In 2010, before I left NYC with just my bike and the stuff I carried in my messenger bag, I read a lot of “how to be a minimalist” articles and watched a lot of videos.

But I eventually had to put my bed frame on the sidewalk, lock the door behind me, and ride from Williamsburg in Brooklyn to East Rutherford, NJ by way of the George Washington Bridge on a single speed bike with directions written on folded paper.

You gotta lock the door behind you and just do the thing.

There’s always another YouTube video to watch. Another article. But eventually you’ve got to take the first step.

Jump and pray, like my friend Jocelyn says.

Because locking the door behind you is the easy part.

Buying the cool notebook is the easy part.
Signing up for TikTok.
Starting a SquareSpace site.
Going to the gym once.

That’s easy shit.

Now the hard part. The resistance. The pain. The uphill struggle.

Just remember – you’re spending HOURS a day on social media. Week in, and week out. Of course that’s why you have a few thousand followers.

So don’t expect to send one email per month and get a hundred subscribers in a day. Growing your list is hard, which is why I recommend you send something every single week.

The faster you learn what works for your fans, the faster you lean into that.

Last week I gave you a pretty solid strategy on what to actually put in your emails:

Even if your fans do follow you on Twitter, chances are 70% of them won’t see your post because of ALGORITHMS.

Summary: sure, keep posting on socials. Then take what “works,” the stuff that resonates, and gets your followers engaged, start putting some of that into your email list.

Even if you post just once a week on one of the social media channels, you should send that to your email list, too. Build trust. Build community.

Don’t just email when you got something for sale.

Tell some stories, spill your guts, go on a rant, include a playlist – whatever.

Or… just keep shoveling all your “content” into the constantly running social media wood chipper and (hopefully) increase your chances of any of it being seen by your fans.

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TO: folks who already have an e-commerce store
SUBJECT: Automations will make you money while you sleep (or watch Netflix)

From Mailchimp: “We’ve found that product follow-up emails get 5 times more orders than bulk emails.”

Think about that – you spend the day crafting the perfect email campaign, hyping your latest drop, and an automated email sent two days later might lead to more orders.

Klaviyo has nice “Browse and cart abandonment” and “Back in stock” automations (among others), which integrate super well with Shopify.

The point here being that sending a gentle nudge to a potential customer can put more money in your bank account. That person looking at your deluxe edition bundle? You can automate and send an email to them a few days later if they don’t order right away.

IT’S OKAY TO NUDGE.

Will some people unsubscribe? Sure. Will more people order something? Probably. But you won’t know until you start trying it out for yourself. Don’t write off automations like this just because you don’t like them. They exist because they work!

Social media is how we reach our fans, right? How can we ever decrease our social media time?!

Consider this – all your fans don’t follow you on Twitter.

You realize there are people out there that don’t “get” Twitter, right?

There’s people who’ve ditched Facebook and Instagram for, umm… reasons.

And TikTok, which is now the bigger than Google, is a whole other beast.

While a handful of your fans are on all those platforms, I bet 99.9% of them have an email address.

It’s how they buy concert tickets, order snacks from Amazon, and pay their bills online – all with an email address.

So while email might not be the hot new cool thing, it fucking works.

That said, 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!

Like Joan Pope said in a recent interview with HEAVY METAL EMAIL, “A lot of people will tell me that they can’t keep up and the newsletter helps them do that.”

Even your spontaneous remarks about albums, sports, design, shows, movies, whatever – I bet your fans who don’t sit on social media for 5+ hours a day would like to see that stuff.

Don’t just send emails when you got something for sale.

Speaking of “what will I even write,” this Tweet was the basis for the email newsletter you’re reading right now:

Oh, look – a photo of my cat that you might never see if you don’t follow me on Instagram:

Even if your fans do follow you on Twitter, chances are 70% of them won’t see your post because of ALGORITHMS.

Summary: sure, keep posting on socials. Then take what “works,” the stuff that resonates, and gets your followers engaged, start putting some of that into your email list.

“Hey, want more of this thing you seem to like? Click here and get that thing right in your inbox!”

Like this – here’s a great example from a reader on how to grow your email list!

Need some ideas for your own email list? Send me an email and let’s figure it out.

When asking any web surfer to click a link, you will see a drop off.

Let’s say you post a link to buy your new shirt, and 100 people click that link.

Now they’re on your shirt page, and have to click a shirt size, then add to cart.

If 25 people even get that far, congrats, you’re a wizard.

Now that 25 people are looking at their shopping cart, you better make sure your check out system is easy as shit to use, because not all 25 people will complete their purchase.

Let’s be generous, and say 10 people actually place an order.

You went from 100 people that clicked a link to your store, 25 people who added your shirt to their cart, then 10 people actually placed an order.

That’s how the internet works. The numbers keep going down.

MAKE YOUR SIGNUP PROCESS SIMPLE.

Check this example from Mailchimp:

Or this one from Shinesty:

There’s a reason you see that style so often – it works.

• Don’t make people DM you their email address.
• Don’t make people send you their email.
• Don’t make people fill out a big form.
• Don’t make people give their first and last name, date of birth, zip code, hair color, and favorite pizza topping.

Yes, there’s a time and a place for collecting demographic information, just as there’s time for asking someone to marry you, but that’s later on down the road.

Give it a minute, please.

There are services like Mailchimp, ConverKit, Carrd, Tally and so many more that let you build simple and effective email sign up forms. Some cost money, but hey – remember, one email could lead to a $25 sale if you play your cards right. Or book your next gig. Or sell a recurring subscription.

Paying $10/mo for a service that lets you grow your email list is a good investment.

💥 Still on the fence about using Substack for your band’s newsletter? Check out ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ from Tegan and Sara.

Perfect is the enemy of done. Remember, no matter what email service you pick, if you don’t like it you can export your subscribers and move somewhere else

I keep seeing the Tweets, and the IG stories… “something is coming!”

Maybe it’s a new song.
A new video.
New merch drop.

You got lucky if 5 or 10 or 25% of your audience saw your teaser.

“When you’re ready to release your hot new song, you have to start the attention-roulette game all over again,” from ‘SELL MORE WITH LANDING PAGES,’ which I wrote in November, 2021.

As I laid out in the link above, give your most curious and dedicated fans something to click, like Ithaca did here:

Teaser video clip, click the link, and then you can sign up for their email list.

The people on that email list literally signed up and said, “I want more.”

So when the time comes to release that video, they know they’ll be able to reach 100% of those people because that’s how email works.

The Tweet they send might be seen by 20% of their followers. Yuck.

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🔥 SPOTIFY VS. BANDCAMP: I see a ton of artists complain about Spotify rates, but I don’t see a lot of artists linking to their Bandcamp page.

When you make a sale on Bandcamp, you get actual money to put into your bank account. You also get something worth even more.

An email address.

When you release new music, Bandcamp will let them know. Plus, you can export the emails of people who signed up to be added to your email list, and send them personalized emails filled with even more information.

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Finally, I leave you with this: