This week SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB speaks with artist, musician, and video editor Joan Pope about her weekly email newsletter Week in Review.

Pope’s creative output is epic, and as she explains how a trusty email newsletter keeps her fans in the loop with everything she’s creating on a weekly basis.

How long have you been doing a newsletter, and what sort of reaction or feedback have you gotten from it?

I started the Substack newsletter in January 2021. Its the email version of the blog posts I have on my website. I started doing the “Week in Review” compilation posts in 2017. I still do those posts on my website, but driving traffic to my website is probably harder than to deliver the newsletter right into people’s inboxes.

Why did you pick Substack for your email list, rather than something like Mailchimp?

I went with Substack because its sort of a newsletter-blog hybrid. The monetization feature is great, too.

How long does it take you to put together and send your weekly newsletter? And you do additional posts for paying subscribers, yes? What would you say the total time investment each week?

It takes me about an hour to compile everything for the newsletter.

At this point, I don’t really have any posts behind the paywall besides access to one of my poetry books. I really hate having to put my content behind a paywall, I want to be able to share it with everyone and I know not everyone can afford to pay for access. “Exclusive” content isn’t really my thing.

My approach has been this: pretty much everything is available to anyone, and if you have the means, and you like my work, you can choose to support it by paying for the subscription. Or just enjoy it for free. I leave it up to the fans to decide.

Why even have an email newsletter in 2021?

The fast pace of social media makes it pretty easy for stuff we actually like to get lost in the mix.

I have a pretty intense level of output, I can barely keep track of my own work, I can’t expect other people to be able to keep up, too. So 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.

I haven’t noticed any “subscribe to my email list” type posts on your socials – how do you grow your list? Or is that something that just happens organically from your All My Links page and Bandcamp?

It’s true that I hardly ever make posts like that. I have a link to the signup in my allmylinks link-list thing. I let people find it on their own. However, I usually do at least post the published Substack newsletter on my main Twitter account each week. I usually end up getting a few subscribers each week as new people discover my Twitter account.

So how do we as writers, artists, bands.. how do we stay motivated at one or two sign ups a week?

It might not seem like much, but signups do start to accumulate, and when they do, they start to grow exponentially.

Patience is key.

It’s important to remember that 10 genuine fans who subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.. are much better than 1,000 bots signing up for your newsletter. Bots don’t buy your albums, they dont come to your shows, they don’t care at all about whatever you are doing.

Cultivate the audience you have, regardless of the size.

I try to dissuade people from just shouting “hey, join my newsletter” messaging, which is why I appreciate how you put it on your Substack page: “This email newsletter documents my worship.”

How important is to you to present your work in such a way vs. the standard marketing speak?

I don’t exactly have the vocabulary to frame what I do in the typical marketing terms. However, the social-sharing aspect is as important to my work as the work itself.

I consider every art piece, song, video, etc to be truly complete once I’ve given it to the world. So, getting it out there is all part of the devotion I have to my creative works.

I guess my work is intriguing enough that it makes people want to dig deeper, they end up finding the newsletter, my bandcamp, my website, etc. I get a lot of people comparing this experience following a breadcrumb trail. Its not my style to do too much outright explicit promotion, I have a more subtle approach.

I want to close by saying that growing an audience is really hard work, and for most people, it will take a lot of time and effort to see results. It’s really unlikely that you will amass a huge email list or social media following overnight. However, if you are consistent and keep working at your craft, you will eventually succeed.

It took me over a decade to get to where I am, and the reality is, I’m still a virtually unknown artist. But I keep doing what I do, and I’m not going to stop. If you are just starting out, don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t go the way you hoped on the first day. Set attainable goals, and commit to following through.

What are some of those goals we can set as we’re just starting out, trying to move some of our fans from social media to an email newsletter?

You just have to be realistic, and put in the work to get the word out. I am grateful to have a decent social media following, its made getting subscribers to the newsletter much easier.

I’m pretty passive in my approach… I just post a link on twitter to each week’s newsletter. My way is probably not the best way to get results. If I was going to do it “right” I’d probably add a call to action, asking people to subscribe.

This is how you start, heavy metal friends. As a label, you got information – new releases! Band signings! Deals!

Do this once a week, bare minimum. Two or three times a week preferably.

Stop worrying about coming off as spammy, because if you’re lucky at the most 5% of your followers will see any of your posts anyways.

(more…)

The stories we read, the big press items, the articles that go viral – they’re basically all text, an image, and some more text.

We’re all just moving images and text the internet.

All that to say, your email newsletter doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel.

An image, followed by some text. Just like… Instagram.

Should you use Substack? Mailchimp? CovertKit? TinyLetter?

It doesn’t matter, just fucking start your email newsletter.

Find someone who has an email newsletter you admire and ask them about it. Hell, ask me for some advice, just reply to this email with a question!

Let me help you start your Social Media Escape Plan for 2022. You can do this, I promise.

What’s the alternative?

(more…)

As things wind down this year, I’ll keep this email light. There’s enough to digest seemingly every hour, and I don’t want to overload you.

If you put out a release, wrote a song, sold a print – I celebrate your success. Putting your magic into this world when everything is on fire is no small feat.

This focus here at HEAVY METAL EMAIL is pretty obvious, but if it’s not let me make it clear:

I want to help heavy metal folks start and grow email newsletters in 2022.

Bands, labels, photographers, writers, podcasters, designers – you could all benefit from an email newsletter, and I promise it’s not as hard as it looks.

First, with Substack you could be up and running this evening.

Second, your social media posts could easily be repurposed for your newsletter.

I know being an “email marketing expert” or “newsletter writer” wasn’t another job you wanted heading into a new year, but trust me, someday you’re going to want to move “social media expert” off your job description.

I believe you can siphon your social media audience to a your email list, and then you’ll spend less time being an “online marketing expert,” and more time working on your craft, and I think that’ll be better for everyone in the new year.

---

TEXTBOOK LANDING PAGE FLOW

Here’s a timely example of a band with a new video coming out, and using that as a “lead magnet” to get people to subscribe to their email list.

Ithaca posted this with a clear URL and a 17 second preview (it’s got 9K+ views a few days later).

You click that link and it takes you here:

First to know? SIGN ME UP.

And that’s how it works, friends.

Do this for every video, every single, every tour announcement, merch drop, new product – drive people to a sign up page, and turn your social media followers into email subscribers.

There’s a reason why Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, LiveNation, etc. don’t give you the emails of people who support your work; they’re gold.

Reaching your fans on any social media platform is a war.

It will continue to get harder to reach your fans, and the longer you wait to develop your social media escape plan, the further behind you’ll be when you finally decide enough is enough.

If you wait to network when you’re out of a job, you’re fucked.

If you wait to engage with your fans until you’ve got an album to sell, you’re fucked, too.

YOU’RE PAYING RENT TO SOCIAL MEDIA, and if you’re phoning it in, those checks will bounce.

I tell this to a lot of musical folks; your talent lies in making music, not being an online marketing expert.

So it’s okay you don’t know every strategy, tactic, and trend. But that doesn’t mean spend six hours a day tending a garden you don’t own.

Let us not forget that you’re in the magic business.

Some folks would sell their soul for that magic of being able to sing, play guitar, paint, design an album layout, tour with a band, and / or take photographs.

Deliver fucking magic in everything you do, because fandom is fucking real.

Fans cry, fans tattoo band names on their arms, fans dance to your songs at weddings.

Maybe you’re not there yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start now.

Every day, reply to your fans instead of just photocopying the nice things they said about you and showing it to people who are already fans.

Then, on occasion, ask those fans to subscribe to your email list. And make sure you have a good “lead magnet.”

“Don’t just say, ‘sign up for tour dates,’ say, ‘sign up to see photos from our last tour,’ which then gets people to subscribe. Then you eventually send them your new tour dates,” from my BEST WAYS TO GET PEOPLE TO SIGN UP post.

The whole point of this HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter is to get people on your email list.

That’s because social media will be murder in 2022, and I don’t think any of us want to spend more time on those networks than we have to.

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.

Take back your time in 2022, baby. Start your email list today.

When you lose access to your social media account, then what?

I’ve been seeing a handful of posts like this across Twitter and Instagram.

Years of connections, messages, and content gone.

How many hours have we lost to tending an online garden that we don’t own?

(more…)

No one skips through all the episodes of reality TV shows to get to the final episode just to see who wins.

The dating shows, new movie releases, the latest books; while you could save a lot of time and skip to the end, why even bother?

We’re all in it for the journey. The story. And you should treat your project the same way.

Yes, it’s tempting to just Tweet “something in the works,” two weeks before you head into the studio. And then again the week before the release date, when you post some boring “hey, pre-order now” link.

Where’s the journey in that?

That’s like a dating show where you meet all the contestants in the first 20 minutes, then after the last commercial break they come back and they’re like, “well, congrats Joe and Sarah!”

No journey. No story. So sub-plots. No drama.

And 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.

You can do this.

FOR YOUR NEXT NEWSLETTER:

Screen shot some recent press, or nice things that people have said and put them in your next email – like this:

Lisa and I work in music, and have followed each other on Twitter for many years. Then finally in 2021 it happened – I started working with her company Holdtight, and her wonderful team, doing email marketing for a few of their clients, and it has been am absolute delight!

See? Now you know a little bit more about me, and what I do, and the good folks I work with!

Remember those Spotify Wrapped graphics? You posted ‘em on socials and thanked your fans, but what about your email subscribers? They’re fans, too! Try adding a nice call to action to your Bandcamp, encouraging your fans to support you by buying a shirt or album (and I bet you’ll sell a few albums).

Oooh, behind the scenes photos! A perfect “lead magnet” to use for capturing emails. Think of using photos from your next show, video shoot, or recording session like this, and saying something like, “to see more photos like this, join our email list.”

Feeling lost but you know you need to get your email list going for 2022?

In the war against social media algorithms, you’re going to have to engage in some hand to hand combat, as perfectly illustrated here by @Breezyb215:

If you’ve fighting and clawing your way for every listen and fan, do things that don’t scale – take Brianna’s advice and reach out.

(more…)