Email marketing, love it or hate it, it's the most effective marketing strategy a band or solo artist can use in 2022. Email marketing is a tried and tested marketing method and has been successful in increasing revenue for individuals and businesses for decades. It's so successful yet so few music artists actually do it and of the ones that do, they do it very ineffectively. The key to the success of email marketing is the quality of your email list and the quality of the content within your emails..
Every music artist, band and musician should be utilising email marketing as part of their marketing mix in 2022 - no excuses! Research has shown that email marketing is 40x more effective than social media, let that sink in, it’s 40x more effective! So why aren’t you doing it?
So what is email marketing?
Email marketing is where you send a group of people a commercial message by email.
How do I get started?
Starting an email list can seem daunting, but it is so simple to do. Start by picking the platform that you want to use to manage your email list. There are many platforms out there, with Mailchimp and ConvertKit being the most popular, but you may want to choose another platform. Before you start thinking, how much is this going to cost me? Both of these platforms, at the time of writing this blog, offer a free package to get you started. So you can start and the only cost is your time. Both platforms are easy to use however, there are great YouTube videos if you get stuck.
How do I attract people to sign up?
A successful email list is made of contacts who feel like you value them and giving them an incentive to sign up will motivate people to give you their email address. A big no, no, is just saying “Sign up to my Newsletter”. It doesn’t sound very appealing now, does it? and why should people sign up? What’s in it for them? Why should they give you their email address? Instead, you could say “Join my exclusive community today”, then give reasons for people to sign up to your email list. For example; “Where you will be the first in line for gig/tour announcements, tickets and also you’ll be able to join my weekly Q&A session and monthly live stream show that is for my exclusive email community only”. The key is to give real value to people who sign up. If you are just going to give people who sign up the same information that you post on social media, then they aren’t going to react and sign up to your email list. Email marketing works best when creating an exclusive community, who receive exclusive content that they can’t get anywhere else.
Why should I have an email list?
We all know that whether you regularly post on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, you don’t get a say on who sees it. You can have 10k followers, but only a small fraction of those followers will actually see your social post, you have to spend so much time trying to beat the algorithm and just when you think you have, the social platform changes the algorithm and you are right back to square one! You have no control over it at all.
Email marketing is different, because everyone in your email list will see your email. It's so much better to have 10k subscribed to your email list, than 10k followers on social media. Your email list is made up of subscribers who want to hear from you. They already like what you do and they want to hear from you, followers on social media aren't like that. It is time to change your strategy and grow your own community that you have greater control over. There may be some of you thinking “I have an email list, but it doesn’t do that well for me” . Well guess what, the ROI of me having a piano is zero, the ROI of Elton John having a piano is £millions, the difference is, Elton knows how to play it to an extremely high standard. Email marketing is the same, you have to know how it works and, once you have mastered that you can maximise its potential.
To attract people to sign up to your email list, you could give access to an unreleased song that hasn’t made it as a single or part of an EP or album, to each person as a thank you for subscribing to your email list. But remember, only give access to the song to people who subscribe to your mailing list.
How often should I be sending emails out to my email list?
Like with every marketing method, consistency is key and email marketing is no different. If you only send emails out on an ad-hoc basis, it won’t have the desired effect to help you increase your revenue. You have to delight your subscriber list and give them a reason to stick around.
You either want to be sending your emails out either weekly or monthly. If you do weekly, make sure to do the same day and time, and if you plan to send them out monthly, send them out on the same date each month.
Do’s and don’ts of email marketing
Remember, once you have created your email to send out, do a test send to yourself first. This allows you to make sure that it displays correctly. As most people now use their smartphones for reading emails, ensure that your email is fully responsive, after all, there is nothing worse than receiving an email and half of the email content disappears off the screen.
Secondly, make sure that all your links in your email work and point to where you want them too. You don’t want to send the email out to your list and then realise the links don’t work.
Because people now read emails on their smartphones, you also have to think about ‘scrolling fatigue’. Make your email content too long and your subscribers won’t even read all of your email. You are better to make the layout brief and concise, and link out to your webpage where the subscriber can read more about a specific thing.
When creating your email list don’t be spammy!
Ensure that everyone on your list has given you their express and explicit permission to be subscribed to your list and that they are fully aware of what they are signing up to. NEVER add people to your email list that have never asked to be signed up to it. Just because you have their email address because they have emailed you before, you still cannot just add them to your email list! Make sure you comply with all GDPR data protection rules. Even if you’re an artist based in America, if your fans are based in the United Kingdom or any EU country, GDPR applies to you too.