Email Marketing For Musicians

Email seems like a fairly arcane means of communication compared to the ever-growing arsenal of social media outlets at our disposal. However, what it may like modernity and publicity possibilities it makes up for in direct and effective marketing advantages. First of all, it is more ‘intimate’ and harder to ignore than a social media post. It can give your fan(s) a feeling of exclusivity that will draw them closer to you. Also, it is undeniably the best way to sell merchandise. While you may be able to unload a good amount of t-shirt etc. at shows, touring can be expensive and most musicians can’t afford to do it year round. Email is free and brings your merch table to your fan’s smartphone.

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Make the Most of Your Merch

It’s widely accepted that there is very little money in recorded music (relative to previous decades) and one of the best ways to make up financial ground is through merch sales. This makes it all the more important o optimize your table’s sales potential and trot your way to a self-sustaining career in abbreviated strides, sticker by sticker and t-shirt by t-shirt. First of all, you’ll need to be comfortable putting on your salesman’s hat and buying one if it’s not already in your wardrobe. Don’t be afraid to stroll around the club after you play, make your sales pitch face to face with your fans rather than waiting behind a table that they can easily pass by. Try not to think of it as being pushy because the fact is they’ll probably be grateful for the experience even if they don’t buy anything. Second, you need to consider your audience. What’s their general budget? What’s the climate and style where you’re most active? If you’re based in Miami, you probably don’t want to invest in hoodies but perhaps if you’re going on a winter tour, you might want to consider a limited batch, small enough that you shouldn’t have too much of a problem selling out of them.

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Play It Off Legit

In any field/industry (especially creatives), there are amateurs and professionals. Almost all musicians are technically amateurs in the sense that they don't see significant income from their music, but the way they get to be an actual professional (who is making a living) is by acting like one in the meantime. No one wants to work with an amateur...not even most other amateurs. Most of the differences lie in attitude and behavior so the adjustment is almost never impossible. For example, amateurs think they know everything and can do everything. Professionals are constantly and actively learning, and know that there are limits to their knowledge and limits to their abilities. But perhaps the most telling and important difference is that amateurs have no problem giving up on something, getting sidetracked and often preemptively forgiving themselves doing either, while professional are all about execution. If you want to make a career in music, one of the most important things you can do is to act like you already have one.

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A Small Promotional Army

Perhaps the most valuable perk to the collective multitude of promotional tools found on the Internet, is that you can create a marketing strategy tailored to your own unique style. Going down every single avenue might not be possible if you have a day job and depending on the kind of music you make, it may not even be a good idea. Pick the channels you’re most comfortable with and which you think speak most directly to your target market and focus your efforts there. You may even find ways to cross promote by using by, say, using Twitter to promote a blog about your tour, which could link to the album you’re supporting and the Facebook pages for each event on your tour. Rather than taking single shots from every angle, find the strongest links and surround your fan base so they can’t help but become more engaged.  

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Making The Right Contacts

A few days ago we published a post detailing how to tell whether or not a contact is worth pursuing and when to give up. Some advice that is probably even more valuable since it applies to those with no contacts at all, is how to make and reach the most important contacts from the get-go.

One very simple thing to remember when mounting a networking strategy is that no one is going to talk to you if you don’t talk to them first.  The obvious options are trade magazines and industry events. The biggest perk of those avenues are that people are there because they are open to and expecting people to pursue them as contacts. However for that very reason, it can be more difficult given the thick sea of competition you are up against and its much easier for someone to write you off if you’re not a seasoned networking pro.

One of the still intuitive but not necessarily pursed avenues is making contacts through your friends. Other musicians (or friends in general) may already know key people they’ve never mentioned. Or maybe you already know that they are well connected but are too proud and/or respectful to ask for the favor. There are certainly times when they may say “no” and have a very good reason for it, but no matter what the result, there is very little chance that you will do damage your friendship just by asking for a little help.

Another possibly, though it is a long shot, is finding out where industry people might hang out. Hanging out and frequently patronizing new/trendy restaurants and bars or established industry haunts can be a great way to make contacts if you have at least a vague idea of who you’re looking for (and what they look like). For example, prolific and legendary songwriter Robert Pollard of the 90s band Guided by Voices had an informal policy that if you were a small record label and you could find him among the bars of his hometown (Dayton, OH), he’d give you unreleased material for an EP. The only catch was that you’d get 1-2 good songs, 2-3 okay songs, 3-4 bad songs. You wouldn’t get a masterpiece but you would get a release that was sure to sell to his legion of cult fans.  

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Is Your Website Working For You?

I have mentioned on more than a few occasions that keeping your website updated is critical part of building/maintaining a strong web presence and establishing your band’s legitimacy. However, there are a number of other important factors involved in using your website to its fullest potential.

Some of the most crucial elements to think about are: Does the website’s design accurately represent your sound? Is the design too flashy are distracting from the content? Does the website look good on a mobile device? Is it easy to navigate and read?

If the answer to any of these questions is “No”, then you might want to strongly consider investing in the extra work to have a website optimized for success.  

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Speaking In Tongues

If you are actively trying to advance your music career (and doing it right), you probably spend A LOT of time watching your email inbox. You are probably sending inquiries and follow ups to every contact you can collect and if you still can't hire someone to do it for you, then you're most likely getting a lot of vague and disappointing answers. This is largely for two reason (that probably aren't your fault): 1) You are contacting EVERYONE, therefore a certain percentage are sure to be a bad fit, and 2) You are far from the only one doing this and between the many, many submissions an industry professional gets and the rest of their job description, they simply don't have the time to reply as helpfully as they could if listening to your demo was their only job. Learning the language and unique idioms can save you a lot of time pursuing contact/opportunities that were doomed from the beginning.

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Get The Law On Your Side

Possibly the number one thing that bands think they'll never need, if they even know it exists, is a contract. Not a record contract of course, that (ideally) comes later. But a legally binding contract between members can help ensure that once you get to that point, many of the classic band-ending disputes will already be resolved. Arguments over who gets what percentage of money from records sales, merch, and gigs; who owns the rights to the band name and to each song; how to deal with an unreliable band member...the list goes on. Making decisions about these sort of things early on can save a lot of time in courtrooms down the road, and possibly even keep the band together after a massive argument.

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How to Optimize Your EPK

Most or many musicians have a website. Most or many musicians have an electronic press kit (EPK). Unfortunately, most or many musicians do not combine these which means that neither of them are being used effectively. You need to remember that website aren’t just for fans or demonstrating professionalism. Bloggers, editors, and promoters will use your website to gather and report information about your music. Your EPK should not only be up-to-date and easily accessible on your website, but should exist in several forms and ready to use for whatever purpose. Your biography should be more than facts, it should tell your unique story. This should be available in the Long Form (i.e., as long as it needs to be…within reason). There should also be a 250-word version, a 100-word version, and a Tweet version to suit all purposes. Without having all of these available, someone writing about and/or trying to promote you may get info from unreliable sources and either leave out important information or worse, get it wrong entirely. 

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Using Twitter Effectively Has Nothing To Do With Music

You may have heard that Twitter can be a great tool for building and/or sustaining your popularity. You may have interpreted this to mean that you should post links to your YouTube, Facebook, and Bandcamp pages two or three times a day.  You may also be wondering why this strategy has proved to be static at best. The short answer is that the less thought you put into your posts, the less response you should expect.

There are several ways to use Twitter effectively but they all have to do with showing sides of yourself that fans probably can’t get/interpret through your music. Colin Meloy of the Decemberists posts almost exclusively about politics, gaining him followers who aren’t even particularly devoted fans…at least not at first. Cat Power entertains her fans but showing the eccentric side many of them already appreciate about her. Andrew W.K. takes up a strategy similar to Meloy’s by exclusively posting partying tips.

Find the aspect of you or your band’s personality that you think will speak to the widest portion of your target audience and make each Tweet count. 

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Mastering the Craft

Although recording software these days allows for musicians to do a great deal of from home and virtually for free, there is one task that almost always needs to be outsourced. Mastering is an extremely important process to getting the best sound you can out of any recording, home or studio. Because mastering specialists don’t always/often have much communication with the musicians directly, it can be an expensive and uncertain process since the painstaking work is done from afar.

To the excitement of many, an online mastering service called LANDR has recently become available. The downside is that it’s not that great. The main problem is that it allows for very little control over the end result. This is because it master recordings based on a general algorithm that simply doesn’t work for most genres of music. The upside is that it is much cheaper than using a professional engineer and potential user can try it for free so you can hear for yourself whether or not it is worth your while. 

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