4 Reasons You Should Regularly Email Your Fans
Keeping up any kind of regular written correspondence can be a challenge, and emailing fans is no exception, but for a band or artist, consistency is hugely important when it comes to connecting with fans and maintaining their interest.
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Guest Post from FanBridge
One of the biggest struggles of email marketing is always figuring out what to send to your fans. Sometimes it can be tempting to just say, “Screw it,” and skip sending an email. While it’s entirely up to you, it’s important to know the risks associated with skipping a regular email campaign and the benefits of sending frequently. We’re here to give you some extra motivation and keep you informed! Here’s why it’s important to regularly send a campaign to your email list:
Sender Reputation
Yes, that’s right. Did you know that how often you send can affect your reputation as a sender? How does that happen? Well, a couple of different reasons.
Firstly, your subscribers’ engagement with your emails is important. The more they receive an email from you, the more their email client (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) knows that you can be trusted as a sender.
Additionally, bounce rate is a key factor in whether or not you are viewed as a trusted sender. The bounce rate is the percentage of email addresses on your list that were invalid. Basically, for one reason or another, we couldn’t reach their inbox. If you haven’t sent to your email list in awhile, you could have a higher bounce rate than normal. That’s a sign to email clients that you don’t have a good list or follow best practices, and you could end up in the spam folder.
Sales
Always remember that email has the highest ROI of any digital channel. People are far more likely to click through to purchase something from an email than from social media. If you make money from streaming content, clicks from emails stream content twice as long as clicks from social media. If you’re looking to boost revenue in any way, sending an email is always a good idea.
Stay Top of Mind
The subconscious is a powerful thing. Even if you don’t have a very important update, and even if your subscriber doesn’t open every single email, they will most likely still see your name appear in their inbox. Even a subtle reminder that you’re around and promoting your work helps. They may not take action right then, but when they need to buy a gift or when they want to buy tickets to an event, your name may pop up sooner.
Your Fans Want to Hear From You
Lastly, and most importantly, your fans always want to hear from you. Even if it’s not an important update, they’ll be excited that you thought to keep them in the loop. Sharing your life, even the dull moments, with your fans is an easy way to build that relationship.
How to Stay on Track
Has it been awhile since you sent an email? Cleaning your list might be in order. Here’s some steps to take to help prevent your email campaign from accidentally hitting the spam folder:
- In your FanBridge account, head to the Fans tab and select Search and Manage
- If you search your list using Undefined FanRank and Date Added Before, you can find the old email addresses that have never opened an email from you. Use your own judgment when searching for Date Added.
- You can place these in a different group to send to less often, or remove them entirely. Either way, they’re not doing you any favors staying on your list.
Now that your list is clean, maintenance is key. First, we would recommend setting a weekly or monthly reminder to send an email to your fans. Want help? You can set up a google calendar alert on the FanBridge logout page.
Of course, setting a reminder isn’t always enough. Even if you plan to send a newsletter, you need to plan what you’re going to send. We can help make it easy with our Template Tool and integrations with SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify, but you’ll still need to have the material! Sometimes it works best to plan out what to send in advance.
If you don’t have any new projects or merchandise, make sure to keep in mind, once again, that your fans want to hear from you anyway! Plus, you’ll stay in that top of mind position, even if it’s not an important update.
What should you send? Tell your fans what you did that week. Did you play an interesting show? Are you preparing for a project or event? If you did nothing, tell them what you watched on Netflix. Go on a House of Cards rant. It’s still an opportunity to make a connection and continue building that relationship.
