How to market music via email
Even though email is not very new, it is still quite relevant in almost everyone’s professional lives. That’s why it is a great platform to use to market music. This post offers strategies and breaks down your options so you can get emailing.
by Dayna Young of Fred & Augustus
One of the most effective ways of capturing your fans’ information is via a CRM. In our article: An A-Z Glossary of Music Marketing Terms we touched on what a CRM is (a Customer Relationship Management tool, or a centralized spot where business entities can store and track information on fans) and why it’s important (share information internally and manage your fan relationships with ease). However, a CRM also allows you to produce email marketing campaigns, a valuable fan communication tool and a powerful revenue generator.
Email marketing is a marketing tactic that leverages the email tool to deliver a marketing message right to the inbox of your most engaged fans. It differs from a standard email because you are making subscribers directly aware of your offerings, products, and services, and you’re able to do so in a fast and cost-effective manner that is also highly targeted and personalized.
With this in mind, it’s easy to see that with some simple email marketing and automation strategies you’re not just setting yourself up to grow your potential revenue, but also your fan engagement.
Building your Email List
The first step of successful email marketing is to build your subscriber database. Don’t be fooled either – this isn’t a one-off process. Building an email list takes time and diligence, and like many other marketing approaches; consistency.
Here are some of the possible ways in which you can go about building your email list:Define the value proposition in your newsletter offering. For artists, this often means your fans are among the first to hear about tours, new releases, or merchandise. Focus on what your target audience wants, know who you’re targeting, ensure the information you share is relevant and timely, and be engaging.Create a landing page for subscriber capture. A landing page is a page on your website dedicated to capturing subscribers. Your landing page should be simple, contain imagery of the artist, a value proposition (what “value” do you provide your subscribers with), the subscriber capture form (which connects to your CRM), and a simple CTA. Upon ‘subscribing’ fans should be redirected to a Thank You Page, and receive a Welcome Email.Add a subscriber capture form to your website. Keep it simple: the understood rule is that the more information you request the fewer subscribers you will gain, so the rule of thumb is usually first and last name, email (at minimum), and potentially also the city, country, and postcode (at most). Your site host will typically allow for either an API or direct integration with your CRM via a connection in the backend of your site, which will allow you to capture emails directly into your CRM from your website.Promote your newsletter on your marketing channels. This means sharing social posts encouraging followers to subscribe, and potentially boosting those posts to broaden the reach of your message. Encourage fans to sign up at shows, and collect emails at the merch stand.Lead Magnets: a lead magnet is where you offer something your audience may deem valuable in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter. For your fans, this could be the opportunity to win an exclusive piece of merch, or perhaps all subscribers during a specific period receive an exclusive signed poster. Create a lead magnet funnel. A lead magnet funnel allows you to take a lead magnet one step further by creating a landing page (designed to capture subscribers) that promotes the lead magnet, and to which you drive targeted traffic via the promotion of social media ads. What’s great about a lead magnet funnel is that once set up and active, it can continue to drive traffic and capture email subscribers for you without you needing to repeatedly do time-consuming work.
A Brief Overview of Email Marketing Platforms
Each email platform will allow you to create campaigns (one-off emails), automation and landing pages (for funnels). Rather than diving into the technology behind each, we encourage you to do your research, watch tutorials and determine which will be the right platform for you long term.
often overlooked by artists but syncs very easily with Shopify which is great if your store is hosted on this platform.
In future articles, we’ll dive a little further into email marketing, including the types of emails that musicians should regularly send.
[HYPEBOT: Also, check out Bandsintown’s new free email builder and Fan Management Suite here.]
Dayna Young has 15+ years of global experience in music, entertainment, and leading creative teams to success. She is the Founder of Fred & Augustus, and an expert in music marketing and digital artist development. Ultimately, what gets her up in the morning is the knowledge that she’s creating opportunities for artists.
