OK Guys,
The No1 piece of advice I can give you is that you should start to focus on your fan list as soon as possible. Every successful independent musician I talk to regrets not having done it sooner.
Below you will find a big brain dump of some email marketing tricks you can add to your band mailing list plan to increase it’s effectiveness fast.
Take what you understand then use it right away!
Learning something cool means nothing unless you put it into action. That is a rule I try to follow, and one that I would recommend to every proactive musician.
So let’s get started…
1. Every time you sell an album ask your fans to send you a text, audio or video review and offer them a nice incentive to do so. You can now link to these reviews from your album sales page, and it will be a constant source of great social proof and increased music sales.
2. Get fans to sign up for your list using Facebook connect. This let’s you capture the email address without the visitor actually having to type it in. People are getting scared to hand over their email because of spam. This is a little bit tricky so if you need help setting it up let me know.
3. Talking of spam…you want to also assure people with words like “I Hate Spam” or something similar right upfront and in an obvious place. This simple step will increase your subscribers a lot.
4. Offer something extremely cool in exchange for signing up because everyone else is just offering a free MP3. I suggest you give away “14 days of free music” because this will make your offer unique, and you can set the messages to go out automatically with Aweber. This builds a relationship with fans on autopilot, plus you can also introduce them to other web properties like Twitter and Facebook over a two week period.
5. Use Popup Domination to add a nice looking pop over to your site that will not piss people off. This will get you more email opt-ins than anything else, which will ultimately increase your income.
6...and don’t forget to put an email subscribe box in the sidebar of your website as well.
7. If you can show an image of the free gift you are giving them it adds a lot of value. You can get a eCover created here.
8. Create a dedicated page for your free gift as well. Often your fans will want to let their friends know about your offer and they are more likely to send a link to a page that makes the offer obvious, rather than your blog homepage which might have 100 links on it.
9. Thank you page tip 1 – after they sign up for your offer they will be taken to a “Thank you page” where you should remind them they need to go and check their email so that they can click the confirm link to start receiving your free music. You would be shocked at how many new fans sign up and never complete this step, which means you’ll loose them forever.
10. Thank you page tip 2 – include a $1 trial to your fan club. This is easy passive income and people rarely cancel their subscription because the price is so low. A great way to increase your overall monthly income.
11. Already subscribed page – I have noticed that quite a number of people who try to sign up to a mailing list forget that they have already done it. So I set Aweber to show them a message that goes like this “Hey you are already subscribed, but you can still get the free gift here”. This will prevent you having to explain what happened in hundreds of support requests to your help desk.
12. When you send out an email promoting your album, offer your fans a related product after they buy. Amazon.com are the KINGS of the upsell! After buying you get a message like “Most people who got Michael Jackson History also got Thriller, click here now to add it to your basket”. This tactic will increase your income overnight and works well because a person who has just purchased is on a high, and likely to get something else right away.
13. Go through your fan emails and look for opportunities to link to cool products. Some great options include music you’re into, books and films you recommend or even magazine subscriptions. Then sign up for the Amazon Associates program which lets you get paid for recommending products. This will create a nice little stream of income for you and your fans won’t see it as too salesy.
14. How to get an email list fast…find 4 bands with a similar size list or larger and set up a page with all four of your free offers. Then you send it out to the fans asking them to just pick one. Keep scaling this up to musicians with bigger and bigger lists.
The very best thing about a well thought out email campaign is that you have the chance to talk to your gang whenever you need to, so if you have a new video out you can ask people to “like” it on Facebook, or even do a survey to see which towns you should stop in on your tour.
When you build an ultra responsive list you are in a very strong and stable position in your career, because you can create album sales on demand.
Hope you enjoyed this article, it would be cool if you could share any of your email tips in the comments below.
Talk soon,
- Chris
Watch the video podcast version below…
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