I’m reading the Johnny Cash autobiography at the moment, and I’ve got a whole bunch of “man love” for him right now. (Don’t tell my wife!)
You should really get a copy when you have time, because he has some crazy stories in there (like having his belly split open by an Ostrich kick) but the funny thing is that even though I was a total die hard Cash fan before, if possible I now like him even more.
So it got me thinking…
If we could bottle the magic that all time greats like Cash seem to have, then that would be a nice little pill for us all to take on the road to becoming pro at this music marketing stuff.
There have been lots and lots of country stars over the years but I wanted to work out why Cash had such appeal, so I started to think of a few words that describe Cash for me…
Talent, charisma, charm, danger, influence, leader…
Cash is a clever guy and he has a strong grasp on how to communicate with people. He can tell you about history, and talk to you about god without being a preacher. He can tell you how much he loves his family and talk to you about the time he started a jam session with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins called the Million Dollar Quartet .
But I think the reason that there is a “Ring of fire” between Johnny Cash, myself and my wife comes down to one little equation…
Uncommon Talent + Personality = Superstar
How You Can Use this Equation to touch People With Your Words…Not in a Perverted Way 
I kind of love Cash even though I have never met him, and I realize that he could very possibly have been a total dick sometimes.
As a music marketer connecting with your fans by email, you need to be able to use words like a magic wand that communicates this talent and personality to the world.
The best way to learn good online communication is to find someone who you think writes well, and then model their style. After a while you will find that your words have much more impact and the potential to reach a mass market.
For the rest of this article I’m going to give you some advice on how you can start to make your emails more effective…
1. Be a Storyteller
People don’t just want to hear that your new album is coming out next week. They want to hear how the bass player nearly died when you crashed the tour bus, or about the singer crowd surfing 4000 people at your latest show.
Humans have always shared stories as a way to communicate better, and if you can use this in the messages to your fans you will see the benefit.
2. Not Every Email Has To Be 500 Words Long
OK so this kind of goes against what I just said one second ago about stories, but sometimes you also want to mix in a few short messages to your fans because a big bulk of text online is like finding a dead rat in the bed for most people…you just try and get rid of it as soon as you possibly can.
There are some cases when you just want your fans to click on the email link and vote for you in a competition or watch a YouTube video. So keep things short and snappy.
*Tip* Never write more than a few sentences per paragraph for online copy, especially if you are writing a longer message, because people will move on. Test this out and you should see consumption of your work go up a lot.
3. Write 100 Headlines
OK so you marketing shy musicians are going to have to leave the room for a minute while I talk to you about the most important thing of all in marketing.
Headlines are everything because without good headlines your stuff will never see the light of day.
They are everywhere…
- Twitter posts
- Facebook messages
- Band names
- Email subject lines
- Video titles
- Album titles
- Blog posts
- Club night names
- Interview topics
The headline is what gets the attention and without attention you have nothing.
So make sure that you come up with a whole bunch of them and then pick and tweak the one that you think will work the best.
After a while you will have data to see what worked best and got most attention.
Albert Einstein said that insanity was “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
So if your emails are not working either make them more effective or don’t bother sending them.
4. Talk to Homer Simpson
When writing anything online you need to keep Homer in mind.
Now I know that you like to think that all your fans are clever Harvard grads, but to be honest with you most people only get around to reading a band email after 1000 other spam messages for all kinds of penis enhancement therapy.
It worked by the way
So by the time they get to read your stuff their IQ has reduced considerably, and the most simple command can seem like rocket science.
If you want your fans to do something, explain each step in easy to understand and friendly detail, and talk to them as you would to your best friend.
5. One Email One Action
This is so important that I’m going to shout for those who have been to too many gigs and can’t hear me.
!!!ONE EMAIL ONE ACTON PEOPLE!!!
Let me explain…
If you send a newsletter type message once a month that has links to five new videos, 15 new blog posts, and a partridge in a pear tree, the chances of your audience clicking on any one of those links is greatly reduced.
If something is worth sending to your fans, then you need to make sure that they see it.
What I mean is that if you spend a week making a music video then bury it with a whole bunch of other links, you might as well have stayed at home and made corn flake cakes. Because only a couple of people will see it, and that is not enough to start your viral spread.
The moral of this story is that you want to send out messages about one thing at a time.
Final thoughts
You don’t have to be Steve Jobs to work out the formula for long term music success and building your fan base. As a musician you have one goal and one goal alone.
Get your fans to like you…a lot!
…and this takes us all the way back to Johnny Cash. I read his whole book and listened to his music for the last week because I like him.
Your biggest music marketing tool right now is to be able to talk like a nice human being in emails. If you can get that right while entertaining and inspiring people you don’t even have to be the greatest musician of all time.
Music fans follow people that they like…simples!
Talk soon,
- Chris
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