The Complete Guide To Email Marketing For Musicians

This post was written by Jon Ostrow and originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.

While social media continues to dominate the focus of online marketing discussions, there is no question that email has, is, and will continue to be the key to success for musicians. With a strong email list and a proper email marketing strategy, comes long-term success.

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How To Successfully Promote Your Music

Before Facebook and the era of social media, it was estimated that the average person was exposed to some 2000 ads every day - billboards, television commercials, signs in grocery stores and storefronts, etc, etc.

Since then, that number has probably doubled. This makes promotion very tricky. How do you successfully promote your music when there is so much competition? Below are 6 things you must do to stand out in a sea of clutter, make a dent with your music, and continue to grow your fanbase.

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How to Write Engaging Newsletters - Ariel Hyatt's Greeting, Guts and Getting!

Are you still not sending out newsletters to your fans? Studies prove you should be… Boston based research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey has completed a study that all musicians should know about. Here are the important highlights:

Three-quarters of web users are likely to share content with friends and family, and nearly half do so at least once a week. But while much social networking content is built around such shared items, most people still prefer to use email to pass along items of interest.

The study goes on to say:

Overall, 86% of survey respondents said they used email to share content, while just 49% said they used Facebook. Broken down by age, the preference for email is more pronounced, as users get older. And only the youngest group polled, those ages 18 to 24, reverses the trend, with 76% sharing via Facebook, compared with 70% via email.

So, if your audience is older than 24 you better be thinking about your newsletter strategy now! In conclusion the study says:

“Rather than focusing on sharing content they thought the recipients would find helpful or relevant (58%), most respondents cared more about what they thought was interesting or amusing (72%).

Here’s the entire study if you want to read it (with lots of pretty graphs too): http://bit.ly/b4dfcI

So, ask yourself: Are you including content in your newsletters that is interesting and amusing?

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Why No One is Reading Your Newsletter

A little over a year ago I read a chapter in Ariel Hyatt’s book Music Success in Nine Weeks on newsletters.  After reading it I felt like I had made many many mistakes with how I was writing my music newsletter.  I began a journey in salvaging whomever I had left that was reading them to use a new format to re-engage them in my music career.  One in which I feel many musicians will have to do based on what I am going to say below.

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3 Musician Marketing Basics: Newsletter, Products & Polls

I’m just back from the mighty ASCAP Expo in Los Angeles. I learned so much from the hundreds of artists I spoke to over the 3 days there and I boarded the plane with a whole new perspective on just how confronting marketing and social media is to 90% of artists. You guys REALLY hate this stuff. You hate it so much that I literally felt like I had been beaten up over the concerns, complaints and sheer confusion directed my way. So I will kick off with this: Making it in music is HARD

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How to Write Engaging Newsletters - Ariel’s Greeting, Guts, & Getting!

Are you still not sending newsletters? A new study proves you should be….

Boston based research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey has recently completed a study that all musicians should know about.

Here are the important highlights:

 “Three-quarters of web users are likely to share content with friends and family, and nearly half do so at least once a week. But while much social networking content is built around such shared items, most people still prefer to use email to pass along items of interest.”

The study goes on to say: “Overall, 86% of survey respondents said they used email to share content, while just 49% said they used Facebook. Broken down by age, the preference for email is more pronounced, as users get older. And only the youngest group polled, those ages 18 to 24, reverses the trend, with 76% sharing via Facebook, compared with 70% via email.”

So, if your audience is older than 24 you better be thinking about your newsletter strategy now!

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University research proves that the smart interlinking of multiple artist-controlled web properties drives success

I recently took a fantastic journey to Australia where I spoke at a music conference called Big Sound in Brisbane. There I had the honor and privilege of meeting Dave Carter, a Dr. at Griffith University who was presenting a fascinating study called The Online Marketing Research Paper. 

The Online Marketing Research Paper examines the web presence and sales data for 99 independent Australian artists distributed by Musicadium (a digital music & video distribution service) to identify whether any of the documented online activity corresponded with proportionally higher royalty returns to artists.

I think all artists should read through this important case study.  You can download it by visiting here: http://www.musicadium.com/online-marketing-research-paper

In my opinion Dave Carter found out some very interesting things: (Disclaimer: I may find this study so inspiring is it scientifically backs up my theories and teachings at Ariel Publicity and in my book/online course Music Success in Nine Weeks. Affirmation feels so sweet….)

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