The most common fault I find in Music Producers today is not making beats or having a lack of engineering skills, It’s the art of communicating with audiences that will actually listen to them.
Email Marketing is just one channel out of many that prove effective time and time again, with average attention rates at around 40%, An engaged email list can provide results that easily saw above those who concentrate solely on social media or any other traffic generation method.
In this article, I will show you the advantages of mastering Email Marketing as a channel to ultimately grow a Music Business and ultimately succeed in a market where many loose.
What You Will Learn
- Why Social Sucks!
- The Advantages of Email Marketing for Music Producers
- How to Define your Email Marketing Goals
- The 80/20 Principle of Selling Online
- How to get started with Email Marketing
Why Social Sucks!
It’s obvious that Social Media DOMINATES in the eyes of the public, but once you control a real social media page with a reasonable following, you will begin to understand how hard it is to gain fathomable results.
On average only 6% of people following your Facebook page will ever see your content, Let alone engage with it, That number, of course, can differ depending on your market, but to truly be successful on social media it comes down to being consistent, posting engaging content every day, plus blood sweat and tears.
If you have the manpower that may not seem hard to achieve, but if you’re a one-man-band then consistently posting and creating content as well as being in the studio can be a drain on your health, and heartbreaking if your efforts go nowhere.
With Social Media you’re consistently fighting against an algorithm that changes almost every day, slowly taking the power of control further and further away from the page owner, Unless you have the budget to invest in ads.
“Email Marketing is the only form of online communication where you’re in 100% control!”
No audience is as targeted to the product you offer as the audience you build from scratch, And no other form of communication is as direct and as personal as an email, If someone gives you their email address what they are saying is that they give you permission to open a line of communication.
They have probably found you through your social media pages or viewed one of your videos, now it is up to you to show up consistently, give them value and tighten the gap between those who will buy from you and those who will not.
The Advantages of Email Marketing for Music Producers
I’m not writing this to knock any other form of traffic, but I hope that this guide will show what is worth focusing your time on when your goal is to build an engaged fan base and sell beats to them.
The advantages of Email Marketing are relatively easy to understand, If you know how to write an email, there is no excuse to not include it as apart of your growth strategy.
- Direct Communication – You can send updates directly to your audience. On social websites, you post information and hope your audience comes across it. With email marketing, your information is sent directly to their inbox.
- Build Trust – By sharing helpful information with your audience you can build trust for your name and brand.
- Email Data – With email marketing you can track click-through rates, email open rates, and conversions. With this information, you can learn and improve your marketing to understand what is working and what is not.
- Automate Emails – You can set up emails to be automatically sent once someone signs up for your email list. This will allow you to send out emails for a couple of weeks without you having to do much after your initial set up.
Defining your Email Marketing Goals
Before you jump in headfirst with Email Marketing, you first want to define what it is you want to achieve.
This could be anything, including:
- Selling beats
- Getting more streams
- Attaining youtube views and subscribers
- Selling sample packs
The possibilities are endless, the point is that email marketing is a reputable form of communication that is direct, and contains only your most engaged fans.
The 80/20 Principle of Selling Online
Whether you sell beats or nappies, any business that sells something online has to build authority within their chosen niche, When sending emails to your list it’s important to always stick to the 80/20 principle;
- 80% Value stacking emails
- 20% Sales
80% of the time your goal should be to provide value to your audience, this could be anything from sending a YouTube video, a well written article, or competitions.
After you’ve spent time building authority and gaining your audience’s trust, you’ll be in a much better position to spend the remaining 20% of your time focusing on landing a transaction.
How to get started with Email Marketing
Throughout the past few years, I’ve dabbled with a number of different email marketing platforms, Each of which has their own unique feature list.
The platform you choose will be dependent on what you’re aiming to achieve, Some of the best platforms I have experience with and can personally recommend are Mailerlite, ConvertKit and GetResponse.
Each software has different capabilities but all of which are perfectly valid options to cater to your needs.
Do want to sell beats?
If you want to sell beats then Drip may be the better option for you, Drip sets itself aside other platforms by having unique tracking capabilities that can monitor what those on your email list do on your website, Once you’ve gathered some data you’ll be able to make informed decisions about what to promote to your list in a more aggressive manner by focusing on the products that receive the most attention.
One feature of Drip that I love the most is having the ability to automate sending a customer an email after a given period time if they have not taken the action you want them to.
If we were to put this feature to the test on a beat selling website, we would set up an automated workflow inside of Drip to send the subscriber an email after a period of time offering a discount on a beat they listened too, Instead of paying $200 for an exclusive you might offer them a 10% discount.
The more personal the approach, the better the results!
The lesser the cost, the lesser the features.
ConvertKit is an excellent option if you’re on a budget, I personally used ConvertKit for just under a year, As an Email Marketing platform they do they their job, and VERY well.
While ConvertKit may not be as diverse as drip it still packs a punch and delivers a long list of features and high deliverability rates.
A feature unique to ConvertKit is having the ability to offer a prospect an incentive download with ease, While this is possible in other platforms, ConvertKit manages to make the process of setting it up a whole lot easier.
A handy feature is also their selection of sign up forms and landing pages.
Does it need to look pretty?
If you have a flair for design and want to send pretty HTML emails to your list then GetResponse is the choice you should lean towards.
Offering a HUGE selection of Landing Page Templates, Sign up forms and a built-in email designer, GetResponse is hugely diverse and performs a bunch of variable tasks to an amazing standard.
With great Automation features as well as the ability to host webinars from within the app, GetResponse is an excellent choice.
The only reason I ended up leaving, Was because I found that the user experience was much better for me personally in Drip, tedious things like adding subscribers to a list tended to feel like a very long and drawn-out process.
If Email Marketing feels like the right choice for you to start growing your music business, then you sir! are a smart person.
The good news is that trying it out costs you nothing.
Mailerlite
Mailerlite offers a free accounts of up 1000, with the ability to use some advanced features that are often are only seen in high priced accounts in other email marketing platforms, for instance out of the box you’ll have access to Forms, Landing Pages, Embedded Forms, Promotions, and Automation, you’ll only start paying for your account once you get to 1001 subscribers and then your account will only cost you £8 a month, which is ridiculous!.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit kit offers a 14-day free trial If you want a simple to use platform with a nice list of features and is very reliable, it’s been some time since I last used ConvertKit. I only stopped because at the time I need a free alternative due to financial constraints, but I would highly recommend their service to anyone, the interface is simple and their delivery rate is exceptional, throughout my time using them I made more money from email while using ConvertKit then any other platform.
Sign up for a free account of up to 1000 subscribers. Click here to sign up.
GetResponse
GetResponse offers a very generous 30-day free trial all though the UX is a little bit more complicated then my other recommendations but, however, 30 days is more than a good enough amount of time to learn, GetResponse offers an amazing amount of features including, creating Newsletters, Autoresponders, Landing Pages and Forms.
On top of that you’ll also have the option to pay a little bit more for your subscription to get features such as hosting Webinars, A Simple CRM, and a brand new feature called AutoFunnel, which pretty much enables you to sell your products to your subscribers on repeat very easily!
Are you using Email to grow your Music Business? What strategies work best for you?
With 17 Years music production experience, George Matthews is the CEO of Your Local Musician, he also makes music under the name Grimmm and releases Lo-fi music.
