Why Your Mailing List Is Your Most Important Asset

[john]

Based on the "How To Become Successful" Poll

I recently created a poll under the topic title "How to become successful" about what single asset or tool would musicians and artists consider the most important. I see artists promoting themselves in quite creative ways but from discussions between artists I can see that understanding of how things fit together is often a bit confused. Here are the results of that poll.

The Results

• Your Own Web Site 33.33%
  
• YouTube 14.81%
  
• Blog 0.00%
  
• Mailing List 18.52%
  
• Twitter 0.00%
  
• Facebook 7.41%
  
• Myspace 3.70%
  
• Access To Forums For Promotion 11.11%
  
• Reverbnation 7.41%
  
• iTunes 3.70%
  
• CDBaby 0.00%
  
• Soundcloud 0.00%
  

Is the combination of these is best? Yes, it is true using these tools and assets together is the best solution.

It all depends on getting the maximum value from your tools and assets and your time. Your time is valuable, so whatever time you spend on something unmusical like promotion had better be worthwhile!

What is important?

In a word - communication

An active fanbase helps grow itself and your popularity. Fans recommend you to their friends. Fans need encouraged with information and you are responsible for getting them the information they need at the time you want them to get it.

Your music and everything about your act has to be provided to your fans in a way and at a pace that they can digest it. They need to know when songs and albums will be available, tour dates and locations, when you will appear on TV etc, and it is up to you to tell them. Timing is important, and so is the process. Timing and process are used to form marketing campaigns.

There is a need to control your communication with your fans, whether that is through a website, social media, press, tv, radio, internet radio, email or otherwise. The tools that give us the best coverage, the best control and the most flexibility become your strongest individual music industry asset.

Lets be very clear, it is NOT that you only use one tool, it is that you use the tools wisely. Knowing the most important tool at least helps you put the emphasis of your effort in the right place at the right time.

We need something that will stand the test of time, where as much as possible WE own and are responsible for method being used. Otherwise we risk being left with nothing should a disaster happen (site closures, changes of policiy or going out of fashion).

The Reasoning

YouTube, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, the social networks of our time. Each gives you the opportunity to communicate with your fans and to grow the number of people who are exposed to your music and to your promotions.

The trouble is that social networks can go out of fashion.

You've just spent months or even years building your social connections when the site disappears (mp3.com - ok not a social network but it was the biggest promotion possibility for artists at one time) or becomes unpopular with fans because of band spamming (myspace).

One thing is sure, the majority of websites are only popular for a while, even when they are the largest of their kind. All your carefully nurtured connections are virtually worthless overnight. That is their biggest weakness. Contacts added like this are volatile 3rd party contacts and shouldn't be relied upon.

It's a sign of the times that no one thought of their biggest assest, yet it can be of considerable use as blogs get subscribers. In other words you post a message and it is pulled by other sites and blog readers, or notifies via email. People still visit blog sites all the time and subscribe to blogs they like.

Another benefit is that you can import your blog to Facebook and Twitter so from the effort of making 1 post on your blog you can also feed your info to your fans, friends and contacts. Your blog can also be listed on Network Blogs anad Technorati, two main stalwarts of the blogosphere, mixing social networking with blog ranking.

Sites like Reverb Nation (OMDs) allow you to upload your audio files, create an artist page, gain fans, sell your music and gain chart position. Unlike many sites Reverb Nation gives you access to your fan's email address, which somewhat insulates your efforts should the site disappear or become unfashionable.

The big problem with most Indie music sites is that the membership tends to be predominantly other artists. They are not fan centric.

Sites like CDBaby are a bit more focused on fans but they provide less tools for artists and don't provide access to email addresses. The biggest benefit for CD Baby is their integration with iTunes.

iTunes is a mainstream music retailer combining main stream acts with Indie artist releases. Unfortunately they provide no info on the fans you have gained. What they do offer is realistic charting and a broadly used platform that directly interfaces with the most popular mp3 players in the world.

Sound Cloud is still very much in the world of Indie Music, offering uploads and more but saddly lacking when it comes to building fans.

Forums can be useful, but they require quite a bit of effort to become a high profile member. They don't provide email addresses or fan info but they are excellent places to develop industry relationships, and relationships with other musicians or for getting feedback on tracks in development.

There are plenty music forums out there that do focus on fans but they don't often react well to Indie Music.

Yet again forums as a tool are somewhat volatile. Sites can disappear or become unfashionable.

Your own site gives you a lot of control, it gives you a place to host your audio and video and fundamentally it gives you a place to call home. The big drawback is that it can take ages to build traffic. They are useful news portals for your music but you have to get people there first. As far as dispersing your promotion messages goes, posting on the site also needs your fans to visit your site first before they get your message. A major drawback (It is better to push your message out at a time that suits you rather than wait for it to be pulled via a newsreader etc).

Mailing lists are collections of email addresses. They give you direct access to your fans (or as direct as you can get). They allow you to push the message out when it suits you. You get to keep the addresses so if the mailing software become unsupported or the mailing server you use goes bust, you are insulated from any damage.

You do need to keep your list up to date as people do change email addresses. This is an ongoing task and with decent mailing software you can deal with this automatically.

You can add sign up boxes to your site and often to other sites too, including Facebook.

Conclusion

In comparison the mailing list beats the other methods hands down. Build your Facebook, your twitter, grow your site audience, and join forums and music sites, but remember - you are looking for the fan's email address. The whole thrust of your web sites and web presence should be towards signing people up and getting their email address so that you can keep in contact with them.

Visitors to your site may of course buy or download one of your songs, but once they are gone they are gone, unless of course you get their email address.

Your biggest asset towards success is without doubt your mailing list. Built it and you build a lasting connection directly with your fans.

Having music is of course a pre-requisit!

[JohnMichaels]

Great article John!

My band recently realized this after facebook started giving us trouble and we've been building our mailing list like crazy ever since!

Do you have any ideas on how to 'approach' potential fans without being spammy?

[john]

Great article John!

My band recently realized this after facebook started giving us trouble and we've been building our mailing list like crazy ever since!

Do you have any ideas on how to 'approach' potential fans without being spammy?

Do you mean sending messages to subscribers to your list, or do you mean people who have previously no contact with you and are not subscribed?

In the first instance the trick is to engage your lists with "valuable" content about you, the artist. This could be anything from tour dates and announcements, new merch, free mixes of previously released songs, video interviews, acoustic or other performance videos.... get creative. The point is to try and create content people are interested in and a lot of which people want to share, so they help drive people to your site and ultimately to your lists.

in the second case, it's a bit trickier. It greatly depends on situation. If there is a community, forum or otherwise, then avoid drive-by-posting. ie don't only make posts about your music, your site etc. Take part in the community and you get a far far better response. drive-bys are next to useless. Always do it on-topic, and always within the rules of what you are allowed to do.

The same rules apply on chat rooms.

The most fruitful are where someone is interested in your music. Try and encourage them into asking for your link. That way you will not be accused of spamming. For example, don't take the approach of making your music front and center. Instead try talking about an artist who is similar to your sound, or who has influenced your sound. Perhaps bring up how that artist recruited fans (in more fan friendly language). Then drop in the conversation that you are in a band that is heavily influenced by, or similar to the artist you were talking about. Recording your song could have given you a new appreciation for the similar/influenced by artist. Also work in you are working away trying to introduce people to your music but it is harder than it looks, when you don't want to be spamming anyone (something you are keanly aware of and trying hard to avoid). Let them bring up "Do you have any music online" "Do you have a link to your music" etc. that is your in. Hit them with a link and directly ask them "if you like there's a newsletter/blog you can sign up for (give a second link if appropriate). Also add, if you like it please share it with your friends!

the good thing about this approach is that when someone searches for topics on the "similar to" artist they might find your post (For example start your topic with the similar to artist name somewhere in the thread title). the type of people the topic is likely to attract is anyone who is a fan of that artist. Ideal, because there is a higher likliehood that people driven through that topic are more likely to like your music (if your music really is in that ballpark) and then sign up and share, which is what you ideally want - fans driving their friends to your music. Music recommended by friends is FAR more likely to be liked by a new listener, than music they just stumble across. that is the whole reason viral marketing is so successful, so... viral!

Last point is, the best place to hunt fans is not music forums, it's fan forums. That's where the fans hang out. Identify artists in your genre, of a similar style or approach, find the fan forums and become a member. get to know key members, try and subtley recruit them.

The whole point is, engineer being asked for your music. Drop hints! Lead people to your music. Don't drag them!

What I find annoying and tedious is that more emails you have the more it costs to send them out using an email service. Its best if you create groups within your list to cater your mails specificly to those who will be interested otherwise you are spending money on sending mails to people who may potentially delete them. Since I promote and also do public relations its in my best interest to categorize by genre of music however as your list numbers start reaching the thousands its hard to keep up with whos listening to what these days lol

A very good point.