Email, despite being decades-old technology, is still critical for a musician’s success. In this article I’m going to go over the basics of how to create an email list for musicians. I’ll cover why it’s important, provide some content ideas, and give some proven techniques for growing your list. It’s never too early to start your list, so lets dive in.

Why a Musician NEEDS an Email List

I love social media. I genuinely enjoy creating content and interacting with people. However, social media sites come and go (Google+? Anyone still use MySpace?) and algorithms change regularly affecting your reach. Accounts get banned or hacked.

When you create an email list, on the other hand, you own that list and it gives you a direct channel to your fan’s inbox. Additionally, while open rates are often only in the 10-15% range, that’s still far better than most engagement rates on social media.

Why Can’t I just use Gmail?

You can… for replying directly to people, but you want to use a bulk email service provider such as Mailchimp, Drip, Convert Kit, or Constant Contact to send your emails. These services provide the ability to automate series of emails to new subscribers and they also provide useful data you don’t get from your personal account such as who opened your email, what links they followed, and even a rough geo-locations. This is tremendously useful as it helps you provide more relevant content to your readers so you don’t annoy them. For example, you can send emails only to your fans in Florida about an upcoming show in Orlando. Bob in New York just doesn’t care.

Even on the free version of Mailchimp you get a variety of useful data. Here’s a quick peak at part of my dashboard. Clicking the mail icon allows me to quickly send an email to people who haven’t engaged in a while, or just those that live in a specific city.

Picking an Email Service Provider

I use Mailchimp. They’ve been in the business since since 2001 and they offer a free tier until you reach 2,000 subscribers. There are plenty of other providers, I just don’t have any experience with them. If you’d like to read a comparison of what’s out there, here’s a good article.

Once you’ve selected your email provider, I suggest spending some time thinking about who you’re writing to, what you’ll write about, and how you plan to grow your list.

Who is your Avatar?

If you don’t already know who your audience is, this is your first step. Who are you writing music for? Who do you want on your email list? Get as detailed as you can with this. How old are they? Where do they hang out? What do they like to do? What websites do they frequent? Perhaps even give this avatar a name. Think about having a conversation with this avatar whenever you’re writing anything, from emails to blog entries.

I personally have two avatars in mind: the first are people who enjoy my music and what I do (cosplay-raver types), then the second are producer-DJs who want to learn Ableton and get into music and marketing. Because of that, I have two different segments within my email list.

Two Ways to Send Email to Your List

You’re going to want to use two types of emails: automated and regular. Automated emails are part of a series that goes out over a specified period. Regular emails go out when you manually send them. Both are important, so lets talk about each.

Automated Emails: What to Write About

Before you create your email list, you’ve got to think about content. Start with a welcome series of emails. These are designed to introduce people to you and your brand. Sit down for an afternoon and write at least five emails in a Word document or a Google Document. Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Welcome to the list. Deliver whatever might have been promised (from an opt-in form, for example) and let them know what to expect from the list. Your first email will have your highest open rate of any of your emails, so make a great first impression!
2. A little about you / your band
3. A challenge you overcame
4. Your worst show… or best
5. A free resource you like
6. The backstory on a song
7. A behind-the-scenes look (What’s it like in the studio? What’s it like on tour?)
8. Give away something. I like to give a ways some of my music for free. Malichimp, unfortunately, only allows up to 10mb/file. I’ve gotten around this by linking to Google Drive instead. You can create a direct-download link with a quick URL tweak.
9. Ask a question. Google Survey or Surveymonkey work well. Find out what your audience likes or doesn’t. In my welcome series I have a poll about which streaming platforms my audience prefers, and I keep gathering this data so I know which sort of links I should be sharing most.
10. Link back to something you created (a YouTube video, a blog post, etc). I plan to add an email to my producer series, for example, that includes about half of this article with a link (Call To Action, or CTA) to read the rest of the article here. Why not just send the whole article? Getting people to your website gives them the opportunity to read other useful content, discover your merch store, or follow links to your other social media. If you’re using a Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics, it also gives you a chance to learn more about their online preferences.

After you’ve got at least five emails, set them to go out every few weeks after someone new signs up for your email list. This guarantees you’ll stay in front of your audience on a regular basis. I keep adding to this welcome series as I think of new things to talk about. I also subscribe to other artist’s email lists to get ideas. The longer your list, the better.

I have a separate series (segment) for music producers offering regular tips for producing and marketing. If you’d like to see exactly what my email list looks like, I’d love for you to join mine… just fill out the form on this page if you missed the popup. If you check both boxes you’d get an email every three weeks on Tuesday from my welcome series and then on Thursdays you’d receive an email with production tips. I try to avoid sending two emails to anyone on any given day.

Regular Emails: What to Write About

Anything that isn’t part of your automated series! Since my automated series go out Tuesday mornings for the welcome series and Thursday mornings for the producer series, I try to send out regular emails on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, or the weekend. These may cover:

1. New music releases
2. Upcoming shows (geo-targeted to people in that state)
3. Announcements about something exciting
4. A giveaway I’m running (just because you’ve already got their email address doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be given a chance to win too! Plus, with Kingsumo you get extra chances to win based on social media follows.)

General Guidelines

These ideas come from Pat Flynn and his eBook, Email the Smart Way. Go get a copy for free at the link. Pat Flynn is an online marketing genius and his Smart Passive Income podcast is worth listening to. He also has a very sophisticated email marketing funnel: try subscribing and watch what he does.

1. Keep email formatting simple. Your subscribers will be seeing the email on a wide variety of platforms (mobile, tablet, desktop). Fancy formatting will break.
2. Each email should include one (and only one) Call To Action (CTA). Most of my emails ask my subscribers to go stream something, follow me somewhere, read a blog post, etc.
3. Put the CTA links on their own line to make them stand out.
4. Always preview your emails on multiple devises.
5. Subscribe to your own list.

Five Ways to Grow your Email List

If you’ve gotten this far you know who your audience (avatar) is and you’ve got some emails drafted in a Google Doc. Now you’ve got to think about how to get people to sign up for your list. Here are a few ideas. I’ll sort them from easiest to implement to most technical.

1. Ask people! After I interact with people on social media and I think they’re a good fit, I’ll ask if they mind if I add them to my list. Assuming they give permission, I go over to my website and register their email address for them.
2. Trade stickers for email sign-ups at live shows. I’ve used StickerMule in the past and they do a good job. If you sign up for their email list you can get some really good deals if you’re patient too.
3. Givaways: This has been my biggest success. The key to running a giveaway is to ensure the product you’re giving will appeal specifically to your target audience. For example, if you give away an Amazon gift card everyone will apply. That’s not who you want on your email list. I’ve used a free platform called Kingsumo several times with good success. It will also feed email addresses directly to your email list via an API key. If you want to learn more about how to use Kingsumo, listen to this podcast episode. Once you get your giveaway set up, I recommend spending some time DMing or messaging fans directly.
4. Landing pages: give something digital away in exchange for email addresses. This could be original music, sound packs, e-books, or even conference notes. Whatever your audience would be interested in. Here’s an example of a clean landing page made with Mailchimp.
5. Popups on your website: you do have a website, don’t you? All email services providers will give you some way to collect emails via your website using their API. In my case, I’m using the new popup builder in Elementor. At $50/year, it is much cheaper than other services like Optinmonster that want $10-50/month. Additionally, Elementor is a full-featured website builder for WordPress so popups is just an added bonus.

Answer your Emails!

Let your fans know you answer your emails… and then do! If a fan replies to your bulk email, it will go directly to whichever email account you’ve got registered in Mailchimp. This is a terrific opportunity to engage people on a personal level and foster a connection.

️How to Create Your Email List: The Technical Stuff

Once you’ve identified your avatar, got your PO box (see below), and given some thought to your content you’re ready to start. Here’s a recent YouTube walk-through that will get you started if you decide to use Mailchimp.

Caution!

As soon as you begin collecting emails, you need to start thinking about protecting your fan’s privacy and their rights. This is particularly important if you have fans in Europe where they have especially stringent privacy laws, known as GDPR. I am not a lawyer: this area gets very technical and I strongly recommend you seek legal advice here. Elementor has a simplified explanation for websites.

Mailchimp provides legal disclaimers in their emails as well as required opt-out links at the bottom of every email which is good. Where this gets more tricky is when you start using Facebook Pixels and Google Analytics to collect additional data. We’ll save that for an advanced article.

I strongly recommend setting up two-factor authentication on everything you can do… that’s part of protecting your data and your customers’ information. My one complaint with Mailchimp is that they only offer SMS two-factor authentication which isn’t as strong as an app-based two-factor authentication.

Finally, U.S. law requires you list a physical address with each email. Mailchimp lists this at the bottom of every email, so before you start your email list you’ll want to go get a P.O. box to protect your privacy. This will cost you about $100/year from USPS.

Thanks for Reading!

If you found this blog post helpful please leave a comment or question below and share this with a friend! Shout-out to Yewz for asking me to write this (via an email!). Go check out his music, he’s killing it. What topic would you like me to cover next?