Why No One Is Reading Your Newsletter

MicControl is one of my favorite blogs as it's always filled with useful articles to help musicians navigate the social world. A recent article posted by Brian Franke called "Why No One Is Reading Your Newsletter" especially caught my eye. Here are a few of the common mistakes that artists make with their newsletters that Brian listed.

• “Come to my show” is too Predictable: When I see an email from a musician, I know they’re a musician.  I’ve grown tired of emails that focus only on a bands shows–because I already know you’re going to play live somewhere.  There is more to your career and to YOU as an artist, so start sharing that.  It’s cool to announce an important show, but I get bored if all you talk about is where you’re playing and how great a show it will be and that you’d love to see me there.  It’s boring.  And I won’t go to your show.

• Newsletter is sent Sporadically or too often: Once I got a newsletter from a band I really enjoyed.  And then I didn’t get another update for a few months, at which point I sorta forgot who they were and actually didn’t know much about who they were as a band since so much time had passed.  Rarely do bands do the opposite in sending emails too often.  In both cases though, folks are likely to unsubscribe or to never read your newsletter because you’re either too in their faces or not in their face enough.

• WAAAAAAAYYYYY Too long: I have a good friend who goes on and on and on in his newsletter.  Time is your enemy in a newsletter–the longer it takes to read, the less one wants to read.  It’s not that your fans don’t care, it’s just that their time is short and they have other life things going on.  And if your newsletter is just all text, it isn’t visually appealing by the way.

• Gain their trust before selling anything: I’ve seen newsletters that read like a commercial every time asking folks to buy stuff.  If that’s all you do in your newsletter, it comes across as selfish or gives the perception that you just want someone’s money.

• The one-sided conversation: The best newsletters are the ones that ask the recipient to get involved. Ariel Hyatt calls this giving your fans a call to action.  Don’t just send a message, start a conversation!  If you don’t, you won’t know what people think of the newsletter.  I have some ideas at the bottom on what could work.

There's a lot more great advice in the article, which you can read in its entirety here.

Also, MicControl has just announced MicControl Consulting, and they're having their first webinar entitled "Get Your Music Featured On The Right Blogs" on August 2nd. You can register and get more info here.

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How To Gain 200 Fans A Week

I recently clipped an article by Brian Mazzaferri of the band I Fight Dragons that discusses how the band gained 200 new fans a week. Unfortunately, the link to the full article is now dead, but I did manage to save some of the more valid points. Here they are with my comments following.

1. Give your music away, but don’t throw it away.

We’ve given away a free digital copy of our debut EP to everyone who signs up for our email list.  For people who don’t know us, it’s a free and easy way to learn about our music for free.  And then we’ve got their ear.  Note, this is VERY different to just posting it online for free download.  The price may seem the same, but the result is 100% different, because we now have a foot in the proverbial door.

They're following one of the golden rules of the Internet - you've got to give something to get something. In this case, what they really doing is harvesting email addresses, which is vital to their strategy of getting new fans. Even if the track that was downloaded doesn't interest the potential fan, they have a chance to grab them at least one more time because they have the email address.

2. Regularly give away stuff that’s way too good to give away.

Next, we send an email to our list every Monday at 11AM (for the most part).  More weeks than not, that email contains free music.  And not just some off-the-cuff track, it’s a track that is up to our personal standards, which I’d like to think are very high.  In holding ourselves to that standard, we give our fans something new that they really want to show their friends.  And when the next new track goes out, the new converts get to become the evangelists.  But they need new music to do that, and not just any new music, YOUR BEST new music.

Of course, giving something really good away to get a customer has been a sales strategy probably since the beginning of sales, but many artists see their music as so valuable that they're afraid to let it go. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, the fan will decide, but the fact that they're willing to part with what they consider their best to convert fans means that many of those fans will become purchasers at some time down the road.

The other thing important here is that staying in touch via a newsletter is a vital communication link with the fan. It's inexpensive, the fan feels good about receiving it (most times), and it's a controlled message. This is the reason why you want to harvest all those friend and follower addresses from social networks.

3. Be real, be available, and be involved.

This seems like a no-brainer, but it actually takes a LOT of work.  We’re on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, our Blog, and TheSixtyOne every day, talking with people and being involved in conversations.  I’m NOT talking about one-way, blast-yourself-out-there stuff like MySpace adding.  I’m talking about joining in conversations on Twitter that you have something to add to.  About commenting earnestly on music you like.  About joining a community, not trumpeting your own message.

Yes, it sure does take a lot of work, and that's why you must have a strategy in order to take full advantage of social media in an efficient way. It's too easy to spend all of your time communicating, then be so burned out that there's no longer time for the main event - the music. We'll cover social media management strategies in a future post.