Email marketing is a powerful tool and one of the most cost-effective and conversion-rich forms of digital marketing today. It’s an ideal platform for musicians to keep their fans informed about their latest releases, tours, and merchandise, and it’s also an ideal place to provide exclusive content for subscribers. This provides incentive for subscribers to stay on the list.
Email marketing is also an excellent tool for presenting sales offers to an engaged audience. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $38, or up to $70 for top performers (Data & Marketing Association), which is excellent value for money.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, up to 69% of marketers are using email marketing to disseminate their content, which makes it the third most popular content distribution channel behind blogs and websites. Email marketing platforms are also data rich, so it’s easy to track how successful a piece of content is.
Email continues to be the main driver of customer retention and acquisition for small and medium sized businesses. Data specifies that 81% of these businesses still utilise email as their preferred channel for acquiring new customers and 80% utilise it for the retention of customers (Emarsys, 2018). If you recognise that independent musicians and bands can, and should, be classified as small businesses enterprises, then it becomes apparent that this form of marketing is being heavily under-utilised.
To get started with email marketing, you’ll need to build a list of subscribers. There are many ways to do this, but one of the most effective is to offer something of value that fans will receive in exchange for their email address. This could be access to an unreleased song, a discount on merchandise, early access to new releases or exclusive access to a fan club. There are endless possibilities here and the options are limited only by imagination.
A key function of email marketing is the option to build automated sequences. Once you have set up the email list, sequences can be created that send out a series of emails to subscribers at predetermined intervals. For example, you might create a welcome sequence that sends out a series of emails to new subscribers, introducing yourself and your music. You could also create a launch sequence that promotes your latest release, or a re-engagement sequence that targets subscribers who haven’t opened your emails in a while. These sequences serve the function of nurturing and maintaining the list of subscribers.
When creating email sequences, it’s important to keep the audience in mind. Make sure that emails are engaging and provide value to subscribers. Include links to your latest music videos, blog posts, and merchandise pages, as well as calls to action that encourage subscribers to make purchases.
Possibly the greatest asset that email marketing provides is the likelihood of increasing sales and generating revenue. Presenting sales offers to the engaged audience that lives on an email list, is one of the best ways to increase revenue. It’s powerful because it’s personalised. Each person on the list is there because they have made a conscious investment in the career of the artist and this will translate to increased sales.