Your fans are interested in your music. They follow you on Facebook, Instagram and streaming platforms. However, it is sometimes difficult to keep them up to date with all your news because the algorithms are unstable and some of your news may be lost. Therefore, sending newsletters is the ideal alternative to independently promote your music and keep your community updated. In this guide, we share our tips on how to set up a unique and interesting newsletter that will delight the mailbox of your fervent fanbase.
1. What should I put in my newsletters?
Your newsletter is a unique opportunity to inform your fans about the development of your project. It is not necessarily intended to resemble classic commercial newsletters. The idea is to communicate about your “hot news” to your most committed audience. A fan’s inbox is a direct line to their attention. Your newsletter can be just a few photos from your last tour and a poem if you wish.
As long as you’re concise and catchy, you can put anything you want in it. Here are some ideas:
- All the upcoming tour dates
- Teasers and detailed information about your upcoming EPs, albums, singles or collaborations
- Your merchandising
- Links to new articles about your project
- Invitations to support a charity or cause that is close to your heart
- Words about your current situation, thanks or recommendations about your latest favorites.
Your newsletter is a way to showcase your art and share it with your audience. Everyone who subscribes to it is interested in you and the personality of your project, so show it!
2. Be true to yourself
The first step is to ask yourself how this newsletter could best represent you. And it must fit in with your visual identity and aesthetics. Whether your music is rather dark, colorful or with very specific tones, the challenge is to come up with an appropriate combination of colors, fonts and visuals that best suits you. Don’t just send what your fans expect from you. Think outside the box and don’t hesitate to create something surprising, fresh and interesting.
3. Collect your fan database
No one likes to receive spam, so don’t send newsletters to someone who doesn’t want to hear from you. This means finding a respectful way to collect email addresses from your fans. And to do this, here are the steps to follow:
- Keep a list on your merchandising table every time you play live and invite people to give their contact information if they want to follow your project. You can even give away a free sticker or other accessory to encourage people to sign up.
- Put a sign-up form on your website (or on the bio of your Facebook page) where your fans can sign up.
- If you offer free downloads of a track via Bandcamp, you can exchange these downloads for subscribing to your newsletter.
Give your subscribed fans a reason to be happy to follow your newsletter. One way to do this is to offer exclusive access to your works and some of your news. Let your fans know what’s in store for them and don’t hold back on sharing teasers. Offering a small discount on your merchandising is a great way to show your die-hard fans that you care. Plus, you’ll make money too!
| Read also: Musical Metadata: How to Master the Stats Perfectly in the Streaming Era
4. Tips and tricks for a quality newsletter
Ok, you followed all the advice I just gave you and you managed to get your first 20 email addresses back. What’s next? Obviously, you’re not going to send your newsletter to each contact individually. There are many marketing tools to generate newsletters with unique and personalized templates.
They also allow you to automatically update your database when someone fills out your online registration form. Even better, you’ll get all kinds of statistics on your mailings so you can understand what people like.
Here are some examples of marketing tools to automate the sending of your newsletters:
Each email you send must contain a subject, a body text and a call to action.
Newsletters – Example of the Pastel Coast album release newsletter
The subject of your newsletter should be designed to encourage the recipient to open the email. When the person clicks on the email, they will read the content and interact with the words and images it contains. This is called the call to action. If the purpose of your newsletter is to incite your fan to visit your website, to buy concert tickets or merchandising, you should include a call to action to direct them to this external content. So think about how these three factors work together to maximize your chances of getting your message across.
Newletters – Sample newsletter for musicians – The band Desert Sessions
| Read also: How to manage your social media accounts as musicians and stand out
5. Choose the right sending frequency
To keep your community in the loop, you must decide how often you want to send your newsletter and respect a calendar, ideally at a monthly or bimonthly interval. Sending a newsletter every day is unreasonable for anyone and could annoy your fans, especially if the content is not good. The goal is to send out a good newsletter regularly to stay on top of your fans’ concerns without annoying them.
Les newsletters sont très faciles à réaliser alors ne les négligez pas. Il est compréhensible que vous soyez plus préoccupés par la création musicale et que l’envoi d’une newsletter ne soit pas votre priorité absolue. En revanche, si vous voulez aller de l’avant et ne plus subir les “aléas algorithmiques” des réseaux sociaux dans votre stratégie de communication, les newsletters sont certainement à inclure dans votre arsenal marketing. Il s’agit de faire participer vos fans inconditionnels dans votre aventure. Soyez juste vous-même, partagez des choses qui ont de la valeur et vos fans vont adorer.
Newsletters are very easy to produce so don’t neglect them. It’s understandable that you are more concerned about creating music and that sending a newsletter is not your top priority. On the other hand, if you want to move forward and no longer suffer the “algorithmic whims” of social networks in your communication strategy, newsletters are certainly to be included in your marketing arsenal. It’s all about involving your unconditional fans in your adventure. Just be yourself, share things that are valuable and your fans will love it.
| To go further: 3 Most Overlooked Free Tools For Musicians To Grow
– Article written by Amy Cimpaye in its original version, translated by Mackenzie Leighton –
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