Musicians Need Email Marketing: How To Create And Build Your Mailing List

Artists and musicians, devoted to their craft, often believe that the purity of their creative practice should bring them in front of a wide audience, and lead to success in their industry. Unfortunately, the current musical landscape is packed with budding musicians, each bidding for the attention of their audience. No matter how talented you are, you must find ways of connecting with your audience and building your reach. Email marketing is a hugely valuable component of a marketing strategy for musicians – email gives you a way of turning the touch-point of a gig into a long-term relationship, boosting your fanbase and turning you into a superstar. 

Do Musicians Need A Mailing List?

Making it in the competitive world of music is challenging. It can be tough to make an impact in this field, and no matter what your talent it’s hard to be spotted. That feeling of flying under the radar is frustrating, but the best way to make a splash is to get people talking about you. Every time you play a show, you have your audience’s attention for  a brief moment – building an email marketing list is a great way to optimize that attention. By collecting emails at gigs and shows, and spreading the word of new events to your growing fanbase, you can encourage organic, word-of-mouth growth in your audience. A mailing list is a great way of connecting with your fans and turning your talent into success.

Picking The Right Platform

To provide your fans with a professional service you’ll need to take advantage of email marketing platforms to organise your lists, keep track of who’s been mailed, and to help you compose visually appealing emails. Mailchimp is one of the most popular platforms for artists and creatives because it’s so customizable, but other platforms such as Constant Contact and Get Response can work too. Mailchimp’s popular, and free until your list grows beyond 2000 email addresses.

Making Contact

Building  an email list takes work but for the power of connecting with your audience, it’s worth it. Many musicians collect emails at gigs, when you’ve made an immediate impression on your audience. If you’re running a merch stall after the show encourage people to sign up when they come over to buy your latest CD.

“People are often reluctant to part with their details, no matter how much they’ve enjoyed your show,” says Alexandria Widman, a marketing blogger at State of writing and Write my paper. “Try to incentivize the sign up by offering free stickers, badges or pins. Every email address you collect could be another ticket sale at a future show.”

Using Your Website

You should also be collecting emails through your website – you do have a website, right? Many people will search for your web presence after a gig, or even when they read about an upcoming show. By prominently displaying a location for web users to input their email address you’re collecting valuable information that can turn into ticket sales or downloads of your next single. In marketing speak, the first page that new listeners come to is often called the “landing page” and by designing a page that centres around collecting email addresses and other key user information you can dramatically boost your audience.

Email Ideas

Keeping your fanbase updated about upcoming gigs is one of the primary uses of an email list – after all, you love playing to a large crowd. However, in recent times physical gigs have been hard to come by as gig venues have closed under COVID restrictions.

“There are so many more ways to keep your audience updated,” says Jimmie Gilman, a business writer at Paper Fellows and Essay Roo. “Online gigs have been growing over the past year, but any new release of a single or album is a good opportunity to connect with your audience.” If you’re busy working on new music and don’t have anything to share with your fans, then an email offering a free download of an old B-side can be a great way of getting their attention.

Thanks, And Goodnight

Whilst musicians are often reluctant to engage in email marketing, fearing that it compromises their underground status, this is an essential part of growing your audience. You can’t make it big without connecting with a wide fanbase, and email marketing gives you the staying power in people’s hearts and minds.
Elizabeth Hines is a digital marketer and content writer at Coursework service and Buy Critical Essay. She supports creatives to grow and has been converting passions into professions for  ten years. She also writes for online magazines and blogs, such as OX Essays, and others.