Hey Reader, I have this artist friend who reached out recently. They landed an opening slot on a tour and were asking me about ways they could maximize this opportunity to grow their text list. (Hey…email or not, it's an owned audience and I'm here for it.) They had a couple things we needed to keep in mind as we brainstormed: It was an OPENING slot and they wanted to make sure they were being respectful and not stealing any thunder from the headliner outside of their set. They had a small QR...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, There's this idea that email marketing is dead and that SMS is the only real way to grow an owned audience anymore. And if you're still building an email list instead of a text list, you're way behind the curve. First of all, email marketing isn't dead. (You're here, aren't you?) It is very much alive and to this day, the average ROI on growing your email list is $36 for every $1 you spend....if you use it right. SMS is great...But it serves a completely different purpose than...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, Picture this. You've been on three dates with someone. Three good dates. You're genuinely excited to see them again... And then they get down on one knee. 💍 You'd run, right? Not because you don't like them... because the relationship hasn't earned something as serious as a marriage proposal yet. Treating someone who signed up for your email list last week the same as someone who's opened every single email you've sent for a year, bought your merch, and shown up to three shows is...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, A few weeks ago I walked you through the 3 main metrics worth watching in your email dashboard: open rate, click rate, and unsubscribe rate. We talked about healthy benchmarks to aim for and what the data is telling you when you're not hitting those marks. While I mentioned optimizing your subject line as the best place to start increasing your open rates, there's another thing that creates a much bigger impact in this area than most people even realize... and that is...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, There are two kinds of subject lines. The kind that tell you what's inside, and the kind that make you want to find out. One gets opened WAY more often than the other. "New single out now" answers the question immediately. You already know what's inside. No need to open the email at all. A subject line like "the voicemail that changed this whole record" however, doesn't answer anything... It makes you curious about that voicemail though, doesn't it? This example creates something...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, A few of you voted for this topic in my last newsletter, and it tells me you might be thinking about your email list purely as a promotional channel. Before I get too far into this though...speaking of voting for topics... what do you want me to cover next? what do I even say in my first email? I don't want to annoy my fans...how often should I actually be emailing them? How do I get someone to actually open my email? By the way, I get why a lot of artists think of email as just...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, So you just sent an email to your list. You open your dashboard to check the stats...and you're staring at a bunch of percentages with absolutely no idea if they're good. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. Artists are told they have to market their music, but nobody really teaches how to know what's working and what's not. Quick question before we get into the content though... Before I sit down to write the next issue, I want to make sure it's actually useful to you... so...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, Picture the signup form at the bottom of most artists' websites: Join my mailing list for news and updates. (...Did I just call you out? 😉) Now picture a fan who just discovered you, loved the show, loved the songs, and checks out your website when they get home...And then they don't sign up. Not because they don't like you. They just saw "news and updates" and their brain went "Do I want more email?...Nah." The thing is... "news and updates" is not a reason to sign up. It's a...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, We didn't have a record. We didn't have a viral moment. But my former trio had an email list. And that list made us $5,000 in two weeks. Here's exactly how we built it—from bar gigs to house concerts—with no songs on Spotify. What We Actually Had (Spoiler: It Wasn't Much) My former trio had a unique sound: three-part harmonies tight enough to make you stop mid-drink. But no recorded music. No streaming presence. No fancy marketing budget. So we asked ourselves: What can we offer?...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read