Probably the biggest challenge of being an independent artist is juggling all the business-related tasks, while also squeezing in the necessary time to work on music and hone your creative abilities. Besides music, everyone has external responsibilities – work, family, pets, etc – preventing them from dedicating more time to writing and performing music. Understandably, it can be an overwhelming and frustrating struggle to balance.

I put together a list of time-saving tips for musicians that will give you more time to focus on what you are passionate about…making music.
 

#1: Limit Your Social Media Channels

 
Social media is a valuable tool for musicians to cultivate an online fan base, but it can have a downside too. I am sure you have found that it’s easy to get caught up trying to be everywhere online thinking you are reaching more people. With so many social media channels available, you want to ensure you aren’t spreading yourself too thin and reducing your effectiveness by being active on every single one.

If you find yourself spending hours a day bouncing from one channel to another, it may be time to reconsider your social media strategy.

Another related issue is spending too much time on social media. Even if you are limiting the channels you post on, it can still be a time sink if you don’t fully understand how to effectively market yourself on social media. If you find yourself spending a lot of time tweeting random people and commenting on every post to get exposure out there for your music, you are probably coming off as spammy and annoying.

#2: Social Media Automation

 
Automation is your friend. A good way to waste time is to do things technology can easily do for you. While I’m not a fan of automating everything, there are plenty of things that automation can take care of without making you come off as a robot. You should always interact and respond to fans in the old fashioned way.

#3: Email Marketing Process

 
Email is another important component that can be automated. Since email should be an integral part of your marketing efforts, it can take a lot of time to get the emails you send to fans perfected. Getting your email marketing process in place can save a good amount of time.

#4: Set Goals, Have a Plan

 
There are many artists out there who don’t have specific goals or have a good grasp on what they want to accomplish. Hopefully, you don’t fall into this category, because if you’re just winging it and hoping for the best, you may end up wasting time and money in the long run.

If you want to sell an album, you don’t just start recording music right away. There needs to be a plan that covers all the tasks you need to accomplish before successfully creating your album. By breaking your goal down into more manageable steps, there will be fewer obstacles to derail you and waste your precious time.

#5: Integrate Bandsintown to Promote Shows and Gigs

 
Live performances and tours are usually the largest sources of income for independent artists. This means having an easily accessible location for people to see your upcoming shows and gigs is a must. A great tool for this is Bandsintown.

Anyone who uses Bandsintown, and likes your Facebook page, will get a notification of your upcoming shows via email. The notification that is sent is a great way to update your fans about where you’ll be performing next.

#6: Get Things Organized

 
Many artists don’t think of being a musician as a “business,” but it is, and you should treat it as such. Even though it takes a little more upfront planning and time investment, it is a great time saver in the long run to create processes that keep your business organized. The sooner you establish set business practices and document them, the easier it is. Once you start getting your business organized, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it earlier.

With automated work processes and online documentation in place, it’s much easier for someone else down the line to take over those functions if needed. The more organized you are, the easier this transition can be.

List of things to organize:
– Booking and events
– Calendars
– Tax receipts
– Finances
– Photos and videos
– Logins
– To-do lists
– Press release

#7: Easily Submit Your Music to Multiple Playlists and Blogs

 
Getting your music in front of other audiences via music blogs, playlists, influencers and tastemakers is a great way to gain more exposure. With so many sites and channels, it can be overwhelming and time-consuming to approach them all individually.

#8: Build a Team

 
One of the biggest things musicians can do to save time is to seek help from others. After all, time is your most valuable asset. You need to be able to free up as much time to focus on the things that only you can do. It’s not feasible or cost-efficient to learn how to do everything and then execute all the tasks yourself when there are other people who can do it for you. You may think that you’re saving money this way, but don’t forget that there’s an opportunity cost attached.

Even if it doesn’t seem like this is your best option now, due to financial limitations, as you become more popular, your responsibilities will grow. When this happens, you should seriously consider paying people to take over certain responsibilities for you. Delegating out some of the tasks frees up more time to do what you’re good at and enjoy doing – being a fantastic indie artist.

Conclusion

 
Hopefully, you can see how at least a few of these tips can alleviate some of the stress you feel from your endless to-do list. Incorporating these changes will provide you with additional and much-needed time to spend writing, practicing, and performing music.
 

Question For You

 
Do you have any time-saving tips for musicians not mentioned here? Please share in the comments below.

The post 8 Time Saving Tips For Musicians appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

By now, you should already understand how important it is to have an email list as an independent artist. Getting fans to volunteer their email address is not always easy, but it is worth the effort. Being able to own your fan relationship and communicate to them directly is a valuable asset for those who want to make a living off music.

Where do you start if you want to build your email list? Here are the 5 most practical methods for you to effectively build an email list:
 

Getting started

 
Do you already have an email list provider that you are using to collect emails? If yes, you can skip this next part.

If not, you will need one. There is a wide variety of different email marketing services, but some of them only offer a short trial period before you are required to pay. For this reason, I recommend Mailchimp because it is free (up to 500 subscribers) which makes it ideal for new artists or artists on a budget.

Once you choose a provider and set up an account, you will want to figure out what information to collect with your list. Two common fields you want to ask for are email address (obviously!) and first name.

Pro-Tip: Another field that I believe is important in the long term is city and state. Down the line when you have a sizable email list, you will want to have the ability to easily segment or categorize your fans by geographical location. This way you can send emails that are more relevant to them.

For example, if you want to promote your show in San Francisco, you want to be able to select all your fans in that area to email. Your fans in Portland will most likely not be making the trip down to see you perform so it’s important not to clutter their inbox with irrelevant emails, risking they unsubscribe or marking your emails as spam.
 

1. Offering free music in exchange for email address

 
Although this has been one of the more common strategies to grow your email list, I feel it is slowly becoming less effective due to the popularity of on-demand music streaming. Digital downloads are in decline, which could be a sign that people find it troublesome to manage mp3s and find music streaming so much more convenient. However, this shouldn’t discourage you from offering free music to your fans.

As for what to offer, try a new single, mixtape or an older EP. If you really want this to be effective, offer exclusive tracks that you can’t get anywhere else like special covers or different versions of your songs. You can also extend it to other things outside of music like a coupon code for your online merch store.

2. Put a signup form on your website

 
Having a visible way for website visitors to sign up for your mailing list is a great way to collect emails. A common place is in the header or footer of your website.

How to add a signup form to your website will vary depending on your email list provider and what website platform you use. Check with your email list provider but usually it requires that you copy and paste some HTML code onto your website. If you use Mailchimp, here’s the link on how to do it.

If you want some more options on how to display a signup form on your website, you can also try MailMunch. Similar to Mailchimp, it has a free pricing tier that allows you to collect emails in different layouts. It links to popular email list providers like Mailchimp so you can build your email list using Mailmunch signup forms.

MailMunch – https://www.mailmunch.com
 

Consider using email automation

 
If you have a free offer like music downloads, you can also promote that as an incentive to sign up through your website. However, the easiest way to do this is to set up an automated welcome email for new subscribers to your list. Once they subscribe, they will automatically get an email with the download link for the free music. Most email marketing services should allow you to do this.

Please note: If you use Mailchimp, you can actually use their automation feature now for free (included in their free plan).
 

Where to send new subscribers to download their music?

 
You can use a link to your music on Bandcamp in the welcome email that new subscribers receive.

Another option is to just upload the free tracks on your web hosting and link it to them directly so that they can access it quickly without having to input their email address again. Note that this method will require some technical understanding.

You can also redirect fans to a “thank you” page after they subscribe that provides a link to download your songs. This way they can just download it right away without having to wait for the welcome email. If this is something you want to do, here are the two options:

Most email list providers should allow you to edit the confirmation thank you page, which is just the page new subscribers see. Just edit it to include the link to your download music.
If you want to create a separate thank you page on your website, you can redirect new subscribers to that page right after they confirm their subscription. For Mailchimp users, here’s how you do it.
 

3. Collect emails at your shows

 
One of the most effective ways I’ve seen emails get collected is at live shows. A group I work with, AstraLogik, leaves an iPad by the merch table to allow people to sign up. If leaving an expensive device makes you uncomfortable, printing out sign-up sheets should work fine as long as people print legibly.

Be sure to announce during and after your set what you are offering for being on the mailing list. If you offering a free download of your EP, mixtape or single, direct them to your merch table or where the signup sheet can be found. You can also offer other small physical items, like stickers, pins or even posters, in exchange for an email address.

To make it easier for fans, print a sheet with your QR code to leave on the merch table. Scanning the code will take fans directly your email sign up. Sites like bitly allow you to make QR codes for free.
 

4. Host a giveaway: sweepstakes or contest

 
This is probably the least practical strategy out of the 5 listed here, but it has the most potential to spread on its own and accelerate the growth of your email list. I have not seen this take place in music for a while, but I know it can be a powerful promotional tool from my experience doing it for small businesses. After all, people love free stuff. If done right, I believe it’s an effective way to grow an email list or even increase your social media followers. The way it works is fans exchange their email address for an entry into your giveaway.

The one downside is that giveaways do require a bit more planning. Not only do you have to establish rules, set the guidelines and track entries, you have to also make sure the prize is valuable and relevant to your fans. If it’s not desirable enough, there’s no incentive to go out of the way to enter the sweepstakes or contest.

If you have a new album or some merch, you can offer it to 5 randomly selected winners. Another possibility is to offer free tickets for your upcoming show. If you’re about to perform at a large music festival, VIP tickets could be an attractive prize. On the other hand, offering a free iPad, although valuable, is not relevant to you as an artist. Unless you pre-download all your music onto it and make the background your logo and picture, but even that may be too much of a stretch.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between sweepstakes (or giveaways) and contests. Oftentimes these words get used interchangeably but there are differences.

A sweepstake is a type of giveaway that is fully dependent on luck, meaning a winner is selected at random. This is the easier one to host and manage.

On the other hand, a contest is a type of giveaway that is dependent on skill, meaning the winner is chosen based on their abilities rather than luck. This route can work well alongside a new album campaign to generate buzz. But of course, this also requires a lot of work to put together. It would also need to be a highly valuable prize that would make it worth entering like a free live performance at the fan’s choice of location.

5. Add a sign up link to your social media

 
Last but not least, you can add a link to your email sign up form on your social media profiles and YouTube videos.

Instagram

 
Many people are using “link in bio” services like Linktree and Campsite.bio. If you are, simply add the sign up form as one of your links on your page. Some of these services may even have integrations for your email marketing service (i.e. MailChimp) so that the sign up for is embedded to your “link in bio” page.

For Instagram specifically, you can now add up to 5 URLS to your profile so you can even add your sign up form link in both places.

The main point here is make sure any social media profile with a place for your URL can direct people to an email sign up form.

YouTube Videos

Another area you can add an email sign up form is on your YouTube videos. You can add a link in your video description and even add an in-video ‘info card’ that shows up at a specific point of your video. Usually, you would likely want to prioritize your info card to link a place to stream your music or buy merch but an email sign up is an option too.

Call to Action Button on Facebook

 
All Facebook pages have a Call to Action button that you can customize a URL for fans to go to when they click on it. This is a great way to send people to a signup page for your mailing list or get a free download (which would also capture their email).

To edit your Facebook page action button from desktop, click on the ‘…” on the right side of your profile to see a drop down menu. Go to ‘edit action button’ and input the link to your email sign up form.

The drop-down menu offers a list of different options of what the button says on the page. Right below it is the URL of where a person goes if they click it. For example, AstraLogik takes people to their Bandcamp page where they can download free music in exchange for an email address.
 

Bonus Tip: Set Up A Welcome Email

 
Email marketing services will usually let you set up a welcome email that is automatically sent once someone opts-in to your list. The reason why it’s important is to help make sure your future emails will actually end up in their inbox and not their spam folders.

For the welcome email, try offering a free exclusive download to motivate subscribers to find and open that first email from you. Even better, ask a question like “what’s your favorite song of mine?” to encourage responses. Having subscribers respond to your emails will increase the chances of being white listed and your email getting past spam filters.

The post 5 Most Effective Ways Music Artists Can Build an Email List appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

I’m sure you already know that an email is better for reaching fans directly as opposed to social media. The way I like to think about it, social media is where your fans likes to hang out during lunch breaks or after work. Email is like having their home address, or even cell phone number.

Regardless of where you are in your music career or what your goals are, your priority should always be to build your email list. Why?

One of your most valuable online assets is your audience or fan base. More specifically, your email list, because it’s the most direct way to reach fans on a large scale that you actually have control over.

For artists just starting out, your focus may be to build up social media followers, but ultimately you want them to become email subscribers.

Here are 4 stat comparisons that show why email is going to be key to your success as an independent artist:
 

1. Total Account Numbers

 
Email is a staple for communication in our online world. It has been around longer than most of the top social media platforms out there so you would expect it to have more accounts. Pointing this out is not the most convincing argument, but it does help put things into perspective. Hold on, because I’m going to throw numbers at you:

The current world population is 7.4 billion.

According to Radicati, the total number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase to over 4.3 billion by the end of 2016. This means approximately 58% of the world population will have an email account.

According to Statista, the total number of social network users worldwide is 2.3 billion. The number of social media accounts consists of 32% of the world population, meaning that there are 2 billion more email accounts than social media accounts worldwide.

Based on these figures, it is pretty obvious that you can reach a lot more people via email than through social media accounts. You can also address an email and shoot it out to recipients across email platforms. This cannot be accomplished in social media. It will take a lot more time to send out your communication via each social media platform than one fully-loaded email.
 

2. Average Time Spent

 
The general perception is that people spend a good chunk of their online time in social media networks over email. However, a deeper dive into some research may prove otherwise.

Adobe surveyed more than 400 US-based white-collar workers, aged 18 and older, about their use of email. The workers questioned in the poll estimated they spend 6.3 hours a day checking emails, with 3.2 hours devoted to work emails and 3.1 hours to personal messages.

Glossing over the fact that these workers are using almost half their workday reading and responding to personal emails, there’s a lot of opportunities to reach your fans repeatedly throughout the day. It even provides the timeframe to remind them of your show later that night, so they can round up their work buddies and head over after work to see your set.

On the other hand, studies have shown that the daily time spent on social networks is around 1.72 hours a day.

If the email habits of white-collar workers that were studied can be attributed across the population, then the concept that social media takes up most people’s time during the day is false. Email never goes out of style.
 

3. Organic Reach

 
When trying to communicate something to your fan base, you want to make sure your fans actually get the message. The assumption is that all of our fans and followers see everything we post in their newsfeeds, which is becoming further from the truth, especially on Facebook.
 

Facebook Reach

Facebook gives you an initial organic reach of only 2%. Put another way, posting on Facebook with 1,000 page likes means only 20 fans will see initially see your post in the newsfeed. There is a chance that your post will be seen by more people if it receives engagement from your fans and followers.

As an advertising platform, Facebook wants to provide the best user experience to keep you in Facebook as long as possible. To do this, they use a complex algorithm to determine what are the best posts to show in your newsfeed that you will most likely engage with. If Facebook doesn’t think your post is good enough, your messages won’t effectively reach your fans.

Other Social Media Reach

The organic reach on Twitter is more than Facebook but still less than half of email. Twitter offers around 8% to 10% reach of your audience.

There isn’t available data that accurately reports the reach rate for other social media platforms, but earlier this year, Instagram announced that it was moving away from showing posts chronologically and following similar footsteps to Facebook by using an algorithm to determine what users see first.

It is safe to assume that Instagram’s reach will slowly decline, similarly to Facebook, to make sure artists put out only the best content for their fans. So unless you’ve been consistently engaging with your fans on this platform, your chances of reaching them on Instagram will slowly dwindle.

Email Reach

For the sake of this blog, we’ll consider when a person opens an email as reach. On average, your emails will reach 20% of your audience. With an email list of 1,000 fans, on average 200 of them will open your email. Through optimization and testing subject lines, you can definitely increase open rates for more reach. For tips on how to get more fans to open your emails, check out this blog.

Although there are no guarantees, certain techniques can help increase your open rate. It’s also important to know the likelihood that your fans are opening the emails you worked so hard to send.

The fact that music artists are at the mercy of social media channels makes a strong email list a much more attractive online asset. With an email list, you don’t need to worry about algorithm changes and hope that your posts will reach their intended audience in a market full of noise. Email reigns supreme as the most effective method of getting the attention of your fans.
 

4. Conversion Rates

 
I hope you’re listening (technically reading, but you know what I mean), because I am about to reveal the most important argument for why email is the most effective method to reach your fans. Drum roll please.

When it comes to getting fans to buy or spend money, email is the biggest influence. Take a look at these stats:

Full disclosure, the numbers are dated a couple years. Even so, I don’t think any significant changes have occurred since then that would drastically change these numbers.

Similar findings have been noted in other studies. Another report stated that 66% of online consumers made a purchase as a result of an email marketing message. All this makes sense when you piece together all these stats to form the bigger picture.

As an artist who makes a living off your music, you need fans that will buy your music and pay to see your shows.

The numbers show that sending emails to your fans gives you the best chance of a recipient reading your message and taking action. It is the best way to reach your target market and sidestep the social media noise. Read emails will result in increased fan purchases of your music and merch, and is the most effective method in sustaining your music career long-term.
 

Conclusion

 
This is not to say that emails are the only thing that matters, and I’m not suggesting you ignore social media either. Social media is still important for engaging fans and deepening the fan relationship on a regular basis. The one big advantage of social media over email is its ability to go viral and have posts spread quickly.

Social media serves as a stepping stone to your email list. If your fan relationship looked like a funnel, social media represents the top larger end while email is part of the narrower end at the bottom. At the end of the day, both these marketing channels play an important role together in helping you grow and engage a loyal fan base.

The post Social Media vs Email: 4 Stats Show Which is a Priority for Indie Artists appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

Getting started in the music business as an independent can be an overwhelming experience. There’s a lot to do and think about. Where do you start?

One thing you need is a solid online foundation that serves as a central location for people to learn more about you and your music. This should be your website. It is your own personal online space you have full control over to tell your story and narrative the way you want.

Before you dive in though, be sure to think about who your target market is or who you hope to attract through your music. It is crucial for your branding and what is reflected on your website.

Side Note: Branding is something gets commonly misunderstood but is really important to help musicians separate themselves in an over-saturated music industry. Your brand is your reputation. It’s what you stand for and what makes you special. Read up on these common branding myths so you don’t limit your potential as an artist.

Unless you know others who have been down this path, chances are you will have to figure it out for yourself. The good thing about this blog is everything linked here is free. This can be helpful early on, but you’re going to need to start paying for certain services to grow your career at some point. One of the first things will be your own website and custom domain name.

Here’s a quick list of free online tools and resources to get you started on your path as an independent artist:
 

Website

 
A website is such an essential part of your online presence that there’s no excuse for not having at least a decent one. Yet, there are many artists out there that just depend on social media. For most artists, it’s not good enough. The problem with just having social media followers is you don’t own the fan relationship nor do you have full control on those platforms. If you want to be taken seriously as an artist, then having a website will help others see that you are a professional and take your music career seriously.

People think websites are expensive, and that can be true if you have someone else create one for you. Luckily, there are several services that allow you to create one for FREE (or at a low monthly cost) and technical skills are not required.

It should be noted that there are drawbacks to using these free services:

• You have to use their sub-domain (Example – http://yourusername.wixsite.com)
• You have to pay to use a custom domain name such as http://yourartistname.com.
• There’s branding and ads that show it is a free site.
• The design templates are limited.

Note about domain names: Another important thing you need to do is buy a domain name for your artist or band name. As mentioned, you will have to pay for a monthly plan in order to use a custom domain (http://yourartistname.com) with one of the services above. If you don’t want to pay, I would at least spend the $15 dollars a year to own the domain name so no one else can take it.

Social Media

 
Social media provides a platform to gain exposure for your music, but also to engage and connect with your fans.

You may already have some of these social media accounts for your own personal use. I would still recommend signing up for all the big ones under your artist or band name even if you don’t plan on posting on them. Why? Although you won’t use them all, you prevent others from creating accounts using those names and pretending to be you.

• Facebook Business Page – facebook.com/pages/create/
• Twitter – twitter.com
• Instagram (Sign up in app)
• Snapchat (Sign up in app)
• TikTok (Sign up in app)
• Youtube / Gmail – gmail.com
• Soundcloud – soundcloud.com
• Bandsintown – bandsintown.com
• Songkick – songkick.com
• Pinterest – pinterest.com
• Reddit – reddit.com
• Bandcamp – bandcamp.com

A note about email: You will also need a separate email address for music related purposes. I highly recommend getting a Gmail account so that you can link your Youtube and Google Analytics (explained below) together in one convenient account.
 

Email List Building

 
One of the best services for new independent artists to collect and send emails to fans is Mailchimp. The big reason why is you can use their service for free for up to 500 subscribers and send up to 1,000 emails in a month. You are able to reach a lot of fans for free this way, and for someone just starting, you may not need to pay for a while.

The best part is Mailchimp recently announced that automation will now be an included feature as a part of the free plan (before you had to pay as low $10 a month to use). One function of email automation allows you to send someone an email automatically when someone subscribes to your email list.

Another great option is ConvertKit. Unlike Mailchimp, you get up to 1,000 subscribers for free.

A great free tool that goes with Mailchimp is Mailmunch. It’s a list building tool that can link up to Mailchimp so you can grow your list on Mailchimp.

The reason why you want this is for its ability to capture emails on your website, specially on platforms like WordPress. You can create pop-up and embedded forms for your website with Mailchimp. However, I find that the pop-up function for Mailchimp is really bad because you can’t close the window on mobile.

Just like Mailchimp, you can use Mailmunch for free with some limitations. You create as many forms as you want but you cannot use them for more than one site. It also displays their logo.

Music Marketing / Promotion

 
When it comes to marketing your music, promotion is arguably just as important as making the music itself. You have to properly promote it to the right people to grow your fanbase. Here are some free tools to help aid you in the promotion process.

Blog and Playlist Submissions

Getting your songs to music blogs, curators and Spotify playlists is a great starting point for new artists, especially if you don’t have the budget to pay for Facebook, Instagram, Spotify or YouTube ads. Don’t expect to go viral, but it can help give you a feel of where you are musically. The honest fact is not every new musician is going to make good music right off the bat, so submitting to blogs and playlists can serve as a feedback tool. The problem is there are tons of music blogs and Spotify playlists out there.

One type of playlist that can have a bit more of an impact on reaching new potential fans and increasing streams is getting on Spotify’s editorial playlist. It’s 100% free to submit to Spotify, but the song has to be unreleased. There are also algorithmic playlists where Spotify recommends your songs to other Spotify users. I cover everything about Spotify playlists here.

Instagram Links

Instagram only allows you 3 ways to link out of their app: your profile link, Instagram Stories (when you have over 10k followers) and in the description of IGTV. The most accessible and visible one is the URL in your profile, but it can be challenging when you want to link out to your website, mailing list sign up form, YouTube channel, online store and Spotify.

I personally use it. Here’s an example of my Linktree page: https://linktr.ee/deefur
 

Music Smart Links / Pivot Pages

Not everyone listens to music on the same platform. When you release new music, where do you direct fans? A useful tool to fix this problem is a smart link (or landing/pivot page) where it displays links to all the different platforms your music is available on.

If you distribute your music through DistroKid, they have their own pivot page called Hyperfollow that is automatically created for your release. Here are some of the benefits they list on their website for using their pivot page:

More followers – Anyone who clicks the button will automatically follow you on Spotify.
More listeners – Your music will be automatically added to their Spotify library.
More contacts – You will be given each fan’s email address.
More outreach – We’ll automatically email your fans when your album goes live.
More research – You will have access to the geographic location of your fans.
More insight – You will be able to see the other music that your fans are listening to.
More stats – You will know how many people visited your HyperFollow page, and how many fans you’ve added.

Graphic Design

 
When you want to be taken seriously as a professional, visual presentation is important. You want things, like your logo, flyers and graphics, to be stylistically representative of your brand.

Web Analytics

 
Last but not least, you will need an analytics tool. I recommend Google Analytics because it is powerful and free. For those who don’t know, Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

What important information can you learn from having analytics on your website? Although you can get much more in depth with the data and analytics, here are some examples of information that you can learn from Google Analytics:

• How many people visit your site?
• What are the demographics of your visitors?
• Where do your visitors come from?
• Is there another website driving traffic to your page?
• What pages get looked at the most?
• Are people leaving the site before looking around?
• Is there a problem with the site design or navigation that causes people to leave?

Please note: If you use one of the two options, here are instructions on how to install Google Analytics for each platform:

Wix

Weebly
 

Conclusion

 
There you have it. All the fundamental pieces you need to establish a solid online foundation for your music at little to no cost. You might eventually grow out of the free website options mentioned above, but the email, social media and analytics will stay the same. If you are comfortable with the free website based platforms mentioned, the first thing to do is to pay enough to get rid of the platform branding and move into your own domain name.

In an ideal situation, where money is not a concern, I would pay someone to design a website on your own web hosting account with a platform like WordPress. For web hosting options, Go Daddy is popular but I personally use InMotion Hosting or SiteGround. This way you have much more control and use your own domain name right off the bat. I’m not a fan of Wix or Weebly as long term website options.

If you plan to do it yourself, my top preferred website builder is Squarespace. Although they are an affiliate (read my full disclose), which means I do get a commission for paid sign ups, I love the overall experience and designs they offer. Here’s an artist website that I manage that uses Squarespace. The good news is you can try them for 14 days without a credit card to see how you like it. Use my affiliate link with code D4MUSIC10 to save 10% off your first subscription of a website or domain.

There are other tools you will eventually need as you develop your brand and grow your fan base. Those tools will be covered in another blog. In the meantime, here are some apps you may find useful.

I know setting all this up does require some technical skill and knowledge. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me and I will be more than glad to help.

The post FREE Essential Marketing Tools for New Independent Artists Getting Started appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

You built up a mailing list of fans that love your music and want to hear more from you. Unfortunately, you’ve noticed that the open rates from your emails are not as high as you would expect. A 25% email open rate seems pretty low, but is it a cause for concern?

What is an open rate?

Simply put, an open rate is just how many people opened the email divided by the total number of emails sent (excluding any bounced emails). So, if you emailed 100 fans and only 25 opened the email, you have an open rate of 25%. Using the same scenario, if 5 of those emails bounced (meaning the email was unable to be delivered), you would have an open rate of 26%. 25 / (100 – 5) = 26%

With all the math out of the way, the goal is to obviously maintain a high open-rate. For the sake of context, is your open rate really that bad to begin with?

What are music industry standards for email open rate?

To help level your expectations, here are the average open rates from two popular email marketing services. These stats are current from this year.

As you can see, the average open rate for the music industry is about 20%. That’s not too bad, but there’s always room for improvement. As independent artists, it’s important to maximize your efficiency to get the most out of the time and effort you invest in marketing your music. Here are 5 things you can try to increase your email open rates and actually get your message to the fans.
 

1. Write compelling subject lines

 
The most important part of your email is the subject line. If you can’t get your fan’s attention to click on your email, everything else in the body goes to waste.

64% of email recipients open email based on the subject line.

The most fundamental element for a compelling subject line is it needs to clearly promise something of value to your fans that can be delivered in the body of the email.. How you go about communicating that value can be done relatively simply and straightforward for musicians. Generally, the 3 big topics fans like to hear about are new music, new tours/shows or new merch so subject lines will likely be something like:

• My new single “…” just dropped, now streaming everywhere!
• Listen now! My new album “…” out on all platforms!
• NEW Tour Just Announced!
• New single and music video out now! Watch it here…
• New merch just added to the shop, limited quantities available!

You can take the next step and think about your brand voice and incorporate it into the language. Whenever possible, try to create urgency or even sparking curiosity. Coming up with a good subject line can take some time and practice but the results will incentivize you to keep trying new approaches.

2. Make sure your email does not get sent to spam

 
As you know, email spam has been an ongoing issue for over a decade now. There have been laws and protocols, such as CAN-SPAM and DMARC, put in place to help regulate this annoying practice. For the most part, our email service providers have done a great job of filtering out most of the unwanted junk we randomly receive. It’s not a perfect system, and sometimes emails that your fans are expecting can end in their spam folder.

A lot of email services out there have spam filters so you want to make sure your email does not get marked as potential spam.

3. Send email as an actual person

 
It’s common for artists to send out an email as the band or stage name. Sometimes you may see more generic names like Booking, Contact or Info.

It has been shown in the non-music industry world that email recipients are more likely to open an email from a person rather than a company, title or organization. This makes sense. We want to connect with humans and not just something or an entity. So for music artists, it may be worth testing to see if your open rates improve when the “sent from” name is changed to something more personal. If your stage name is your real name and you send emails out as yourself, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Using your real name, as opposed to a stage name, can work against you if people are not familiar with your real name. To fix this issue, use your real name and put your stage name parenthesis. Or if you’re in a group, choose someone’s name in the band then put in parenthesis the band name.
 

4. Take advantage of the preview text

As you may be aware (especially if you use the email app on iPhone, Gmail or Yahoo Mail), your inbox will show sample text from the email body following the subject line. Since you don’t want to use too many words in the subject line, this is a good opportunity to draw more attention to your email and convince fans to open the email. Most email marketing services allow you to edit the first sentence of text that displays in the preview text portion of the email.

If your email marketing service does not have this function, remember that the preview text is pulled from the body of your email. Some emails, as a default, will say on the top, “If you do not wish to receive messages from … please go here.” That’s a waste of space. As indie artists, it’s all about making the most of what you’ve got, so optimization is important.
 

5. Don’t email your fans too much (follow the golden rule: quality not quantity)

 
Last but not least, don’t send too many emails. If you send too often, you may get ignored and your open rates will decline. The worst-case scenario is your fans will unsubscribe.

Remember that your fans’ email addresses are sacred online property. It’s your direct online connection to them, like a physical address to their home. You have to be selective of what content is email worthy or should only be posted on social media.

As a fan, I would say a reasonable amount would be no more than 2 emails a month. On average, I would say 1 or 2 every couple of months. It all depends on what value and content you are providing, so use your own discretion. If you have a big announcement, and you’ve already sent a couple of emails that month, don’t hold back – share your big news!
 

Conclusion

 
Now that you are more aware of the different factors that can influence open rates, you can test them out. When doing any testing, remember to test one element at a time. Don’t make the mistake of trying to test everything at once, because then you won’t know what was responsible for the results. Email marketing services like Mailchimp allow you to create two versions of the subject line and email that get sent to your mailing list (half get version A, the other gets version B). Based on the variations you made, you can see which performed better. This is known as A/B testing, and I encourage you to give it a try.

Getting people to open an email is only half the battle. Once you get their attention, you want them to take action. In a future blog, I will explore how to get people to click on links in your email.

The post 5 Ways To Get More Fans to Open Your Emails appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.