3 Email Marketing Tips For Music Artists

Building an email list as a hip-hop artist is one of the best things you can do as an upcoming hip-hop artist. The bigger and more engaged your email list becomes, the less dependent you become on social media and the easier it will be to grow your music career.

Now, you may be thinking “I don’t need an email list. I’m different from most artists and can blow up on social media – plus all my friends like my music and have been telling people about me.” If that’s what you’re thinking (or anything similar) – you’re wrong. And, even if you’re right, you’d eventually need to start building an email list anyway if you want to connect with your fans more and build a sustainable business from music.

So, to help you with successfully using email to grow your music career, I’m going to run through 3 quick tips that will put you on the right path.

BTW: If you haven’t read our article on Why Email Marketing is Important for Hip-Hop Artists – you should. It’s a great article to start with and will help you understand why email marketing is so important.

Start Building Your Email List ASAP

You should start building your email list immediately. Don’t fall in the “I’ll start building my email list once I {insert excuse here}” trap. There will never be a “perfect” time to start and the sooner you begin building your email list, the better off you’ll be.

How To Start Building Your Email List:

• Go to MailChimp.com & create an account
• Follow their account set up instructions
• Create a list
• Customize the general sign up forms to be consistent with your branding
• Copy the short-link to your form
• Create a button and link it to your form at the top of your website (you need a website for your music)
• Add it to your social media accounts profile (if you don’t already have a website)

Incentivize People To Sign Up

In today’s world, you have to give people a legit reason to sign up for you email list. It blows my mind how many artists are still using the “subscribe to my newsletter” forms. There are very few people that want to subscribe to an artist’s newsletter.

How To Incentivize People To Sign Up

This is where knowing your audience comes in handy because what works for one audience may not work for another.. Think about what your audience’s likes and interests are, and cater to that.

For example, if your target audience is into fashion – you can incentivize them with an exclusive video where you talk about your top 5 fashion tips or your process for putting together an outfit.

The more you know about your audience, the more specific you can get with your incentive. For example, if your target audience is into fashion and a simplistic lifestyle, you could make an exclusive video with your most versatile pieces of clothing that can be used for several different outfits.

Below are a few types of exclusive incentives you can offer to any audience:

• Videos
• Articles
• Music
• Contest Entry
• Photos

Send Different Types of Emails

You should be sending different types of emails to your audience to keep them engaged. Just because they’ve signed up to your email list does not mean they won’t unsubscribe if they get bored or irritated with your emails.

A few different types of emails you can send include:

Promotional Emails

Promotional emails are usually centered around promoting a new release or offer you have for your audience. To give you an idea of how frequently you should send these emails, 35% of the time is a good place to start.

Conversational Emails

Conversational emails are usually centered around building a relationship with your audience. These emails can contain exclusive stories, photos, blog posts you’ve written, and anything else that’s intimate and personal. To give you an idea of how frequently you should send these emails, 50% of the time is a good place to start.

Feedback Emails

Feedback emails are usually centered around getting your audience’s opinion on something you’ve released. These typically go out a few days – weeks after sending a promotional email.

The feedback from your fans is the only feedback that matters because they’re the only ones that can make you successful.To give you an idea of how frequently you should send these emails, 15% of the time is a good place to start.

Now, these percentages are arbitrary but should give you a good idea where to start. Don’t be afraid to deviate from the above because, like I said above, what works for one audience may not work for another.

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What To Do Next:

The next thing you should do after reading this article is set up a MailChimp account and start utilizing their sign up links & forms.

It’s free and allows you to have up to 2,000 subscribers. That’s 2,000 fans on your email list for $0.

While setting up your account, if you have any questions or comments, use the form below this article and I’ll answer ASAP.

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