Email Marketing For Indie Musicians

Email might seem a little old-fashioned these days, but it’s still the most reliable way to reach your audience.  If you’re an indie artist trying to make a career from your music, or even just trying to make this music hobby pay for itself, then having a mailing list is vital.

In this article we’re going to take a look at email marketing. We will cover everything you need to know - from why it’s important, how to set up a mailing list, where to get emails from, how to write a good email, when to send them, and how to practice good mailing list hygiene.

Why You Need a Mailing List

You might be thinking ‘why do I need a mailing list? I can just post on social media’. 

I know a mailing list sounds like just one more thing to manage, and there’s already so many other things to manage when you’re an independent musician. I get it.

But let me ask you this: If Facebook blocked your account, how would you tell people about your new release? What happens if Instagram stops showing your posts to your followers? What if TikTok gets banned in your country? What if Threads goes down? Or YouTube? Or X?

You will quickly realize that on all these platforms, access to your audience is actually very precarious. You don’t own anything there, you are only renting.

Not so with a mailing list. The beauty of an email list is that it gives you direct contact with the people who care the most. Direct contact that no tech billionaire can take away. 

It’s something you control - and that is hugely powerful.

The Power of Email Marketing

Here is a recent example of just how powerful a mailing list can be.

I’ve been a fan of Laura Kidd and her various projects since around 2018. Watching her perform as She Makes War at Loud Women Fest in London was one of the things that inspired me to start writing and releasing my own music. I’ve followed her for many years, and I’ve often wondered how an independent artist I admire makes a living from their music.

The short answer is - a mailing list.

She recently released her second album as Penfriend - and it went to number 28 in the official UK midweek charts. The same chart that features artists like Elton John, Eminem and Oasis. Artists that have the backing of major labels, that have managers and PR teams.

Laura has none of that - she makes her albums, music videos and a whole host of other cool things in her attic at home. What she does have is a mailing list. She has said in several interviews and YouTube videos over the years that her mailing list is the reason she can do what she does full-time.

She has the emails of people who love what she does. She can tell them about her new album. She can tell them about her music videos. She can tell them about the vinyl, CDs and other merch for sale on her website. She doesn’t bother with Spotify - many of us in NAS have more monthly listeners than her. 

But she makes a full-time living from her music. She has an album in the UK charts. If you’re thinking this is probably just a one-off, this is the fourth time an album of hers has charted in the UK.

All because she built up a mailing list.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/penfriendrocks/

How to Set Up a Mailing List

So, now that I’ve convinced you that you need a mailing list, let’s look at how to set one up.

In its most basic form, a mailing list is just a list of email addresses. You could add email addresses to a spreadsheet and send emails to them using the BCC option in Gmail, Outlook or whatever service you use. This can quickly get difficult to manage, but there are easier options.

There are many different email marketing platforms out there that help you send beautiful emails and manage your mailing list. They may also include features like automated email sequences, signup forms and landing pages. Most importantly they will include data on who is opening and clicking your emails which is the key to good mailing list hygiene. 

Mailchimp is probably the biggest email marketing platform but there’s loads out there. Once your mailing list grows beyond a certain size you will need to pay to use these services, but most will have a free option. Personally I use Mailerlite as their free plan includes 1k subscribers and features like email automations.

A bonus tip - You can use the live music site BandsInTown as an additional mailing list. create a BandsInTown account and start adding your shows on there. Even if you don't play live you can still add live streams and other online events. BandsInTown allows you to send emails to your followers and it can act like a second mailing list.

Consent

So, you’re convinced that you need a mailing list and you’ve created an account with Mailchimp or Mailerlite (or any of the others). 

Before I get into where the best places to get emails from, let me make one thing clear:

You must get the person’s permission before you can email them

Various laws across the world all state that a person must give their consent for you to email them, and they must be able to opt-out at any time. This permission usually takes the form of a check box on a website form, but it can be done verbally, or by writing your email on a clipboard at a gig. 

So don’t go adding all the contacts in your gmail account, ask their permission first.

Where to collect emails?

Now, here’s some places to get emails from. This is the hard part - growing a mailing list is hard work and takes a long time, it’s worth it though. This is by no means a complete list, so if you get emails from other places then please share!

Ask People (Nicely)

The first way to get emails is to simply ask for them. Ask the people you’re already connected and friendly with if they’d like to join your mailing list. This can be quite time consuming but you’ll be surprised how many people will say yes if you ask them nicely. 

Make sure you’re only asking the people you regularly talk to and engage with, because nobody likes a cold DM from somebody you never talk to asking you for your email. Send enough messages and you could easily get your first 50 or 100 subscribers this way. 

You can also do this at shows and other in-person events. When you’re talking to people, ask them for their email. You could go around with a clipboard, or have a signup sheet by the merch stand. You could even have a QR code on a poster or flyer that links to a signup form.

Signup Forms

Speaking of which, signup forms are the next most obvious method. You should be able to create one of these in your email marketing platform. Add this to all your social media profiles and your website. You may also be able to create pop-ups and embedded forms that you can also add to your website. Add these wherever you can, make it as easy as possible for people to give you their email.

Bandcamp

The next place I have reliably got emails from is Bandcamp.  When people follow you on Bandcamp - or buy your music or merch - they have the option of subscribing to your mailing list. If you’ve been selling your music there you might find you already have a few emails waiting for you. According to the open and click rates from my own mailing list, this is one of the best places to get emails from. If people like your music enough to buy it, they are going to want to hear more about you.

Presaves

Another surprisingly reliable way of getting emails is with pre-saves. Some distributors and marketing platforms include email capture as an option when setting up pre-save pages. If you’ve done a few presave campaigns before you might already have a list of emails you can add. Even when the people doing the presaving are fellow artists, I have seen pretty decent open and click rates from emails captured with pre-save campaigns. 

As I mentioned, there are other ways to get emails and grow your mailing list, but these methods should help you get your first few emails and start growing your mailing list.

How to send good emails

So, you’ve gathered your first email addresses and you’re ready to send your first campaign. But what do you send?

The easiest thing to send is announcements. Whenever you have a new single out, or a new music video, sending a short email with the link to your new song can help increase your streams. 

But you can do better than that. If you only ever say to your subscribers ‘go stream my new song’ or ‘go watch my new video’, well that’s going to get pretty dull pretty quickly and make people unsubscribe. Remember, these people like your music enough to give you their email - they want to know more about you. Treat your subscribers like people, not just another source of streams.

When you’re writing emails, pretend you’re writing to a friend. Tell them about the new songs you’re working on, your new music videos, gigs that you’ve played at. Include images and make your emails exciting to look at. Most email platforms will have ready-made templates that you can adapt. If you know how to write HTML and CSS then you can really go crazy. The possibilities are endless.

These emails don’t have to be very long either, in fact shorter is better most of the time. Many people skim read emails, so writing in short sentences can help. Nobody wants to wade through huge walls of text. Short and snappy is better.

There are also no set rules on how often you can send emails. If you don’t really have time then once a month is plenty, but you could go as often as weekly without losing too many subscribers. Daily is probably overkill and quarterly is probably not often enough. I’d say between monthly and weekly is a good frequency. Being consistent is more important than how often.

A format I have started using recently (one you’re welcome to steal) is called three things - a weekly email with three things that are going on with me. It might include new music and videos, gig announcements, other artists I’ve been listening to, whatever you like. Consistency is the thing - three things, every week.

Mailing List Hygiene

No matter how good you are at writing emails, it’s inevitable that some people will stop opening them, no matter what you do. It’s important that you remove these people from your list.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive when you’ve worked so hard to get their emails just to remove them. But having a lot of addresses in your mailing list that consistently fail to open your emails is a bad idea. Email providers like Gmail and Outlook have all kinds of filters to make sure that harmful spam emails don’t reach your main inbox, and sending a lot of emails that never get opened can look bad. 

Mailing list hygiene is the practice of removing these people from your mailing list. Mailerlite automatically filters out contacts that have been sent more than 10 emails and haven’t opened any emails in the last 6 months which is a good guideline to follow. 

Before you remove these contacts you can send them a few emails to make sure they no longer want to hear from you. Some people may want to stay subscribed, but have just not opened your emails in a while. I have an automated sequence of emails setup so I can make sure I’m not removing contacts that want to stay subscribed (one reason I use Mailerlite over Mailchimp).

Final Thoughts

Email marketing is a huge topic, and there is way more to cover that what we discussed in this article. However, I hope by now you have a good grasp of the basics and are ready to add email marketing to your promotional arsenal.

As I said in the beginning, although email is one of the oldest ways of digitally communicating with an audience, it remains one of the most reliable marketing channels. No tech billionaire can take away your ability to send emails to your subscribers.  

Musicians are too often reliant on tech platforms for access to the people who listen to their music. But the ability to simply send a message to the people who care about what you do - and for them to be able to see it - is a massive win.

Never underestimate the power of email!