Seven Tips That Indie Musicians Need To Know To Improve Their E-Mail Marketing

Most indie musicians know they must do some sort of e-mail marketing. Although, many do not understand the proper way of using e-mail to market their music. If used incorrectly you could have adverse effects. However, if used correctly e-mail marketing is a great way to communicate with your fans, make sales and make money.

There are many things you can do to improve your e-mail marketing efforts. I would like to briefly discuss a few of them.

Use a double opt-in procedure for your e-mail list.

Using a double opt-in method will force the subscriber to open your e-mail in order to confirm their e-mail address. This extra step ensures that the subscriber is serious about being added to your list. They are interested in what you offer and this makes them very valuable.

Use auto responders to build a relationship with each subscriber.

You should be using auto responders in your e-mail marketing efforts to build a relationship with each subscriber. You want to earn their trust so they will want to buy whatever you have to offer. Each message you send needs to contain valuable content so the recipient enjoys your message and looks forward to the next.

Give away your best songs.

In order to have a person give you their e-mail address you usually need to offer them something of value. In the case of indie musicians you offer a song. However, it needs to be your best song. You want the person to like your music so they need to hear your best work. In addition, while you are in the process of building a relationship with each subscriber, you will need to give away more music and you need to give away your best material. Giving away less than your best will not help you at all..

Understand the difference between your web site and landing pages.

Do not send traffic that you are intending on subscribing to your list to your main web site. This traffic needs to be sent to your landing pages. Landing pages are meant to collect e-mail addresses or to sell a product. Your main web site is used to dispense information to promoters, venues, and existing fans. Know the difference between landing pages and your main web site and use both of them correctly.

Use Segmentation.

Segmenting your list will allow you to send out messages only to a portion of your list based on criteria you choose. You could segment your list based on location to send show announcements only to people in the area of your performance. Another thing you could do is segment your list based on people who have purchased from you, or people who haven't purchased from you. This allows you to send appropriate offers to either group. Use segmentation properly and you will improve your relationship with your fans and increase your sales.

Track and test to improve your results.

For any marketing campaign to be successful you need to track and test your results so you know what works and what doesn't. Tracking and testing will provide you with valuable information you need to know to make decisions to improve your results.

Create a profit funnel.

One of the keys to being successful as an indie musician is to use your creativity to create a profit funnel. Once you sell your album for $15.00 to someone you then want to sell them a product that is higher in price, say a T-shirt for $25.00. Then once they purchase your T-shirt you want to sell them something else that is even higher in price. This time perhaps it could be a DVD box set for $50.00. Then you need to continue selling this person products one at a time, each time higher in price. Creating high end products and getting many people through your funnel is a key to success.

For over 23 years Terry Tschaekofske has been a successful musician. In that time Terry has learned many things. He has valuable information and tips to share with other musicians, to help them succeed in the music business. For valuable e-mail marketing tips that every indie musician should know click or copy the link below.

http://tltmusicmarketing.com/lp/indie_email_guide/indieguidelp_5.html

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Little Known Ways to Increase Profits for Touring Musicians

Whether you're planning a national, international, or regional tour the goals are the same: earn income while promoting yourself in a familiar or new territory. Reaching out to fans and connecting personally at your concerts are the keys to gaining a dedicated fan base and generating buzz around your band. Admittedly, while overall comfort plays a key role in combatting tour fatigue and maintaining performance levels, sometimes comfort isn't an option. If tour expenses are outweighing guarantees, try implementing some of these cost-cutting travel techniques tailored for the DIY, self-booking independent artist.

Accommodation:

Couch Surfing:

Couch Surfing is the art of being hosted by a local fan or stranger and is the ultimate form of hospitality. Luckily, there are thousands of people willing to let you stay on their couches, floors, or in the guest room for free! When I said it is an art, I meant it, as it involves give and take and some time investment (as does everything meaningful in your career). Start by creating and completing your profile on CouchSurfing.com as a group. Provide pictures, a group bio and individual bios in a very personable manner (ie. not your band's promotional bio). Once you know the dates of your tour, contact potential hosts by sending a personalized message detailing your plans in the city, why you think you would get along, and let them know of any goodies you can offer in return. Possible host treats include adding your host and friends to your guest list, cooking a special dish, bringing a unique something from your previous stop, and a copy of your album. Since most hosts can only accommodate a smaller group, if you are traveling with a posse, use multiple hosts. Be respectful, clean up after yourselves, and if there is free time to be had, it is very possible your host will show you their take on their hometown, adding a nice, touristic touch to your experience. The system works on references, so to build your credibility, try to host other travelers in your home city or at least attend local events. A nice side effect of hosting is creating a deep connecting to a a foreigner who then will potentially 'spread the word' in a different area or country.

Alternatives:

Consider contacting your fans via Twitter or Facebook detailing the dates and city of your tour and asking if anyone would be interested in hosting you. Your fans are your biggest supporters and will often be glad to help.

Check with any local bands that you are playing with to see if you could stay at their place. In return let them know that next time they come through your home town they have a free place to stay. If you can't make any of the above options work, consider getting a motel room outside of downtown that has a free continental breakfast and double up on beds. Kayak.com is a great search tool for this as it compares rates from many sites, or use Priceline's Name Your Own Price tool and make the motels fit within your budget. AirBnB.com will provide a similar experience to couch surfing, but you'll have to pay a nightly rate. And there's always the option of sleeping in the van...

Food:

First off, if your show is catered...enjoy! You may be able to pack some of the left-overs for the road. If not, try to limit yourself and band members to a per diem, remembering that there is no rule that states that you must use the entire amount each day. Saving a few dollars each day will add up, and by the end of the tour the less thrifty band members will stand jealous and amazed by the saver's take-home. The grocery store is your ally, and you can easily buy ingredients and meals so the whole band can dine on the cheap. Don't always order a value meal at fast food restaurants, order only what you need and consider drinking a free cup of water instead of soda. To each his own on the health content of food consumed, but packing some multi-vitamins for the group can help keep your immune systems strong and performers feeling energized. If you're really doing your planning, follow daily deals on Yipit.com (a deal aggregator) for your tour stops and you could quite possibly avoid paying full price for a meal for the entirety of your tour. Combine this with splitting large portioned meals and everyone is dining for a quarter of the normal price.

Take it easy on your bar tab (if you weren't able to negotiate free drinks), spending up to $8 per beer each night will drain your income fast. If you must drink, consider saving the drinking for elsewhere where you can buy at retail. Besides, you're at your merch booth connecting with fans right?

Transportation:

Gas:

Costco:

If you will be driving quite a bit, find out if there will be a plethora of Costcos along your route. Gas prices are usually quite a bit cheaper than the average station, and saving a few dollars on each fill up can mean a lot when we're talking about filling up vans over hundreds of miles. A membership card is needed, so do the math to see if you can justify the $50 initial cost, remembering that it might actually come in handy for other bulk band purchases as well.

Credit Cards:

Many credit cards offer a 'cash back' percentage on gas purchases. Some are tied to specific vendors while others apply to all gas purchases. Find a no-fee card which works best for your band's account and save up to 5% automatically at each fill-up.

Be sure to also check GasBuddy.com to find the best current prices in a given area.

Rideshares:

Of course if you are a band, this is unlikely to work; however, rideshares can be another mode of transportation for solo artists to move about the country while avoiding the woes of vehicle ownership. The pros: no parking fees, less gas fees. The cons: can be unreliable, may be unsafe, timing must be less critical. Another major con is the non-existent to limited public transportation systems in American cities once you arrive. European tours and/or the roaming busker are better suited for this alternative transportation method.

Other Tactics:

Wi-fi:

Free wi-fi is abundant, but often there is pressure to buy a $5 latte to enjoy the privilege. To avoid paying data charges on each phone, forking over wireless surcharges at your accommodation, and driving in circles till a wi-fi signal appears, try using mobile internet such as the Clear 4G Rover Puck which creates a mobile hotspot and will allow up to eight wireless connections. Use this as your home internet service as well and essentially your connection travels with you on the road for no additional cost.

If you are savy, by implementing some of the mentioned tactics, you will soon realize that small savings truly add up.

Scott Horton helps artists achieve their sonic goals through his online mixing and mastering service Virtual Mix Engineer. Download his FREE report "After The Mix: An Artist's Guide to Promoting & Exposing Your Recorded Music." Scott may be reached at studio at virtualmixengineer dot com.

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Road Musicians

Ahhh, the road! That unending ribbon of concrete that winds all over this great country of ours, magically connecting every truck stop and motel with your driveway. The road will take you nearly anywhere you want to go, until you come to an ocean, and to a lot of places you don't particularly want to go. But when you're an out-of-work musician hanging around Nashville going broke sitting in at clubs for free beer waiting for some producer to snatch you off the bandstand and put you on his next master session, a road gig might be just the thing to let you keep up the payments on your old Datsun.

If you have the right look and can play the licks on the work tape, you might get an "artist gig". One with a big star pays more money than you can spend legally. One with a singer who recorded his last album in somebody's garage might not pay enough to Greyhound-it home if the van breaks down.

But you don't want to run around the country in a van, anyway, unless you've been living in a monastery or a biosphere and just need to get out a little. A bus is definitely the way to go, if you have to go. You get a stereo, a TV, a refrigerator, your own bunk, and enough room for the star to slap you around so you don't lose time pulling off on the side of the road.

Stars can be persnickety when their trainer's not around, y'know, and you shouldn't mind being rousted out of a sound sleep in your bunk at four in the morning to go get him a hot dog at some truck stop because he doesn't want to sign autographs, or because he's having a bad hair night and the bus driver backed over his hat, or because the regular hot dog-getter is the relief driver and he needs his sleep, or... just because you're the new guy.

Motels are where you have to stay when you get off the bus. You might get a better one than war corespondents get in Somalia. There's a motel in Bandera, TX with shower stalls so small that you can't turn around in them if you're any bigger than Jimmy Dickens, so you come out with only one clean side. A motel in Dallas double-booked a room once, and Mickey Mantle walked in on Ernest Tubb's steel player in the middle of the night. RCA has a special factory in Arkansas that makes color TV's that only show green that they sell at big discount prices to motel chains. And you know those "Do Not Disturb" signs you hang on your outside doorknob when you crash at five in the morning? They're in English on one side and Spanish on the other? Well... motel maids come a-banging on your door about eight o'clock hollering in Egyptian or something, wanting to know if you need clean towels.

The dazzling musical technique that won you the gig in the first place can get a trifle rusty on the road, what with playing the same licks in the same songs in the same show every night. You're so busy riding, and sleeping, and riding, and sitting around, and driving, and standing around... Who's got the time to practice? And who wants to lug a sousaphone or a steel guitar up to a third floor Holiday Inn room? So you try to learn some new scale or something at a sound check and the singer cringes and gives you the fish-eye like you're banging on a garbage can full of cats in heat. So you tell the sound man to turn the monitors down and then you play a little louder. You're gonna learn how a whole tone scale can go from a 5 to a 1 and you don't care what that "farging bastage" of a front man says about it.

Being on the road does have certain advantages, though. It's a break from real life, especially if you don't have to drive or handle money or do anything more responsible than play the show, and you can party 'til you puke, or sleep, or meditate, or withdraw from life, or whatever, as long as you don't scare the star and make him think you're one of those disturbed loners who would be better off working at the Post Office. If you're having problems with a wife, or bills, or your neighbors, or a pesky lawsuit about that apartment you blew up, you can just kind of forget all that stuff until you get home. You can set a mental alarm that goes off an hour before you get back to town that tells you it's time to start worrying again.

So, anyhow, you work the road long enough to count on getting a tax refund next year and then the unthinkable happens. You get laid off! Gee, you didn't think you had any job security, did you? In Nashville? But management has been complaining about the costs of taking a band on the road, and the accountant has been looking real worried and drinking too much, and the record company needs some extra liquidity for investments in southern California construction companies. It's not your star's fault, shoot, he owes so much money to his record company and to his backers that he doesn't have any say-so in what's going on. But he tells you you're the best musician he's ever worked with, and when he can get the band back together you'll be the first one he calls.

Ahh, what the hey. You've made enough money to pay off the Datsun, and you've got a string endorsement, and now you can tell road stories. So sign up for unemployment and start hanging out again and maybe now that producer will call. But in case he doesn't, there just might be an empty bunk with your name on it in another Silver Eagle out there.

Cal Sharp
Writer/Steel Guitar Player
http://steelguitarmadness.com/

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What Type of Music Do the Most Intelligent People Enjoy? Why It Matters for Musicians

It has often been said that the most intelligent people like certain types of music. Indeed, I guess if I asked you, and you were to take an educated guess, you might say that classical music such as Mozart, or Beethoven would be amongst the type of music enjoyed by the top tier of human IQ. Yes, I think this is the general perception, and I believe it to be correct, although I am not certain for sure. The question is why, I suppose, why is it that classical music is often corresponded to highly intellectual people?

Is it because the people that wrote those symphonies were highly intelligent and creative geniuses themselves, and then only someone else who is of super high intellect would also find this music to be enlightening? Now then, I know many highly intellectual people that enjoy other types of music as well. And even though I really don't care for opera all that much, I realize that many very smart people do enjoy that type of vocal wailing.

In doing the research for this article I read a couple of research papers which seem to indicate that those people who are very good in math, are also very good with musical instruments, and making music. The controlled chaos, and complexity of classical music seems to fit the stereotype of a math genius. Of course that is only one type of intelligence, as there are many. Nevertheless those of high emotional IQ can also appreciate classical music due to its highs and lows and the spaces inbetween.

Of course, composing and playing music is different than listening to it, and it takes a creative genius there is no doubt to produce a good classical piece. After all, many have tried, and failed to impress anyone listening. Still, we have to ask ourselves if the stereotype is correct, and if the highest and most intelligent of our society are more drawn to classical music than other types?

It does appear in the same stereotypical fashion that rap music, if indeed we are willing to call it music, is not necessarily enjoyed by anyone of high intellect, but someone with a standard IQ level might find the beat, alliteration, rhyming, and basic rhythm pleasing to them. Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this and think on it. Perhaps you can relate all this to your own IQ level, and the type of music that you are most drawn to. The final question might be if you listen to let's say classical music, will you become smarter over time? That is to say can one affect the other?

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 23,500 articles by mid-day on June 23, 2011 is going to be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off..

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