Today I’m going to tell you the #1 mistake your band is making online. You probably don’t even realize it or you don’t understand why this is not what you should be doing. I’m going to tell you what that mistake is and why you should change things up if you are doing this!
Why your band needs an email list
So you finally got your Facebook page and Twitter to have “insert number here” fans/followers. You think you’ve got it made, right? So what would happen if you woke up tomorrow and Facebook and/or Twitter ceased to exist? How would you contact your fans to let them know about your next show or that new CD you are releasing? Or tell them about the new tour you’ve just set up? This is the #1 mistake all bands are making if they rely on Facebook, or any social media for that matter, to keep in touch with their fans. You NEED an email list. Email is not going to go away. You don’t “own” your fans on social media. The platform owns those fans. Your email list is ALL YOURS! Let’s talk about why your band needs an email list.
Do you have an email list?
Does your band have an email list? Do you faithfully send an email every time you have a show or new music to sell? Or are you relying on your Facebook page and Facebook events to spread the word about your band? If you collect the email addresses of your fans you can let them know about upcoming shows, CD releases, or last-minute changes for shows which sometimes happens. With the uncertainty of algorithms on all social media, if you send a quick email with an update they are sure to receive it. Everyone checks their email!
How do I start an email list?
Could you use Gmail or Yahoo? Sure, but it will be much easier (and a lot less work) if you use an actual Email service that will store all of the email addresses for you and make it so much easier for you to keep in contact with your fans.
Two things to look for are:
1. How many subscribers do you get on the free plan? Sometimes it’s by subscribers and sometimes it’s by how many emails you send.
2. Does it have automation? Automation comes in handy for a few different reasons. The first being, you can send an automatic email when someone signs up for your email list that welcomes them to your list.
Here are some resources to get started on building your email list.
MailChimp – MailChimp is free up to 2000 subscribers and 12000 emails per month. MailChimp has made some changes recently. Automation used to be a paid upgrade but it’s now included at the free level. Paid plans and upgrades start at $10 per month.
MailerLite – MailerLite is free for your first 1000 subscribers. After that, pricing starts at $10 per month.
MadMimi – With MadMimi you can start totally free with your first 100 contacts. Pricing starts at $10 a month on the paid plans as you grow.
GetResponse – Get Response has a one month free trial. After that, it starts at $15 per month on a monthly plan or $12.30 if you pay yearly. (They also have two year plans which start at $10.50 per month). Get Response is a service that is a little more robust than the others on this list. They offer a little bit more and you probably wouldn’t use this to start off with but rather as something to grow into.
Constant Contact – Constant Contact has a nice 60 day free trial. After that, their plans start at $20 per month. Again, this one is a little more robust with more options than some of the others on this list. Automation is not included in the basic plan but it is included in the Plus plan.
ConvertKit – I personally use ConvertKit and I love it. It’s $29 a month for my level of subscribers and goes up from there. When I started using ConvertKit they didn’t always have a free trial. Now there is a 14 day free trial. I would really only recommend ConvertKit for a band with a larger following that may want to segment their list into different cities or something like that. The most powerful thing about ConvertKit is the tagging and sequences you can use. For example, my business caters to bands and musicians, but also to entrepreneurs. Since entrepreneurs are probably not interested in the bands and musician info, I can give a tag to someone doesn’t want to see music related content. That way they will get relevant content to them and I won’t be turning them off by sending them something that doesn’t pertain to them.
I hope this has been helpful to you. Leave me a comment below and let me know if you’ll be trying out one of the email providers listed or if you’ve found a different one that you like.
This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see our disclosures here.
While I already have a mailing list, thinking about social media in this light has inspired me to use my mailing list as the main source for connecting with fans from now on. I use Mailchimp, which I like as a starter, but I’m looking forward to working up to either GetResponse or ConvertKit now that I know about them! My band plays out of town quite often, and it would be really nice to split up our mailing lists by geographic location or based upon individual interests. Glad I read this, thanks for the tips!
Hi Katie! Thanks for reading! Glad you found the tips helpful! 🙂