It’s Chris Rockett here, your friendly neighborhood tactics pimp! Today I want to talk to you about what’s going on behind the scenes for my music promotion projects.

1. HOW TO MAKE A BAND
MAILING LIST WORK LIKE
DIGITAL TELEPATHY!
Brought To You By Chris Rockett at:
www.PromoteYourMusic.net

2. In this article I would like to show you how you can use your
band mailing list to make sales and be a good source
of income, without being a total troll and pissing everyone off.
It’s very simple and it’s all about timing and learning the three
types of emails that let you push your music with for maximum
effect. We are going to be using and Autoresponder for this and
if you don’t know what that is you can read my post from the
other day that explains everything.
So anyway once you have your Autoresponder set up it can be
hard to know what to actually write to your fans, and I’m going
to suggest that you make it your focus to build a relationship
with them while letting them know that your music is available
to buy if they want it. (The golden rule is to never be pushy.)
The three most common fan emails you will be sending are as
follows…

3. EMAIL 1 – THE HARD SELL
The hard sell sounds aggressive but it basically means that the
whole goal of the email is to inform your fans that your music is
available and then ask them to follow a link to it. You don’t have
to be cheesy about this. You just need to let them know that
you have been working really hard on your record and if they
like what you are doing they might also like to get their hands
on the most recent work.
That way you are doing them a favor by letting them
know about something cool, rather than just trying to line your
own pockets every time you speak to them. I recommend that
you send a hard sell email first so that the new fans know that
your serious about what you are doing, and then include a
cliffhanger that leaves them excited about your next email.

4. EMAIL 2 – THE SOFT SELL
This is a message that combines some content (like news
about a new song or an upcoming show) and then
transitions into letting them know that they can also buy
something that may be related.
This is cool because it means that you don’t have to do
so many hard sell emails. You are just providing the “buy
now” link if they are in the mood.
You might say something like this…

5. “Hey Bob, I just wanted to let you know we have been busy working
on the new album over the last few weeks and I can now give you
an exclusive listen to our new single and a video of us playing it live
at the Roxy last week.
We are only giving this to the hardcore fans on the mailing list so
please don’t pass this around for now…it’s just for you. If you are
one of the people who have been emailing asking how to actually
download the album we have made 10 “Early Bird” copies available
here:
(I’m sorry if they are all gone when you get there.)
All proceeds from our recordings go back into the band in the hope
we can bring more and more value to the fans.I’d love to hear what
you think of our new stuff.” This is not a massive sales
pitch and you will get very little complaint from
people about just providing the link.

6. EMAIL 3 – CONTENT (BE SANTA CLAUSE!)
The content email is the one that you will send most to
your fans and simply contains a link to something really
cool you have done that will make them think “I fu@%ing
love these guys!”
Basically in your content emails you want to try and be
like Santa Clause and make your fans excited to hear
from you every time. Nobody is ever upset to hear from
Santa because he gives us great toys for free.
So get festive and practice your ho ho ho…Pretty soon
fans will start leaving milk and cookies in your paypal
account.

7. Day 1 – Hard sell
Day 2 – Soft sell
Day 3 – Content
Day 4 – Content
Day 5 – Soft sell
Day 6 – Content
Day 7 – Content
Day 8 – Hard sell
Day 9 – Soft sell
Day 10 – Content
Day 11 – Content
Day 12 – Content
Day 13 – Content
Day 14 – Content

8. You might also want to skip a few days if you think it
will piss off your fans to hear from you all the time. But to
be honest it will only annoy people if you send them
crap, because nobody would turn down cool free stuff in
the mail every day.
You will notice that toward the end of the sequence I
add a lot of content emails and that is because there
might be the odd person who is offended by you
trying to sell anything at all and be considering leaving
your list. This period of great content will keep most
people happy.

9. By the way I think that it’s total bullshit that musicians have to
feel shameful about trying to sell their stuff. I don’t know any
other profession in the world where you are expected to just
do it for the love of it for your whole life and never try to make
it your job.
Try and get your bank manager to work for free…GOOD
LUCK!!!
So your action point for today and this week is to write 14
follow up emails to your fans that will go out over a period of a
couple of weeks building a relationship and selling your music in
a cool way automatically. If you make great stuff you deserve to
get paid, don’t undersell yourself.

10. DIGITAL TELEPATHY?
Once you have completed your first 14 day email cycle you
want to track which emails are most effective then write
another 14 day follow up and use what you have learned. This is
what I call “Digital Telepathy” because the more you see what
your fans respond to, the more you can give it to them in a
constant and never ending feedback loop.
Pretty cool!
Some people write years of email to go out to their fans and
this can more than double your initial income over time. That
should be your ultimate aim too, but just start small.

11. CHRIS ROCKETT IS A MUSIC
MARKETING CONSULTANT FROM
LONDON WHO HELPS MUSICIANS BUILD
A FAN BASE FAST.
TO GET YOUR HANDS ON HIS FREE 14
DAY MUSIC MARKETING COURSE, PLUS
THE FAST START GUIDE ALL WORTH $197
GO TO THE WEBSITE BELOW:
www.PromoteYourMusic.net