You can email / DM me questions about email marketing stuff. You can even leave comments on the web or in the Substack app. Reach out!
QUESTION. I never saw the point of sending an email newsletter when I get better interaction on socials.
MY TWO CENTS: Social media was built to fuel that rush of LIKES and RTs that we call engagement.
You post something, and within minutes someone clicks LIKE. Then another.
Look at that - you got this ONLINE MARKETING thing covered!
But now you’re staring at your phone four hours a day (or more) to “maintain engagement.”
Me? I’d rather spend those hours honing my craft, creating, reading, being out in the woods. I bet you could be taking photos, writing songs, composing, designing.
And I’ll bet you that your link click numbers are much smaller than your LIKE numbers, right?
And how many times did you post an announcement, and then weeks later someone leaves a comment, “oh wow, I didn’t even know about this!”
Yes, you get LIKES, but they’re probably coming from 30% (or even less) of your fans.
What if you could include links to the things you’re trying to sell and promote without being limited by weird rules (no links in an Instagram post), or algorithms?
You can still be on social media, just don’t live there! Use it like the billboard on the highway and drive interest and curious fans to the locations that you own (your website, and your newsletter).
Post that cool photo from the show, the event, of your new product on Twitter and Instagram. But post more photos on your website, or in your newsletter. Stop giving all your marketing assets to social media companies!
Take your Twitter rants or lengthy Instagram captions and put ‘em someplace that you control. Chances are MOST of your fans never saw your posts.
Do you really want to make Reels? Or start using TikTok? Email newsletters work, and so do websites (it’s where all your fans buy concert tickets and merch and read music news).
Text will always rule - not everyone can watch your video, or listen to your podcast. But text is easily consumable (fine, except when you’re mowing the lawn), and easily shared.
QUICK BITS:
“Newsletter growth — or any organic content growth for that matter — isn’t about any one thing. It’s about doing a lot of little things correctly and sustaining that effort over time.”
From ‘The Truth About Growing Your Email List’ over at ‘Thanks For Unsubscribing.’ You can follow my advice and start an email list, but if you just Tweet once or twice for people to sign up and do nothing else, well… it won’t go anywhere. We’ve all be on social media for YEARS (I’ve been on Twitter since 2006). Growth takes time.
“We’re obviously in the pocket, after a year of heavy touring. Our cockiness is on full display when we were invited to sit for an interview with Dave. You’re just kids, aren’t you? he said. We’re babies, you replied. All three of us grinned.”
Tell fucking good stories. Write them down. We’ve got decades of experience and we’re shrinking ourselves into tiny bits on social media every 14 minutes for seventeen likes. Pour your stories and your wisdom into places that you control, that you own, where you control the branding and the experience.
GOOD TWEETS:
People click on things that interest them. So you can still be on socials, but throw a link out there to your own thing - not just an interview on a media site, or a Spotify Playlist. Embed those things on your own site, include a few words about it, and link to THAT. Stop sending all your fans to the food court.
I remember young Seth reading metal magazines at the grocery store while my parents shopped and sorta remember a pull quote from Al Jourgensen in an interview saying something like, “I wish the record labels just paid me in crack.” That was like… 30+ years ago. Wish I could find the quote.
For the advanced email-marketing crowd reading - dark mode, huh? SHEESH.
I’m turning on SUBSCRIPTIONS at $10/mo here on Substack. I’ll keep everything free and open for everyone, but if you appreciate what I’m doing, consider supporting this work so I can keep reaching independent artists with the gospel of email marketing.
/// SETH