As part of my ongoing research in the world of heavy metal email, I buy albums from various record labels, (edit - and opt-in for future emails), just to see their email flow after I put in that order.
A handful send me a receipt for my order. That’s expected.
Then they never send me another email. That makes me sad.
The person most likely to buy from you is someone who bought from you before.
And if you know who bought a [THRASH ALBUM] then you know who to send an email to when you have a new [THRASH ALBUM] coming out in two months.
You own the store. You see the people who buy cassettes. Or shirts. You see it all, just like Amazon, but without being too creepy.
Make an email that features the things you sell, send them to people who buy those things, and make some money.
It sure is tempting to keep shoveling coal on the social media fire, then burn some more dollars to promote those posts in hopes that your followers actually see them.
Or, you could send an email to the 10,000 people you have on your email list every Friday and sell a bunch of records every month.
Yes - if you JUST make it BUY BUY BUY, that'‘ll get old. Everyone does that.
But chances are your bands posted videos this week. And songs. And got some cool playlist adds. Cool press.
The same stuff that you’re Tweeting that 70% of your followers aren’t even seeing.
Put it in an email every week.
Yes - EVERY. WEEK.
Try it.
Will a few people un-subsribe? Oh, you bet they will.
But the 98% of people who don’t? What about them? Those are YOUR PEOPLE.
I’ve said this for years - people actually watch shows like STORAGE WARS, which is people bidding on junk and then seeing who “wins” at the end.
You’re a record label, a band, a photographer, a designer, a podcaster - you’ve got stories to tell and much better products to sell.
I mean, these emails write themselves:
Social media algorithms limit who sees your new album pre-order, single, merch drop, ticket sale, or whatever else you’re trying to promote. Send emails to people who sign up and they’ll see your stuff.
And this is from an email I sent a few months ago, but I think it’s good to revisit:
💥Great read: ‘35 small business owners tell us why they’ve fallen out of love with Instagram in 2022,’ including the following:
“It feels like unless you’re making video content and sharing it every day you’re not going to grow at all.”
“Every post I tag products in absolutely falls on the face of the planet and is shown to a tiny fraction of my audience (<10%,been as low as 1%!). So frustrating!”
“I’m only really sticking around because it’s building my mailing list.”
If nothing else, a weekly email highlighting some of the things you posted on socials is an easy way to reach your fans that don’t spend all day doom scrolling.
I’ll say it again: don’t just send emails when you got something for sale.
Have a great weekend,
Seth
P.S. As always, contact me if you got questions: seth@heavymetal.email
P.P.S. Also, available for hire to run your record label’s or band’s email campaigns: closemondays.com