A Lesson in Marketing from a Rock Band - Part III
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Rock-it-out With a Newsletter
We keep our fans up-to-date on what we are doing (even if it’s not playing out somewhere) with our newsletter. We only send out the letter about once every two weeks and we will also send out show reminders when we are getting close to playing a gig.
The newsletter is used to remind people that we still exist and it’s also a nice little nudge to go back to our website and check out our latest content.
One of the toughest obstacles of the newsletter is getting people to sign up. Since we aren’t spamming people, we have to be a little creative to get them to freely opt-in to our mailing list. Below are some of the tactics we use to obtain these oh-so-coveted addresses.
1. Take it offline
We don’t just use our website to get people to opt-in to the list. We also bring a sign-up sheet to our shows and keep it back at the merch table. This way when someone says “hey man/dude/fellas that sounded awesome, when are you guys playing again?” we can tell them to give us their name and email address and we will send them an update letting them know when and where they can catch us next.
2. Give ‘em Free Shit
Ok, so this one costs us a little bit of money …. but not much more per-person then we make off of them at the door (not to mention potential further sales of cd’s and merch.). With every sign-up to our mailing list, we give everyone access to a free mp3. If you sign-up at a show we give you an interactive cd rom that you can listen to in your car or put in your PC for even more cool stuff (wallpapers, videos, etc.).
3. Just Ask Them To Do It
In our videos and during shows we ask people to sign-up for our mailing list. This doesn’t attract people as much as the “Free Shit” give away, but it does work.
Keep your customers up to date with what you are doing by applying these same principals…. whatever you do, don’t use your list for evil. Don’t Spam them, don’t continuously try to sell to them, just keep them informed.
Check back next week for Part IV of “A Lesson in Marketing from a Rock Band”
[...] feel that we built a good number of relationships that night….. relationships with new fans (we added some names to our mailing list), relationships with a new club, relationships with some new [...]