6 Ways to Trade a Song for an Email Address

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January 27, 2011{ 12 Comments }

viinyl 6 Ways to Trade a Song for an Email Address

Thanks to Brian Hazard for contributing this guest post. The article originally appeared on his blog PassivePromotion.com.

I measure my success as a recording artist by the growth of my mailing list. The best way to get someone to subscribe is to offer something in return, and a great song is a powerful incentive. Here are ten techniques to negotiate that delicate exchange:

1. The classic squeeze page. You’ve probably stumbled onto one of these before: a fine-tuned infomercial-style pitch with a clear call to action and no exit links. The sole goal of the site, often just a single page, is to generate conversions. In our case, a conversion means “squeezing” an email address out of a potential fan. Seamus Anthony describes the method here and demonstrates it using his own music here. It may do the trick for first-time visitors, but returning fans have no clear path to explore the rest of your content.

2. The homepage squeeze. Identical to the classic squeeze page, except for a small link that takes you to the rest of the site. Returning fans are forced to opt out every visit – an annoying speed bump. Then again, if the free song is rotated often enough, it may encourage repeat visits. Theoretically, a site could use cookies to bypass the squeeze page for return visitors, but I don’t know of any service or WordPress plugin that does it.

3. The “free mp3 download” page. This is my current strategy, but there’s definitely room for improvement. An SEO friendly “yourbandname.com/free-mp3-download” URL and clever use of keywords can pull in traffic from Google searchers trying to freeload your music. While a simple “free mp3s” link in your site’s navigation isn’t distracting for repeat visitors, it’s easy to overlook. Still, I’m not going to force my fans to jump through hoops every time they want to post a comment.

4. The fan club. Thomas Dolby offers two full EPs exclusively to registered members of his forum. This soft sell approach encourages die-hard fans to join the conversation, but I doubt it pulls in much new blood. If your focus is to satisfy your existing fanbase, fan club exclusives offer a surefire way to retain their love and devotion.

5. The widget. Your mailing list service should provide a widget to gather fan addresses. You’ll obviously need it for the squeeze page of your site. If you’re still sporting a MySpace page, you’ll want to embed it there as well. On sites where you can’t embed a widget, you can link directly to the signup form.

6. The Facebook page. As far as I know, you can’t embed a mailing list widget directly onto a Facebook page. Fortunately, RootMusic has a Facebook application to run their all-in-one profiles, including mailing list signup, in their own tab. You can also build a custom HTML landing tab in Static FMBL, which isn’t as hard as it sounds. I’m using Facebook ads to direct potential fans to my FMBL tab, which encourages them to download songs from the Band Profile tab. Embedding a mailing list widget directly on my FMBL tab would streamline the process, but it’s beyond my technical abilities.

Getting folks to subscribe is the easy part. The hard part is holding on to them! Nurture those new fans by communicating with them on a regular and consistent basis.

Chris Robley's Author Bio

  • http://kiwafruit.blogspot.com Kahiwa

    It depends on what your using to manage your emails.
    I highly recommend MailChimp (I use it for my ukulele group, Brisbane Ukulele Musicians Society), especially because you can create a signup tab for your Facebook page. Not only that, but your signup page can exist as it’s own link, be embedded into a website/WordPress sit, it’s really easy to create all your other forms and auto-send emails (say, a confirmation email with link to download page) and they can all be designed with the similar colours and themes.

  • http://www.marcreeves.co.uk Marc Reeves

    One thing I’m testing at the moment is offering free downloads without any signup to my mailing list, instead offering a 20% off voucher when they subscribe.

    I still think I need to improve my website design right now, I don’t think it’s clear enough where everything is. It’s hard work designing your own site though!

    • Chris R. at CD Baby

      Hey Marc,

      http://www.hostbaby.com has some great website templates that are easily customizable and allow for everything you need as an artist (blogs, streaming audio, gig calendar, photo gallery, etc.)
      Check it out!

  • http://www.drewgilman.com Drew Gilman

    I think emails aren’t an effective way to spread your message. I just envision so many going right into the spam folder or something. I think people check their facebook page more than their email accounts. So I think it’s more effective to bypass the email sign-up and just go with the facebook “fans”. I know on my website, I think I’ve gotten maybe a handful of email addresses but I’ve had much more success getting facebook fans. To whom I can communicate with much easier.

  • http://www.jamplified.com Jamplified

    I second the recommendation for MailChimp. I have a mailchimp tab on my facebook page as well as a page on my website.
    It’s very easy to customize and works flawlessly for us.

    • Chris R. at CD Baby

      If you build your site with HostBaby, it comes with a mailing list manager with UNLIMITED email sending capabilities. Check it out at http://www.hostbaby.com

  • Linda

    I hate to admit it, but I just delete all the mail I get from musicians whose list I’m on without even reading it.

    I wonder how many other people do too?

  • http://www.peterweis.com Gnxmusic

    I have been using email marketing on another project and it does work but the the avg is between 2-5%. better email marketing systems will elt you track all the info, links and also do split tests.

  • http://www.tamimachnai.com Tami Machnai

    I have a questions for my non- musicians friend: do you think that HostBaby can work for them too or is it very specific for musicians? I personally didn’t check it out cause I’m all set with my site but I have friends, artists and non who are searching. I love CD Baby so would love to recommend if it did work for others too..

    • Chris R. at CD Baby

      Hey Tami, HostBaby is happy to work with non-musicians. The new templates are customizable, so people can fit it to their own needs. Plus, the first month is free, so they can try it out and see if they like it.

  • Lars

    Anybody know how to insert the html code for CD Baby’s Store widget into facebook???