I keep hearing music marketers talking about their "email list". It grates on my brain every time i hear it. Why? Because they are obviously thinking about themselves and their own needs as marketers.... to deliver their message.
However if I push them. most will readily admit that what they really want are subscribers... permissions.... people who want to hear about what you have to say. So here are some rules when thinking about "email lists"...
- Having a list of emails is not the same as having permission... or a subscriber
- Just because you had permission at one time does not mean that those people still care
- Delivering the right message is more important than delivering lots of messages
- At the end of the line is real live breathing person... with a name and an address and likes and dislikes. The email address is just a way to reach out to them.
- What they want is really more important than what you want.... always.
Labels: band management, email marketing, fans
I love this:
It is from the creating passionate users blog.
I see a lot people stuck in the middle.
The problem with being in the middle is that while innovative people move on, you are still stuck in the same place.
In direct to fan marketing, the risk is pissing off the fan or causing an "incredible shrinking list".
We pride ourselves on helping our clients become experts in fan communication and helping them over the kick-ass threshold.
Look for "The Fanny Awards" coming from our camp in 2008. We will be looking to spotlight organizations and marketing campaigns that excel in Fan-Centric philosophy, execution and innovation.
Labels: email marketing, FanMail, innovation, visual thinking
Justin Boland runs the blog
Audible Hype. Good stuff here.
In a recent post entitled "
Be Innovative, Episodic and Interesting and Get Free Publicity", Justin looks at a number of different case studies and examples of artists being REMARKABLE and getting tons of free press and word of mouth publicity.
The cool thing about Justin's post is that he isn't offering a formula... this is not "a fix". He understands up front that to be really remarkable you have to do things that others HAVE NOT DONE before.
Justin says:
"This is a problem
Seth Godin notes in
Purple Cow: marketers read books about innovative new strategies, then imitate exactly what they read, and then wonder why it does not work. It does not work because it has already been done. The point is to take the concepts and apply them to your product, your niche, and the your world. YouTube is currently flooded with cheap knockoff attempts at viral dances, jokes and music videos."
It is amazing in the music industry how many people follow the herd. It is almost every month marketers in the music industry are switching gears to follow some new widget craze or new texty thing... or the new myspace trick that is hot this month. And in the process of following the craze they forget about the basics... THE FANS.
Who likes you? Who cares? Who gives 2 rats asses about what you are doing? How can you give these people something really remarkable to talk about?
Labels: publicity, remarkable, word of mouth
