Email Marketing for Musicians: The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your Fanbase in 2024

The current musical landscape consists of a melting pot of artists, all bidding for the attention of audiences with 12-second attention spans.  While social media is great when it comes to building an engaging brand story and identity, artists like you need to take their marketing efforts one step further. 

That’s where email marketing comes in. Email is the tried-and-tested medium that can turn someone who stumbled upon your music into a long-term fan. 

Why is email marketing beneficial to musicians?

Email is the internet’s currency. Anyone who’s online has an email address. 

90% of emails get delivered straight to your intended recipient’s inbox. Conversely, only 2% of your Facebook audience see your posts. If you’ve got 1000 followers on Facebook, only 20 of them will see your post. If you have 1000 people on your mailing list, 900 individuals will receive your email in their inbox. That’s quite a difference!

Email is also one of the most powerful conversion channels out there. The average click-through rate of any given email is approximately 3%, compared to Instagram’s 0.22%. This makes a big difference when talking about overall revenue, merch sold and gig tickets purchased. 

It’s also important to consider the fact that many people use social media to communicate with loved ones and to pass the time. On the other hand, email is a more professional communication medium. In fact, 49% of consumers prefer receiving marketing messages via email. 

Then there’s also the indisputable fact that email is one of the most stable communication channels on the net. The first email campaign was sent in 1978 to 400 people. Marketers haven’t looked back ever since. By 2013, 53% of marketers agreed that email is the most effective communication channel. In 2020, around 306 billion e-mails were sent and received every day globally. This figure is set to increase to over 376 billion daily e-mails in 2025. Social media platforms come and go – but email has stayed and conquered. 

Building your own mailing list

Pick the right email marketing platform 

There are tonnes of free email marketing platforms that will get you started. Mailerlite enables you to add up to 1000 subscribers for free and send 12,000 emails a month. It also includes features such as automation, autoresponders, webforms, and reporting. Mailchimp is the most popular email marketing platform out there. Its free version includes 2,000 subscribers, 10,000 emails per month, reporting, list management, and a number of mobile-specific features. Have a look around and see which platform you like best. Ultimately, the choice is up to you. 

Aggregate contacts 

Building an email list takes time. Make sure that you start collecting email addresses at gigs while you’re selling merch at the merch table. People may initially be reluctant to give you their personal details, so you should incentivise it by offering a free sticker or badge to those that do sign up. 

Use Your website and social media platforms

Design a website landing page or a pop-up that revolves around encouraging people to subscribe to your mailing list. Some email marketing platforms offer the possibility of integrating your email marketing account with Facebook, Google My Business, Squarespace, WordPress, Eventbrite and so on. This can dramatically boost your audience count. 

Add an email capture popup to your smart link

You can now add email capture to your Amplify.link. Simply go to your Artist Page and click Connect. Follow instructions to integrate your Amplify.link with Mailchimp. Then, choose the list you want to add new contacts to and customise your sign-up prompt and success message. You can also enable and change the colours of your email capture popup. On the Customise step, look for the Email capture heading and hit the toggle to enable it. 

Email ideas

Keeping your fanbase updated is key to email marketing success. After all, the people on your mailing list need to find value in what you’re sending. Don’t limit your emails to gigs and releases – provide value by sending behind-the-scenes photos, blogs, pre-sale and pre-save links, free downloads, mailer-exclusive raffles, giveaways and what-not. 

According to Neil Patel, “The first line of the email is a key part of the email message. It’s not just about the subject line anymore…because more and more email programs (even on mobile) include a preview of the message.” Your email should be short and straight to the point. Focus on the key updates, and don’t bombard your audience with a lot of info. 

Add a CTA

Call-to-actions – a.k.a CTAs – refer to buttons such as Buy now, Learn more and Pre-save now. It motivates your audience to take a particular action and gently steers them towards becoming more engaged fans. It’s the cherry on the top that every internet user expects. Therefore, the next time you’re creating an email marketing campaign, do add a clear CTA. You’ll be surprised by the results. 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash