Email is still one of the best ways for the music industry to communicate with fans. It’s trackable, provides clear, actionable data, and, when fans opt-in, can generate a dedicated revenue stream. 

We’ve simplified the approach to email marketing for the music industry with FanMail Template System, a robust and scalable solution for each artist or label’s specific brand. This system makes it easy to quickly create engaging emails with enhanced content blocks, responsive behavior, and updates that make it the most efficient, capable email system for music marketers today.

We asked two members of the FanMail team, Rhayven Jones, Lead Developer, and Brian Vogel, Creative Director, about their approach to creating engaging and interactive emails that deliver content that increases engagement, click-through rate, and sales. 

What’s your approach to designing engaging emails? 

BV: An artist’s brand is my starting point. Creating a responsive email design that is true to their current release takes time, but it ensures the artist and label will continue to use the template/design consistently. It’s a 360 degree branding approach that gives fans a better overall experience, which makes them desire further interaction with the artist or label. Our goal with visuals is to create excitement and anticipation with fans and drive the desired outcome, whether it’s a purchase, download, pre-save, or tour info. This also encourages fans to continue to open and click through emails to additional content or an eCommerce site. 

One of the most recent hero image trends is to incorporate GIF images in emails. This allows for a more dynamic visual experience that’s particularly effective for the music business. It’s a great way to generate engagement and excitement from fans. 

The latest technology gives us a wide variety of typography available for email design. Our team has done research to see what works better across different browsers and email clients. We found that Google’s web fonts give us some of the best compatibility results, on top of having a great variety of available options to use. 

RJ: In general, email design and web design are “playing well together”. By this, I mean that there are several new tools to build emails that allow email to have a better look and feel that is similar to web pages. Using animated and interactive images provides a more interesting user experience that encourages fans to continue to interact with the artist or label. 

Targeted, personalized emails give any fan the experience of feeling as if the artist is crafting messaging just for them. We’ve been using Movable Ink, a tool that allows for more personalized email image content based on location, interests, time, etc. This enables us to add things such as a countdown or the person’s name to an image. 

 

Why is the  FanMail Template System a perfect tool for the music industry? 

BV: Our template system takes the design challenge out of the equation for clients and ensures the look is consistent across devices. This is especially true with Salesforce, where we can create and customize content areas. MailChimp has a more vanilla approach that makes it a little less flexible than Salesforce, but we’re able to create workarounds that allow us to customize emails and tailor them to the content effectively. It’s a great fit for music marketing and can extend to other email platforms as well. 

We can create templates and content areas that address specific needs. The way our email template system works makes it easy to create emails based on pre-designed content areas that can be used to announce new releases, videos, albums, tour dates, merchandise sales, social media posts, and other artist or label needs. These templates provide a consistent, professional design, and easy to adapt a system that can be used over time and is easily updated when needed. Also, these template designs take into consideration that fans are going to engage with these emails on a different number of devices, browsers, and email clients. We work to make sure the design stays consistent and is true to the artist’s brand and design standards.

RJ: We are building on our existing template system to support all the new email tools and trends. Our template system is designed to make it easy for our clients to customize and deliver messages that look right on every device and OS. We ensure clients can easily replicate and deliver well-crafted and visually engaging emails consistently over time. Of course, the goal is to enhance a fan/customer overall experience with professional-looking emails that fans want to receive.  

How has Dark Mode changed FanMail Marketing’s approach to email design and development?

BV: More and more mobile users are embracing this feature since it’s easier on the eyes and has power-saving advantages. It’s cool. So with our creative design, we take into consideration Dark Mode, mobile-friendly/adaptive design, and use gradients on emails backgrounds and call to action buttons. We make sure logos, fonts and images look good in Dark Mode because we know when it’s not taken into consideration, images or logos can render poorly. This can confuse the message of the email and diminish the fan experience. 

RJ:  What we do for our clients is deliver more interactive, dynamic, personalized, and adaptive emails. We have new ways to display content, images, and forms, and we also make sure every email looks good when users switch to dark mode on their devices. It’s imperative that anyone investing in digital marketing is ahead of this trend and utilizing it to their advantage. 

How does copy contribute to the success of an email?

BV: Subject lines, preheaders, and headlines all need to drive interest with clear intent. The copy needs to be relevant, to the point, and complement the visuals with a clear call to action. Using emojis can create visual interest that quickly communicates the mood of the email, plus they are eye-catching when a user is scrolling through their inbox.

Why is email such an effective tool for the music industry?

BV: Email marketing is still one of the best ways for artists and labels to communicate directly with fans. This creates valuable data that can be used to learn, gain insights, especially when you that information back into the marketing plan. Email is easily trackable and can help labels create content that fans want to interact with, leading to more opens and more purchases or interactions. When you consider that 80% of revenue is generated by just 20% of the most loyal fans, it’s one of the most effective ways to communicate with your strongest revenue stream. 

RJ: I see brands, companies, and influencers looking to connect with those fans who are willing to spend and support their work. Facebook and other social media platforms are a good way to reach people, but it’s not the best for personalized, relevant content. Even in that social space, you see a platform like Patreon where influencers are connecting with fans that are committed and willing to spend more to get more. A well-designed and managed email program can help identify and segment connected, loyal fans who are interacting with a brand or artist’s content, so you can provide a VIP personalized, relevant experience to them with targeted content. 

Ready to put the FanMail Template System to work for you? Talk to us about how to create an email system that will create an immediate connection with your fans, keep them engaged and, most importantly, increase revenue for artists and labels.

The 2020 pandemic brought many changes in how we conduct business, communicate, and work with each other. As much as the situation has been disruptive, it has been a force for change, causing marketers to optimize their existing data and marketing tools to reach their customers. In the case of email marketing, the pandemic proved that email is the cornerstone of fan-relationship management and that is now as relevant as ever as a marketing tool.

In an era of social media, streaming, e-commerce, and multimedia entertainment, Email Marketing continues to be the preferred, reliable, and timely way to engage fans and build lasting relationships. With the increase in e-commerce, remote work, and digital streaming entertainment, having a robust email marketing strategy and strong email platform became a must for bands, labels, venues, music retailers. Email is an efficient, effective way to reach an audience and secure a robust direct-to-fan communication channel being not tied to search or social media algorithms. 

In a multimedia, multi-platform world, relationships are still crucial to communicate and engage with fans in the music business. Email has proven to be a reliable and valuable way to build those relationships over time. Emails can be tailored, automated, and personalized to be relevant and keep fans engage and up-to-date with content. 

Despite being considered a legacy digital tool, email is still a vital component of the music business, complementing or supporting new social media and digital technologies, and will for years to come. For reference, roughly 80% of marketers have reported increased email engagement over the past 12 months. (HubSpot, 2020). Email marketing has a clear and valuable role in an artist and label’s audience engagement strategy and will continue to be at the forefront of enhancing fan’s experiences. 

For the year ahead, we see the following email marketing trends as they drive the future of direct-to-fan communications: 

Email design is KING.

Email platforms have become design powerhouses. There’s no excuse for boring, text-only emails. The design possibilities are almost endless with vibrant, interactive emails and animation, all of which is an extension of an artist’s creative work. With the right tools and support team, artists and labels can deliver information and establish an emotional connection with expert-level designed emails.

One basic design must is making sure emails are Dark Mode friendly. Dark Mode is now a standard feature in today’s mobile and desktop devices. It has brought a new design language to email marketing. Music industry marketers need to be aware that their email content must be compatible and adjusted to dark mode to deliver a consistent and visually compelling email experience.

Focus on interactions, not just opens.

Email content that provides relevant messages promotes fans’ interaction with other digital assets like merchandise store links, streaming platforms, social media channels, campaigns, and charity-supported initiatives. A practical and well-designed email strategy will give fans an enjoyable and valuable experience, making each interaction and future email more likely to retain fans over time.

Privacy concerns also mean emails need to be targeted and relevant to avoid the possibility of being labeled as spam. To have fans provide you with their email address is a privilege as they want to be rewarded with exciting and engaging content to nurture the fan-performer relationship. It’s a one-on-one conversation between fan and performer.

ALWAYS send a confirmation email.

Today’s consumer expects a formal confirmation, an email, to confirm that a transaction occurred. When they opt-in to a newsletter, buy tickets to a live stream event, purchase merchandise, or get the most direct artist updates, email is the expected and trusted form of communication between artists, labels, and fans. Always take the opportunity to say thank you and suggest additional content or merchandise. Without a confirmation,  the consumer is left in the dark as to whether or not the transaction is complete. 

Make it theirs with personalization.

Email platforms can provide endless possibilities for personalization. When signing up for a newsletter, fans want to engage with relevant content. We see labels taking advantage of fans’ preferences, and the analytics generated by these interactions can help drive content development by understanding what drives fans to click-though emails. Proper data segmentation can help labels and musicians better understand fan behavior and help develop better-personalized music consumption marketing campaigns.  

Make it interactive.

Email platforms can make emails look like “a piece of the internet” in your inbox. Your content can be dynamic, showing GIFs, images, videos, and location-based content. All these things increase engagement and maximize fans’ email experiences. Emails can drive website engagement before your target reaches it while providing interactive and relevant content to increase interaction. Also, emails can have request info from fans to get updates on artists’ releases or tours, pre save a track or begin a purchase, which can increase the chances of them completing the transaction and give you an opportunity to follow up.  

More, but relevant, automatization.

Spam filters and the ability to screen emails are getting more sophisticated. Labels and artists’ marketing management are challenged to think about their email content and frequency strategy to minimize email database decay and unsubscribes. Although excessive automation can be an issue, using these tools strategically to drive time-relevant content can be a game-changer. 

The different tools available on email platforms like Salesforce, MailChimp, IBM Acoustic, Constant Contact, Microsoft Dynamics, among others, can be used to respond to a fan action, inaction, date, or internet-connected interaction. These automated emails can deliver just the right messages to fans and subscribers at just the right time.

Overall, Email is a key engagement tool for the music and entertainment industry. The current technologies and innovations point to a bright and valuable email marketing future. Artists and labels need to provide relevant, timely and well-executed email campaigns to enhance fans’ experiences and foster long-term relationships. 

Want to learn more about how FanMail Marketing can help you engage fans and supply them with the content they want when they want it? Talk to us and discover the best way to maximize your investment in your email marketing platform or to help find the best program for your needs. 

It has been a long, dark year for the nation’s nearly 3000 music venues. Shuttered by COVID-19 restrictions, our stages are suffering, with nationwide losses estimated at $8.9 billion for ticket sales alone. For some, the shutdown is permanent. At least 88 venues have closed their doors forever, according to Billboard Magazine.  

 For the rest help is on the way thanks to the Save our Stages Bill. Formally known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, the lifeline infuses $15 billion directly to this hard-hit group. Qualifying venues. promoters and artist managers can use their share to cover salaries, rent and utilities.

 But savvy operators will earmark part of their COVID venue grant for building, refining and upgrading their direct-to-fan marketing.

 Forward-looking venue operators know music marketing is more vital now than ever. “Getting customer communications right is critical to your business’s success in a post-pandemic world,” urges the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The right fan relationship management will rebuild your business and win back music lovers. The wrong approach, like old-school blast emails, will hurt that relationship and your bottom line.

 Today’s fans expect more than a generic email message. They want personalized, targeted communication that addresses their needs, concerns and desires. And they want it on multiple platforms from email to blogs to social media posts.

 It sounds like a lot of work for struggling venue operators but that’s why CRM and a robust Digital Marketing infrastructure are so important. These tools harness fan data so you can create tailored marketing messages that drive engagement to bring fans back to music venues. 

 Are you ready to sharpen your email list, plan your messaging and hit the ground running? It’s a big job but you don’t have to do it all alone. FanMail Marketing offers organizations the tools to manage and engage top loyal customers using email, mobile, web, search, social, and display advertising. Since 2002, we have served many of the world’s leading artists, labels, and companies including Sony Music, Warner Music Group, nugs.net, Another Planet Entertainment, 800# Gorilla Records and many more.