Day 5: Two Free Options To Develop Your Band’s Mailing List
When your music is online, you want to collect as many email addresses from your fans. I had some tracks that I wanted to use to give away as a free promo. If you don’t have a mailing list setup then this will give you an idea of some free options. I needed a way to collect emails from fans in exchange for some free music. Once they sign up I could inform them with some newsletters with new releases and free music. I chose two different options:
Wordpress Double Opt-In Manager Widget
The WordPress Double Opt-In Manager Widget allows you to add a widget to your blog and collect emails. Here is a list of some of the great features:
- Subscribe to your mailing list from your blog
- Send a welcome email to each new subscriber
- Saves the subscriber details to your Wordpress database
- Customize sign up form
- Schedule your emails to be sent weekly, monthly or whenever you update your blog
- Users can update their subscription and unsubscribe easy
- Can automatically delete users who don’t confirm their subscription within 7 days
Our free music strategy we worked on the other day now comes into effect. Stimulate some sign ups and create some website exclusive music that can be downloaded if they sign up. Great way to provide a unique piece of work exclusive to those who sign up. Download the plugin and upload it to your plugins folder. Activate it and customize your message.
Bandcamp
If you don’t use Wordpress but want another way to give away some free music and gather emails then I would suggest using Bandcamp. Upload some of your free albums, ep, or singles and Bandcamp takes care of the rest. They provide you with free promo codes for you to share your music on various social networks. In exchange for downloading music, your fans have to give their emails to be sent the link. Quick solution to building a free mailing list. Bandcamp even allows you to export that email list to whatever future email software you plan to use.
Here is an example of a free ep we uploaded. We are currently testing its online results.
Free marketing options don’t have to look cheap and spammy. You control the messages, and appearance with these great tools. There is no reason why any band that wants to sell music online can’t begin their mailing list campaign. These new sign ups express interest in your music and are a valuable asset to your music operation. Reward fans and give yourself a better chance of selling your music.
Twitter
FriendFeed
LinkedIn
Disqus
