*** The Musician Advice Section - Mailing Lists ***
These are a very easy way to keep your fanbase aware of
events going on in the life of the band. Let them know about
progress on recordings, where they can listen to your music,
who to bug to hear your music, when, and where, and where
they can catch you live. Plus, it's an easy way to keep people
like myself and your radio contacts up to date on what's going
on with the band, when you're available for interviews, etc. In
fact, you may want to run a few different mailing lists, for
different purposes, just remember to keep track of them all.
Now then, this brings me to something very important - information
about shows. You want to give as much of the information about
the shows as possible. This includes:
- Date
- Location (city/town, venue, and address, if possible)
- Any cover charges - if there's no cover, state this clearly
with something like "Free Show!"
- Age restrictions (clearly state whether it's All Ages or if it is
19+ - also, if it's All Ages, state whether or not there will be
a licensed area)
- Door time, and, if available, scheduled time of the first band
- Everyone who is playing that night - spread the love around,
let people know all of the bands playing, and encourage people
to come out for the entire show and to check out all of the bands
who are playing - we make this a better scene by working with
each other.
Resources for mailing lists:
There are two main ways to maintain a mailing list - On a Groups
server, or on your computer. Whichever option you choose, I've
got some resources for you below.
Using a Groups Server:
In this type of mailing list the actual membership list is kept on
a server to which you send an e-mail for distribution. The Ontario
Metal List is an example of this type of a list. They're generally
pretty user-friendly, both for the person operating the list, and for
the people that are signed up to it. They can also be used for
people to discuss the band or related topics.
For the Ontario Metal List, I use Yahoo Groups. It's a very easy
group/mailing list server to use, and it's free. There are a number
of other free list services out there, you just have to look for them.
Maintaining a list on your own computer:
This is a decent option for an announcement-only style list.
Essentially, with this type of list you maintain a list of all of
the e-mail addresses that have signed up for your mailing
list, either as a single addressbook entry, or just in a text file,
and you are then able to send e-mails to all of these e-mail
addresses.
There are some LARGE pitfalls to be aware of if you're using
this kind of list:
1. Do not place the e-mail addresses in the TO: field of your e-mail
(unless you're using an internal SMTP server such as Easy SMTP
Server, which automatically sends to each e-mail address as though
it were the only one receiving the e-mail - If you are using an internal
SMTP server, you may find that some users will not receive your e-
mails though).
Place the e-mail addresses in the BCC: field of the e-mail instead.
Otherwise your entire e-mail list will see everyone's e-mail address.
2. Enter all of the e-mail addresses of subscribers as a single
addressbook entry - otherwise I can guarantee that you'll forget
one or two, or more, people when you send out e-mails. I know,
I've done it before with my manually configured radio lists, which
became such a nightmare that I ended up using a group server
after a year.
There is one large pitfall that you can fall into with any
kind of list that must be avoided at all costs:
Failing to use the list to its full advantage.
Seriously, I've known some awesome bands whose shows I've
missed simply because they didn't bother to send out any
information about them on their mailing lists - if you've got
a show, it doesn't matter how large or small, and you want
your fans there, YOU HAVE TO LET THEM KNOW ABOUT IT.
I want to know what you think about this section - please e-mail your
comments, suggestions, and additions to the advice herein to:
djdaimon (at) ontariometal dot net
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