Today, I’m asking you to think about your band newsletter/mailing list.  This post comes off the back of an article I’ve just read about the early newsletter for the indie folk outfit ‘Belle & Sebastian’.

Belle & Sebastian’s fan newsletter wasn’t simply a list of gig dates and releases,  it would deviate from band matters with articles full of “creativity and expression” covering all aspects of art and the coming and goings of their fans.   As artists this is something that you should think about as you try and forge a close and deeper relationship with your own audience.

An early Belle & Sebastian newsletter

Newsletters don’t have to be about gigs dates and release info.  Your email newsletter can be a window into your world and perhaps into your fans’ world as well.  Subscribers should feel as if they are part of a select ‘community’.

Newsletters are one way of nurturing a select community of fans.

Amanda Palmer has been incredibly successful at creating her own engaged select community and has subsequently reaped monetary rewards from it.

Amanda Palmer is perhaps the best known musician to create a community of superfans and her fans love her.  You know that because they wrote it on her back!

Think about how you can create a ‘space’ to express more of your thoughts and ideas without having to get an instant response from your audience (which you have to do on Facebook to achieve organic reach).  You can certainly do this in your newsletter.

You might even think about setting up a group on Facebook (either open or closed) for ‘superfans’ which goes further into your musical and artistic ‘world’.  A place to deeper discuss your music, your values, to go off topic, discuss influences, similar forms of art, entertainment etc.

Read the article in full here

https://newrepublic.com/article/128497/sinister-history-belle-sebastian-email-list

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

Twitter:  @60secondmm

Facebook: www.facebook.com/60secondmusicmarketing