Blog Challenge - Week 7

Building your e-mail list

I've been told, and I believe it to be true, that your e-mail list is a vital part of reaching out to your audience and engaging them in what you are up to. Last week, I learned about sending a good newsletter (which I then did. I hope it was a good one. I included a great recipe for yummy hummus.)

This week's chapter is all about building your e-mail list. It's interesting, because when I read the title for the chapter, I thought.....ya, I do this already. I bring a sign-up sheet to my gigs...I've offered a free download to anybody that signs up, and it's prominently displayed on my website, FB, etc. BUT, there's more you can do!

Step 1 is mining through the people you know/people you converse with over e-mail/anyone really and asking them if you can add them to your e-mail list. I sometimes shy away from forward actions like this, but I think I'm gonna do it! It's important for me to try and promote (without being obnoxious...)

Another interesting idea is putting time aside to work on building the mailing list. Again, I thought this was something that could only happen when I had gigs. I'm going to put some time aside, and see what I can get done.

Another interesting idea is getting people to sign up for the list at gigs by offering a prize (free CD?!?) I'm definitely gonna try this at my next gig. I think this can work for sure!

Again, I thought I had this covered, but I've realized there's so much more I can do! So, instead of writing about it, I'm gonna do it.

Wanna be on my e-mail list? Go to www.ernestocervini.com and sign up! You'll get a free download of my NYC jazz trio MEM3 performing live in Edmonton, AB

Blog Challenge - Week 6

So, I'm still a little behind, but I'm doing my best to catch up....

This weeks chapter is about e-mail newsletters.

I've recently started focusing on sending out better e-mails, and building an e-mail list. In fact, one of the goals I set in week 1 was getting 500 names on my e-mail list. Right now, I'm at 418. If you're reading this, and you're not on my e-mail list, please go sign up! You can get a free download of my quartet live in action...

The chapter focuses on not just e-mailing people to say "HERE'S WHAT I'M UP TO, HERE'S WHAT I'M UP TO , BUY MY STUFF, COME TO MY CONCERTS!!!" We need to remember that at the end of the day people are always looking out for #1. So, these e-mails should offer some sort of nuggets of info, and other things to engage people.

Newsletters should have 3 parts...
Greeting (hello, it's me, I'm here)
Guts (the reason for the newsletter ie. I'm on tour, these are the gigs....)
Getting

Getting is the interesting one to me. That's where you engage the reader. Offer something unexpected, like recommending a cool book, or recipe, or album you just discovered. Or give something away for free, like a new live track.

I'm looking forward to doing my December newsletter (in the next couple of days.) I have all sorts of ideas!