email list » Darryl Gregory Music

Sign-up, But Legibly!

Feb 202011

I just want to write a quick post about collecting names for my mailing list. I’m always very excited when I get a whole bunch of names after a gig. But when I get home to put them into my database I realize that there are many that I cannot read.

The next day when I’m sitting at my computer typing in names I will inevitably spend 10 minutes squinting at someone’s chicken scratch. I will be trying to determine whether an R is a T, an M is an S plus all sorts of different variations on letters and numbers. The paranoid part of my brain kicks in and asks, “Are they doing this on purpose? Do they not want me to be able to read this so that I don’t have their name on my mailing list?” But then I remember that they stopped teaching penmanship when my mother graduated from high school in 1936.

I’ve tried to combat the poor penmanship by creating a sign-up sheet that has little boxes like on the SATs or a tax form. But people would still print poorly into the small boxes. I’m not quite sure what to do. Reverbnation and Constant Contact both have apps that allow you to sign up people directly from your smart-phone. The thing I don’t like about that is letting someone handle my phone. I don’t want people to accidentally drop my phone, hand it to someone I don’t know, make a call with it or hand it back smeared with BBQ sauce from a chicken wing.

So I guess I will just put a “print clearly” notice at the top of my list and hope that people read it and take it seriously. I’m really just grateful that people sign it at all. Oh, by the way, will you sign my mailing list? Legibly?

MSi9W – Week 8.1 ~ REAL! LIVE! NETWORKING!!!

Music Success in 9 Weeks 2 Responses »

Aug 252010

If I could stay in my studio and compose all day I would. If I could go out and gig when I wanted and be compensated fairly for it, I would. If I never had to “sell” or “brand” myself I would be content with just doing my thing. If I never had to “network” I’d be a happy musician. If I could live in a dream… well there’s the rub. Networking is the pin prick to my bubble-dream of the perfect artistic life.

As I stated in the previous blog post, going through this course is like going through therapy. This has been all about me facing my fears and moving past them in order to get my music heard and appreciated. It’s like I have this beautiful thing for you to see, but you can’t see it because I’m afraid to tell you about it. Because I have told myself – “I don’t network…”

Networking and talking about what I do has never been easy for me. Insecurity, fear of rejection, an unfounded feeling of inferiority have lead me to avoid promoting my music in the past. It has only been recently that I’ve adopted a paradigm shift and an attitude readjustment so that I view my music as a product and a business as well as an artistic expression.

In chapter 8, Ariel gives practical advise on the why’s and how’s of networking and how to approach people in networking/social situations. The advice is simple:

Be a Listener
Know What to Ask For
Be a Gatherer
Have a Plan ~ Be Prepared
Follow Up

They work. I’ve tried them. They’re easy. They work.
Let me share some recent examples.

Open Mic
I went to an Open Mic in Cleveland where I knew absolutely no one. I had just played a show to a packed room of fans two nights previous to this and now I was going to play for total strangers. I went there with one goal in mind and that was to get 3 email addresses from a crowd of strangers and to play a few tunes (that’s two really…).

I succeeded in getting 2 email addresses and the name of the person that books the coffeehouse where I played. 75% plus a bonus, not bad.

I got one email address while I sat with a couple as I waited to play. They had just happened to be there to get a coffee and hear some live music. I started the chat by asking them what style of music they liked since we were hearing a bunch of different styles. I told them I got compared to Hiatt and Springsteen a lot and because they seemed interested I asked them to be on my email list. I also gave them a CD because they were a cool couple. I got the other email address after I played my 2 songs from someone who came up to me and told me they liked my music.

Both came as a result of my listening to the other person: what type of music they liked, what they thought of my music, what they were doing at the open mic and how they liked the coffee. I then asked them if I could add them to my email list because they were, in my opinion, the type of people I wanted on my list and because we had struck up a sort of relationship. They both said yes.

Serendipitous Gig
My wife and I were visiting my sister-in-law at her office while in Ohio recently. She’s a counselor at a community college in Ohio and as we were leaving I asked my sister-in-law if she knew the director of student affairs (plan). She surprised me when she not only said yes, but then said – Let’s go meet her, she’s just down the hall. As I walked down the hall to meet this woman I began creating a goal or two – 1) get a paying gig; 2) get a business card and a date to talk later.

My sister-in-law introduced me as her brother-in-law the musician and her sister as her sister the motivational speaker. This got some laughs, and I was asked what style of music I played and my wife talked a little about her credentials, but then the conversation turned serious. The DSA asked both my wife and I to participate in the school’s beginning of the year convocation. When is it we asked? The day after TOMORROW!!! We just needed to send her a bio, tax info and an invoice. AN INVOICE!?! Goal #1!

OK, that was a bit weird to just happen into a gig like that, but it wouldn’t have happened at all if I hadn’t been thinking about networking even when I was just visiting my sister-in-law. I think this brings us to the moral of the story: Always Be In Networking Mode. Does that mean that I always have to be selling myself? Should I approach every conversation with a goal in mind? No, but it does mean that I should have my radar up for the possibilities that are hidden around the corner. You never know who you are talking to.

After the Community College gig I followed up with the DSA and she not only signed up on my newsletter list but she invited me back to play again as a featured performer.

Networking is something that I find I have to work at and it takes practice and strategies to get better just like my songwriting. The idea of having a goal before going into a networking situation makes it more manageable for me. If I achieve my goal, I can relax a bit, get a drink and sit down.

I have two gigs coming up this week that will place me in front of audiences that don’t know me. I have to come up with some goals, put my finger to my head and look beyond my fears of networking because there really isn’t anything to be afraid of.

MSi9W – Week 7.1 ~ Building the List

Music Success in 9 Weeks 2 Responses »

Aug 212010

It’s all about the list!

I must admit that working through this book is a lot like going to therapy. In order for the material and the concepts to really work, you have to be honest and you have to own up to a lot of unproductive behavior and negative thought patterns. There’s just a lot of stuff here that I don’t want to do and that I have always told myself that I’m not good at doing. Asking people for help and asking people to do things is at the top of that list. I’m not a salesman – well too bad Darryl – it’s time to sell!

Here I am in a business model that requires people to lend an ear and a hand and I have not been asking enough of them to join me in this effort. I suppose it’s a fear of rejection when I avoid asking someone for their email address. I ask an audience – it’s easy to ask a crowd, but asking individuals is hard.

Why would they want to be on my list? Well why not? I have faith in my art. I put out a fun newsletter. And all they can say is yes or no – if no, then I know that that person is not a person I would want on my list or who would send me money. In week 6 Ariel is not allowing me to “wimp out” as she puts it. I must build my “fan” base and consequently my email list and I have to do it fearlessly.

Here are the suggestions that Ariel makes in this chapter for increasing your email list:

Add friends and family
Filter your email for potential email sign ups
Give something away for them to sign up
Trade lists with other bands
Start a text message list

Adding friends and family is easy you’d think, but if they only hear from you via your gig list then they might get a little testy about the relationship. My sister once said to me that she was tired of getting spam fro me and never a call to say hello. I’m going through my Holiday card list and sending a carefully worded email to those who are not on my fan list.

Ariel suggests setting up a separate mailbox for emails that come from people who might be potential sign ups. I think that this is a good idea, but one that should be approached with caution. Perhaps a relationship should be established before asking. This is one that I need to think about.

Giving something away is a great idea and was addressed in a previous chapter. I have a sign up box at the top of my website that bribes the potential fan with not one but TWO free tracks. Artist sites like Reverbnation make it easy to set up.

Trading a list with another band is a little sticky. I tell my fans that I don’t share their info with anyone, not even another band that I would love to see get more exposure. An alternative to that would be asking another band to send an email to their list on your behalf. They could say something like: We found this great new songwriter that you should hear! We’re going to go out and catch a show this Friday – come join us. You could then do the same for that band. But I would never share my list with other entities.

I don’t text message. It’s not on my phone plan, so I don’t use it. Therefore starting a text message list is not in my communication DNA. I have read stories of Lady GaGa texting her crowd while on stage. Those people are not in my audience and that goes back to knowing who your fans are and what their preferences are.

I’m getting better at asking people for things like email addresses and such, but it still stings when they say no. It’s my issue not theirs. I have added this task of building my list to my weekly rhythm register and it ends up on my daily to do list at least once a week. I set a short term goal at the beginning of the MSi9W project that I would have 25 new sign ups by September and as of this writing I’m at 22. Thanks for the new suggestions Ariel – I’ll get right on it!

MSi9W – Week 6 (2nd ed.) ~ Newsletter and Fan Communication

Music Success in 9 Weeks 1 Response »

Aug 052010

Week 5 (1st ed.) Week 6 (2nd ed.)

Week 5 has come around at just the right time! Newsletter time! Click here to check out this month’s issue and please sign up!

To begin I have to make a confession. Bless me Father for I have sinned – the SIN of SINS in marketing and direct mailing: I purged my email list. Yes… I did. I threw it in the trash, right-clicked on my mouse and it was gone. (OK you PR people, you can get up off the floor now…) Let me tell you why I did this and then you may judge me.

My wife and I moved to Connecticut after living in NYC for many years. While in the city, I had been “sort of playing out” as a solo singer-songwriter, playing a lot of trombone in small orchestras, I was active in a composer’s collective that wrote mostly for Indonesian Gamelan, I was writing for theater and I played bass as a sideman in a couple of rock bands. I was not Darryl Gregory the guy that plays “Hard-edged Country, with a soft heart” and I was not promoting myself as myself.

The names I collected for my list were occasional and varied. Some people liked my serious compositions and some liked my acoustic guitar playing and then some liked to come to the bars to see the band I was playing with. It was a mixed up list and when I trashed it I did so thinking that it couldn’t do anything for me. I wanted to start anew. I wanted a list with names of people that had come to see Darryl Gregory and then wanted to be connected to that entity.

A year ago I started on my songwriting and performing path with renewed energy and a more focused plan. The purging of my email list was just a reaction to my symptom of wanting to start all over.

But I didn’t throw everybody off the island. I kept close friends, a few true fans and some family on the list, but I that only added up to about 30 people. In the last 9-months I’ve grown the list to around 125. I know it will grow as I perform more and get better at collecting names, but I feel that I know what to do with those names once I get them because they signed up to be a part of the Darryl Gregory experience – I’m thinking like a business.

So now that I know who is on my list I can talk to them much more directly than before. The main way I communicate with this list is via my newsletter. I’ve put a lot of time into crafting my newsletter and I still feel like it’s a work in progress and I learn something each time I put it out. It goes out once a month whether I feel I have something to say or not, but usually I do (have something to say that is…).

The key to communication with fans, as I’ve learned from Ariel Hyatt and others, is to be a giver, not a getter. You should be a consistent bringer of news and tidbits about yourself and your services. You should also interact with the reader and ask them to do things for you and with you. This last bit is what I’m still working on and it was reinforced by reading Chapter 5 of MSi9W. After reading and re-reading Chapter 5, I decided to ask my readers help me out with my next CD project. I’ve invited them to following my blog postings about the CD process, listen and comment on song demos and help me decide which songs will go on the CD.

I always have my gig schedule and I start off with an introduction that I try to write as if I had that person sitting right in front of me. I always include a blurb about what I’m listening to on my iPod and I recycle my blog posts in my newsletter which is a great way to get readers to go back to my website. One huge piece of advice that I have for newsletter writing is to proofread and rewrite – yes I’m a teacher. I can’t believe all the mistakes I catch when I proof my writing.

One last thing about getting the emails out to your list: management software. I’ve tried several “list management” services to get the letter out and I’m still up in the air about them. Right now I’m using Constant Contact just because it is very easy to use and their templates were simple and direct. CC also has a good name collection system that allows me to give away my mp3’s via email. It’s drawback is the expense. There are cheaper management systems out there like ReverbNation, but they’re not as flexible nor do they have as many analytical tools as Constant Contact or Vertical Response or MailChimp. So you get what you pay for or don’t pay for. Here’s a good site to help you compare services www.email-marketing-options.com

Let me know what you think of this month’s newsletter and I’m off to Chapter 6.