Reverbnation » 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 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.

Personal Relevance

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Feb 162010

~ Don’t Use It If It Doesn’t Make Sense To You

I’ve been using a capo on my guitar for what seems like forever. It’s just a tool that’s a part of my kit when I play. over the years I’ve learned to use it for more than just the obvious aspect of changing keys. I use this simple machine to half capo across the neck and to get specific sounds out of my guitar that you can’t get when you strum it open. But when I first was introduced to a capo I didn’t know what to make of it. I understood its capabilities, but not its applications. I was aware of it and when I got to a tipping point in my guitar playing, I saw the personally relevant application of the capo.

I’m beginning to see that a lot these days. I come across a new widget/doo-hickey/whatchacallit thing and while I understand the simple purpose of it, the personal application is not apparent. At least not immediately.

Let’s take this blog for example. I’ve been writing in this medium for about a year, posting songs and ideas, but prior to that I didn’t have one and didn’t really want one. I knew what blogs were and I read them and subscribed, but they didn’t have any practical personal application. But blogs were making my head crazy because I was told that as a musician I should have one. I see why, but why for me? Storm like this swirl around when we come in contact with a new medium. The storm of: You should be doing this because… fill-in-the-blank. Yikes, I have to have a blog and I don’t. I’m yesterday’s news, I’ll never succeed as a songwriter. Rats. of course that’s not true. There are millions of artists out there that don’t have blogs and they’re doing just fine. For me, it just wasn’t relevant; that is until the concept slid into place in my brain like a puzzle piece and I knew what I wanted to write about and share with you my faceless audience.

There are a lot of these storms raging out there. If you don’t have a blog-Twitter-Facebook-Reverbnation-CDBaby-website-Bebo-Flickr-flamalamadingdong, well brother… you’re just shit out of luck. But I say again – If it isn’t personally relevant, then why bother?

This really hit home with me when it was strongly suggested that I should start using a contact management system. I was happy with my calendar and proud of my simple spreadsheet list of names. Well not really. I understood that my system was flawed, but when I started trying to use contact management software I balked. It didn’t make sense to me even though I understood the concept. Then, after I had downloaded the same software for the second time I did something with it that just clicked in my brain and it was like the whole application suddenly snapped into focus. I got it and the software made sense.

The point to all of this is that we do not need to use every new thing that other people scream about. If you understand the social aspect of Twitter and how it can connect you to fans, but just don’t see how you can apply it to your artistic world, then don’t. Everyone screams: Make a video and put it onYouTube. You say – Yeah, I see other musician’s videos, but making a video just doesn’t click with me right now – then don’t do it. You gotta start using a capo. Yeah I see lots of people using them, but I don’t see where it fits in to my playing – then don’t use it.

But, you should walk this path with your eyes and ears wide open. If enough (normal)people are screaming loudly about something, you should at least turn around to see if it’s someone waiting to hug you or an axe murderer. At least take a look at the New Widget On The Block to see if it fits with your world. I would also suggest that if the screaming persists you should revisit the concept to see if that new something has changed or perhaps see if you’ve changed and now that thing that you thought was irrelevant is now the most amazing tool in your kit.

Have you had something laying around for a long time that just recently made sense and became a part of your tool kit? What new thing are you ignoring that you think may become relevant later? Leave a comment!

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