Every few years we're told that the music industry is finished as some new technology moves faster than the record labels.
And every few years we're told that marketing through email is over as viruses and spam fill inboxes.
Email marketing isn't finished. It just got smart -- and you have to be smart to get the most out of it.
I still send occasional messages to my lists, and I still get to see the benefits of those mailings. Each message gives me a burst of affiliate sales, drives traffic to my website, or turbo-charges a product launch. I know that after I've sent out an email to my list, I can expect a quick leap in sales. It happens every time.
But it happens every time because I do it carefully. I don't send out emails all the time. For regular contact with my audience, I have blogs and social media. They are much better when it comes to maintaining a steady relationship. Marketing emails only go out when I've got something really important to say and a particularly important product that I want to promote.
I also choose the deals carefully. That's vital because while a good email list is a valuable asset, it's also an asset that you gamble with every time you use it. Send a badly-targeted message or offer products that aren't good and you're going to see subscribers dropping off.
A good email can bring you large profits. A bad one can lower the value of a list you've worked hard over a long time to create.
So making sure the product matches the audience will be important, not just to win the sales but also to protect your list. But no less important is the work you do before you email your marketing message. A subscriber's willingness to forgive a marketing email that wasn't relevant to him will depend on how he feels about you. If he trusts you, likes you, looks forward to hearing from you, he'll assume that the next one will be better. When you look like a stranger, he'll keep you at arms' length by unsubscribing.
There are risks then in send out marketing messages by email. But there's work that you can do to reduce those risks and ensure that your email marketing doesn't die.
I'm not sure about the music industry though...
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