The Future of Email Marketing For Musicians with Nathan Barry

ConvertKit’s mission is to help creators reach their audience and make a living doing what they love. That includes musicians – possibly the most mainstream of creators. If you’ve been following along, you may have caught wind that ConvertKit recently acquired FanBridge, an email marketing company geared toward musicians.

In today’s episode, Charli, Haley, Miguel, and ConvertKit CEO Nathan Barry discuss the why behind ConvertKit’s acquisition, why emerging musicians need email, and why email is much deeper than Spotify and so much more than simply another marketing tool in your musical belt.

“As an artist, you should own the relationship with your fans, just like you should own the masters to your songs, rather than the record label, Spotify, or relying on the algorithms from Instagram, and YouTube, and others. In email, there’s no algorithm. You own that directly.” ~ Nathan Barry

Our Favorite Creators

• [10:01] Musicians are the creators many people admire the most. They also fuel our culture. Adding musicians to ConvertKit’s portfolio takes our message of supporting creators mainstream.
• [16:35] Email is not a discovery platform, it’s a connection platform. Emerging artists simply aren’t able to connect with fans and new listeners on sites like Spotify. Not to mention, emails can help you earn a living – selling merch, selling tickets – outside of the slice of revenue you earn for every Spotify stream.
• [18:21] Email is where your superfans live and the email conversion rate is so much higher than the conversion rate on social media. Casual fans follow on social media. Superfans sign up for your email list.
• [19:29] Owning your audience is hugely important and you can only own your audience via email. You can’t control when Spotify or Instagram will change the algorithm and delete your fanbase.
• [22:52] Musicians can use email to foster those one-on-one conversations with fans, build stronger connections, and show off their voice. Given that most musicians are strong writers, writing emails is probably an undiscovered strength for musicians.
• [28:31] Every artist who is excelling or has excelled in email, has had an experience that has pushed them to start email. Don't wait for something to happen. Be proactive and start building your email list today.

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek
• Nathan Barry
  
  

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Behind-The-Scenes Of Our First Acquisition
• Creator Sessions
• Mandy Moore Performs on Creator Sessions After a Decade Long Music Hiatus
• Craft & Commerce Conference
• Pharrell Williams Masterclass with Students at NYU Clive Davis Institute
• Among Us
• CORPSE
• Taylor Swift
• Johnnyswim
• Songs With Strangers
• ConvertKit Plans to Bring Newsletters to Music Industry With FanBridge Acquisition
• Substack
• Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Newsletter
• Jenna Kutcher
• Kevin Hart
• I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons by Kevin Hart
• MailChimp
• SalesForce Marketing Cloud
• FanBridge
• Spotify
  
  

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