You've probably heard by now that you should have an email list and that you should be sending a newsletter to your fans...
But you're at a loss as to which email service provider is the best for you and your needs as a music artist. There are so many out there, which one is best?
I've tried several different email newsletter services, including, Active Campaign, Mailchimp, and Drip, but they all fell short of email autoresponder tool I now use...
ConvertKit is THE BEST email newsletter service for musicians. ConvertKit was made with creators in mind, and offers the perfect blend of power and simplicity, all wrapped up in an accessible and affordable package.
If you want to see why ConvertKit blows away the competition, keep reading.
Also, as a heads up, I'll be using the terms "email newsletter service", "email autoresponder", and "email service provider" interchangeably throughout this post. They all mean the same thing...a tool that lets you send automatic mass emails to your fans legally.
Start Your Email List
Get started with ConvertKit for free and start building your email list.
Why Music Artists Need An Email List
Email? Isn't that so 2010?
Not in the slightest.
Any digital marketer with a half a brain will tell you the first place to start when growing a business is by building an email list. And if you are trying to grow your music career, then you are by default looking to build a business.
You NEED an email list. It's not negotiable.
Here are some quick stats on why you need an email list:
Why You Need An Email List
3.9 billion people use email and that will increase to 4.3 billion by 2023
That's HALF of the world's population. Your fans are using email, and they are checking it. Daily. Email is the ONLY way you can directly communicate with your fans, since just about all social media platforms are now "pay-to-play", which means they won't let hardly any of your fans see your posts unless you pay for ads.
Email Marketing Will Make You Money
People are way more likely to buy through email than just about any other means online. In fact, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. Of course, this is dependent on how many products you have to sell (besides just music), but that's a topic for a different post.
Email Marketing Is The Best Way To Build A Relationship With Your Fans
Email is personal, more personal than even social media. You can communicate directly with your fans and build a relationship so that they go from being fans to SUPERFANS. The difference being that Superfans will buy just about everything you put out, whereas fans might just casually follow you. If you want Superfans, you need an email list.
Free Challenge:
Get Your First 100 Email List Subscribers In 3 Days
I'll email you a new strategy each day, for 3 days, to help you get your first 100 email list subscribers. These strategies don't cost anything, and you can easily implement them in just 3 days.
What to look for in an email marketing service for musicians
Ok, so now you agree you need an email service provider, but makes a great email service provider?
In my mind, there are 3 key attributes you need in an email service provider as a music artist.
What Makes A Email Autoresponder Great For A Music Artist?
Low Tech; High Functionality
If the Cyberpunk literary genre can be described as "high tech; low life", then you will want your email autoresponder to be the exact opposite of that. Let's face it, we're artists. We don't like getting bogged down in tech and monotony. We need a tool that is simple and easy to use, while not sacrificing features such as automation, segmentation, and more.
Created With Artists & Creatives In-Mind
Most email newsletter tools out there just aren't build with creatives in mind, and as a result, it can sometimes feel like you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. We need an autoresponder tool that's on our side!
Fits With The Musician's Budget
I'm determined to help end the cliche of the "starving artist", that said, a lot of us aren't working with much in the budget department. You need to invest in your music business to see success, but you also can't break the bank on the way there.
Why ConvertKit Is THE BEST Email Newsletter Service for Musicians
The great news is that after all of my searching and trying out multiple tools, I've found THE BEST email newsletter tool for musicians. ConvertKit.
ConvertKit has each of the three attributes above, and then some!
ConvertKit makes it easy to build your list (even if you don't have a website) thanks to their beautiful and easy to use landing pages.
From there, it's incredibly simple and intuitive to send out emails and set-up automations so you easily bring each new subscriber into the world of your music and convert them into a Superfan.
Low Tech; High Functionality
ConvertKit is the epitome of low tech/high functionality.
Ease Of Use
There's been a pretty steep learning curve with all of the email service platforms I've used (and I've been using them since at least 2010).
Not the case with ConvertKit.
Everything is organized in an easy-to-find and intuitive manner.
You don't have to worry about getting lost in endless pages.
Segmentation & tagging
Segmentation & tagging is immensely important to the success of your email marketing, and ConvertKit gives you all the tools you need in an easy-to-use, visual interface.
This becomes increasingly vital the more products you have to sell.
For example, say you're wanting to promote your album to your fans. Using ConvertKit's tagging feature, you can know who has already bought your album, and who hasn't.
Therefore, you can send that email ONLY to the people who haven't bought yet, and avoid burning out those who have already purchased.
You can even get uber-specific if you want.
Maybe your most popular song is titled "Thai Curry", and you created an epic T-shirt to go with it.
You can curate a list of all of the people who have bought or signed up for that song, and then send a promo email JUST to them showing how cool that shirt is.
The possibilities with segmentation go on and on, but in a nutshell, it allows you to promote to your audience much more frequently without burning your audience out because you're only promoting to one segment at a time.
Other email service providers will do the same thing to one degree or another, but I haven't seen any that make it as easy and simple as ConvertKit.
Automation
Automation is another vital feature you want, and it can allow you to generate sales passively.
When someone signs up for your email list, you can have automatic emails sent out to them that take them on a journey toward becoming a bigger fan of you and your music.
You can then end that journey with an offer for them to purchase from you.
And this can all be done automatically with ConvertKit in just a matter of seconds.
A/B Testing
ConvertKit was one of the first tools to offer the ability to A/B test your email subject lines.
This means you can actually create 2 subject lines for your emails when you send them out. ConvertKit will show one headline to 15% of your audience, and the other headline to a different 15% of your audience.
ConvertKit will then see which subject line gets more opens and then send the remaining 70% of your audience the winning subject line.
The bottom line is that ConvertKit helps you maximize how many people actually open your emails, which means more engagement and sales for you.
Built-In Forms & Landing Pages
The best way to get people on your email list is to offer them a free song in exchange for their email address.
You can create a webpage or put a form on your website where people can put in their information, and then ConvertKit can automatically send them the free song.
Now you might be wondering...
"But wait, I don't have a website. How do I get people to actually join my email list?"
Well, with ConvertKit, this isn't a problem.
Not all email newsletter services do this, but ConvertKit allows you to create your own forms and landing pages right inside of their tool.
This means you don't need a website in order to build your email list!
Excellent Integrations (Including Patreon & Shopify)
ConvertKit also integrates seamlessly with many other programs and apps to help you create the best experience possible for your subscribers (and yourself).
For example, ConvertKit integrates with Patreon, which means when someone becomes a new Patron, you can have that trigger an automatic email sequence in ConvertKit.
This will help your new Patreons feel welcome, and fall even more in love with you and your brand.
Sign Up For ConvertKit Today!
Created With Artists & Creatives In-Mind
Most email autoresponder tools are created with more traditional businesses in mind.
As a result, they can be overly cumbersome and contain superfluous features that only serve to distract and slow you down.
Not the case with ConvertKit, as ConvertKit was actually created with artists and creatives in-mind.
Mission
ConvertKit's mission statement is...
We exist to help creators earn a living.
- Nathan Berry, Convertkit ceo
I don't know about you, but I think that's awesome!
ConvertKit also frequently spotlights music artists on their YouTube channel, and even has it's own video podcast specifically for helping musicians and other creators earn a living from their art.
No other email services providers do this, or are created specifically with creatives in mind.
This alone sets ConvertKit apart, and makes it a great tool for music artists.
Personalization
Writing personalized emails is a key part of email marketing, and ConvertKit makes this super easy.
You can give people different tags (and therefore send them different emails) simply based on the links they click in your emails.
Say someone clicks on a link to view that sweet T-shirt you're selling. You now know that they are someone who is interested in your merch.
You can then set-up an automation inside of ConvertKit so that when someone clicks a link to look at a T-Shirt, they are automatically added to an email sequence that drips out emails to them promoting more merch.
This is so powerful because you are only promoting to people who have already raised their hand and said they're interested, thus allowing to grow your business, passively, without being spammy, or burning out your list.
Aesthetic
The user interface is really easy to use and navigate, and simply looks good. Again, ConvertKit was made specifically for bloggers and creators, not techies.
It's clean, pleasing to the eye, and an unobtrusive key to growing your music business.
Easy WordPress Integration
If you're serious about growing your music career, you're going to want to get a WordPress website eventually.
ConvertKit knows this, and therefore they have made their tool so that it easily integrates with WordPress.
You just need to download the ConvertKit plugin, hook it up with your API key (easy to find in your account area). Then select from a drop down list the forms you would like embedded at the bottom of your post.
And then you're done!
Now you have an easy way to convert visitors to your website into email subscribers and Superfans!
"Done-For-You" Email Sequences
Not a marketing expert? No problem!
ConvertKit has already created some done-for-you email sequences that you can simply copy, and then paste in your email content.
This makes following up with your subscribers easy, and leads to more sales for you!
This will save you a ton of time, so you spend more of it making music and building your list.
Service
I'm not a techie, and have had questions on occasion. The great thing is ConvertKit has amazing customer service.
Their tutorials and blogs have all the answers and you’ll be able to find what you are looking for with a simple search.
They also have detailed explanations for how to integrate services with ConvertKit. But if you really do need help, I can simply open a live chat and their team is super helpful. I usually get a response within a few hours and have everything cleared up within a day.
If you already have an email autoresponder, but want to switch to ConvertKit, if you sign up for their paid plan, they'll actually move your whole list over for you if you want! Is that cool or what?
Start Your Email List
Get started with ConvertKit for free and start building your email list.
Fits Within The Musician's Budget
Okay, so ConvertKit sounds pretty awesome, but you're probably wondering just how much this is going to cost.
Pricing
What if I told you that ConvertKit was actually free?
Yes, that's right! ConvertKit has a free plan, and remains free up to your first 1,000 subscribers.
The downside of the free plan is that you can't set up automated email sequences, which is vital the bigger your audience becomes.
But if you're just getting started, then the free plan is great until you're ready to start promoting some products to your fans.
How Does ConvertKit's Price Compare To Other Email Autoresponders?
So the real question might be how does ConvertKit's paid plan stack up against the competition?
It was hard to make an exact apples to apples comparison of pricing because each company offers slightly different features in each of their pricing plans.
However, I did compare all of the different platforms most similar pricing tiers.
Here is a table that breaks it down:
Product | Price | # of Subscribers |
|---|---|---|
ConvertKit | $41/mo (Paid yearly) | 1,000 - 3,000 |
Mailchimp | $52/mo | 1,501 - 2,500 |
ActiveCampaign | $45/mo (Paid yearly) | 1,000 - 2,500 |
Drip | $39/mo | 2,001 - 2,499 |
Constant Contact | $45/mo | 501 - 2,500 |
You don't have to look at this table for long to see that ConvertKit gives you the most bang for your buck, as it's one of the more affordable options, while also giving you more subscribers to work with before the price goes up.
ConvertKit can pay for itself
Not only can ConvertKit pay for itself with the sales it can generate you, but it also has an amazing affiliate program. ConvertKit will pay you 30% commission on everyone you refer.
This means if you can get a couple of other people to sign up for ConvertKit, you can cover the cost completely.
So if you know any other music artists who need an email list (everyone does!), then recommend ConvertKit to them, and have them use your link.
This is how much you can make (every month) if you get one person to sign up.
This is how much you can make (every month) if you get 5 people to sign up.
Start Your Email List
Get started with ConvertKit for free and start building your email list.
Next Steps
Get ConvertKit!
Seriously, this is one of the best investments you can make in your music business.
You can start with the free plan, and then when you're ready (or when your subscribers grow beyond 1,000) you can upgrade to the paid plan.
I would also really appreciate if you use my affiliate link when you sign up, and if you do, I'd be able to send you a copy of the email sequence I'm sending to my fans, as well as answer any questions you may have about ConvertKit.
My link is:
Or, you can simply click the button below to get started.
Sign Up For ConvertKit for Free by clicking below!
JOIN NOW!
Once you have your email list set up, be sure to create your first landing page offering a free song of yours in exchange for an email address, and then you're all set to start growing your fanbase!
I hope you found this post on what the best email newsletter service is for music artists helpful! Feel free to share if it was, and let me know in the comments below...
