Email is a huge part of interactive marketing and is very valuable compared to its more expensive marketing counter-parts. We all get that, but what surprises me are how many companies, bands, labels, promoters and so forth, are still sending batch and blast emails and are not taking advantage of relevancy, automation, segmentation and testing. These are the easiest and best ways to increase ROI on your email program.Here are some tips to quickly increase the value of your email program.

Testing:
A recent study by Econsutancy ‘Email Census 2011‘ found that only a third of  the 900 responding companies (32%) carry out a regular amount of testing for email marketing. SAY WHAT?! Always test your emails! I can’t stress this enough. Even if you are savvy with outlook rendering and gmail image blocking, it is always smart to make sure that links work, images are displayed properly, to see how your email is displayed without images, & how it renders in different mail clients, ESPs and mobile.  Imagine sending an email and your call-to-action is a dead link. Trust me on this one, test your emails or you may as well throw a part of your marketing budget down the drain.

Here is my quick check list before doing a live send:
1. Are all the links working?
2. Does it render correctly in different email service providers and mail clients? Mobile? ( Don’t forget mobile! 80.8% of smart phone users report reading their email on mobile devices! )
3. Is my call-to-action clear? Easy to find? Easy to convert?
4. Do I like how it appears in the inbox; what is above the fold?
5. Are their any mispellings?
6. Is the correct From Name selected?
If it passes the test, it is ready for round two of testing. If it is an important sales campaign, A/B test the subject line and conversion placement. Then send that beauty. Before the next campaign, make sure to revisit and see what was successful and what was not.

Relevancy:
Having relevant emails that improve the lives of the subscribers is like printing money. We follow the Subcriber’s Rule philosophy and push our clients to use data to serve the individual, honor their preferences and provide them with timely and useful information. Batch and Blast is a thing of the past! By giving a fan easy access to when you will be in their town and an easy way to buy tickets, I can guarantee you will increase sales. That email is way more valuable than an email of your whole tour and a “buy tickets” button. Make your emails relevant and easy to convert, your subscribers will be happy and engaged.

Segmentation:
Segmentation drives relevancy.  First, make sure you have a clean list and you are practicing list hygiene. Segment your lists by metrics that are important to your company and make emails cater to those goals. A good example of this is tour marketing: Segment your lists my tour region, state or city to send emails specific to the segment. Another great example is life cycle marketing: segment them by where they are in your sales cycle and provide relevant information to them.

Prospect- Target them with incentives and or information that improves their life  Make it easy to convert.
Loyal Client- Use behavioral data to increase sales. If they buy tickets to the same event every year, send them an email around the time they usually buy their ticket and thank them for being a long-time customer & offer an easy way to purchase ( or an incentive).  It is an easy way to make subscribers feel appreciated.
Defection – run a re-engagement program with them. If they still do not click or open, remove them from your lists.
Abandoned shopping cart automations are also a great way to lift revenue.

Automation:
Adding automation to your program is a great way to save time and provide easy automations. Set up a birthday reminder and send out a personalized birthday email. Make sure every list has a welcome email. It is a great way to deliver an incentive and set expectations for your new subscribers. Down the line, look into way other automations would be helpful to your company. A great one for labels is an automated email that runs based on subscriber data and preferences. This means a list of 800 people can be sent 800 different emails based on their location and different band preferences. It doesn’t get more relevant and easier that that. (To find out more about our automation consulting and services, click here to reach a consultant)

If you haven’t already, make 2011 the year of data. Collect and compile subscriber profile, improve your list quality, test your emails before send and segment your lists. You will be pleasantly surprised by how much lift, return and buzz you will get from these simple measures.

To find out more information about any of these topics or to set up a consultation, click here. We are here to help!

-Lauren (@lmeanslauren)

In the spirit of International Women’s Day, we wanted to pay a homage to women who are pushing the innovation needle in the Music Industry. They are ahead of the curve and use new media and multi-channel marketing to build their brands. Follow these forward thinking women to pick up some great advice on how to best integrate social, mobile, sites, and email.

Lauren Kufta- New Media Direct Marketing Manager, Roadrunner Records- Lauren and Roadrunner have done an amazing job on all their touchpoints. They have compelling and different content for their fans and for each artist they represent. What makes them highly successful is how they leverage their online community to get full profile information on their email subscribers. From this data she segments based on location, favorite artist(s) & preferences and builds emails catering to the individual interests of her subscribers. Her drive for relevancy makes her program highly successful.

Joyce Szudzik- VP Digital Marketing, AEG Live- Joyce leads a team of designers, developers, editors, database managers, social community specialists, and promotional experts to maximize ticket sales and achieve branding goals. Promoting shows across every major market and tours everywhere, like Bon Jovi, is not an easy job and she does it extremely well. She drives ticket sales with innovative online marketing strategies & email sophistiation and relevance, treating each subscriber like an individual fan. @JoyceSays

SuzAnn Brantner- Department Head of Physical and Digital Distribution of Content, William Morris Endeavor- SuzAnn works with clients including Steve Martin, Metric and Ice Cube. She runs the ‘Self Serve’ division within the agency where she works with clients to provide new ways to distribute their content while maximizing profits and maintaining control of their rights. She is very knowledgeable in digital marketing and her influence has shown very fruitful for my bands.

Katie Fox-Marketing Technologist & PR Strategist/Co-Founder, Blooming Footprint- Katie is the Co-Founder of the Denver Marketing and PR consultancy firm Blooming Footprint. Her innovative ideas help “brands grow” on and offline. She is forward thinking and uses social media, web,  pr and great design to help bands, artists and labels to grow, engage and monitor their brand presence. @BloomgFootprint

Marisol Segal-Partner & Business Development at Rdi0 & Co-founder/Head of Marketing at Flux Summit-  Marisol Segal is a digital strategist and marketing maven with more than 20 years experience in the music industry. She is a savvy, email marketer and has been a big innovater in new media. @rdio

Madalyn Sklar- Founder of GoGirlsMusic.com- Madalyn has been helping independent bands for over 15 years. She is very forward thinking and has helped many bands improve their branding and reach. She is a social media consultant, music business coach, blogger and author who works with a wide range of businesses helping them grasp the social media phenomenon and use it to their advantage. I started GoGirls 15+ years ago and I would prefer you link my @madalynsklar or @gogirlsmusic

Corey Denis- Founder at Not Shocking, LLC- Cory has been pioneering digital music marketing for twelve years using everything from early ListServs & phpbb forums to social networks and MMORPGs. In the past, she worked for IODA  where she helped create and market IODA Promonet™, a promotional distribution platform that allows a member base of thousands of blogs, podcasts and online media outlets to access pre-cleared MP3s and marketing assets with the goal of generating hype and driving sales. @coreythrace

Ariel Hyatt- President at Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR-Ariel has spoken at SXSW (Interactive and Music), CMJ, ASCAP’s I Create Music, The Future of Music, Canadian Music Week, APRA’s Song Summit (Sydney), You Are In Control (Reykjavik), The ECMAs, NARAS, and The Taxi Road Rally. She sits on the board of Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, SoundCtrl, and The New Music Seminar and has helped over 1,500 bands find publicity. She is a marketing guru and her publicity success is outstanding. @cyberpr

Also, keep up with me, Lauren Kaplan-Reed, @lmeanslauren and our company @fancentric. Lots of good tips and tricks for interactive marketing and the music industry.

The Wilderness Downtown by Arcade Fire

Okay, I lied a little bit.  When I said these videos were posted in no particular order, I meant it… except for this video.  The Wilderness Downtown almost isn’t a music video.  They refer to it as an “interactive film”.  Whatever you want to call it, this experience was simply stunning, and undoubtedly the coolest thing we saw this year.

F**k You by Cee Lo Green

I’ve been a Cee Lo Green fan for a while now,  thanks to a friend who introduced me to his music years ago.  He’s keeping it real in this video by expressing his displeasure with a certain individual.

Americanarama by Hollerado

This next video comes by way of our friends, Canadian rockers Hollerado.  They’ve taken a page from OK Go with a crazy-entertaining, damn impressive video.  Except in this case, the music is more of a highlight to the video, not an afterthought.

Red Lights by Holy F**k

This is my personal favorite of the year.  Remember Toonces the Driving Cat on SNL back in the day?  Like that, but with a killer soundtrack.

Tighten Up by The Black Keys

Who doesn’t like the Black Keys?  These two dudes from Akron, Ohio have brought back an incredibly genuine form of blues rock that just floors me with its lack of any pretentiousness.  And, the video is funny.

SMS (Shine) by David Crowder Band

Another wildly creative video that probably took a very, very long time to make.  Videos like this remind me of how little patience I have.

Bed Intruder Song by That One Guy From Youtube

How could we possibly pass up this gem?  Oh Youtube, where would we be without thee?

Whip My Hair by Jimmy Fallon (as Neil Young) and Bruce Springsteen

Donning very whippable wigs, Jimmy does his best Neil Young impersonation of this Willow Smith tune.  Honestly though, the Boss was the one cracking me up.

Bad Romance by Lady Gaga

This video freaks me out.  Not for one second do I understand what is going on here.  Therefore, it meets the criteria to make this list.

Kush by Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dogg and Akon

Up until this point, our list was starting to look decidedly un-gangsta.  Dre, Snoop, Akon… problem solved.

Help The Police by Adam Buxton (an NWA parody)

Crazy Or A Liar? by The Lions Rampant

Rounding out our list is our hometown hero, The Lions Rampant.  Another sweet blues band.  Take it home gents!

Chadwick Martin Bailey - iModerate Research Technologies Study

Twitter followers are far more likely to buy or recommend a brand to others.  They’re 19% more likely to recommend a brand than a Facebook follower.  So, obviously Twitter is the superior marketing tool.  Or is it?

Facebook has far more users (over 400 million compared to Twitter’s 75 million), and is much more user-friendly.  It even looks non-threatening, like a little, social networking puppy.  Twitter’s #hash tags, on the other hand, are ugly little monsters.

But when you think about it, hash tags and retweets are part of what makes Twitter cool and different.  Twitter has always been the beautiful-on-the-inside social networking site.

Having an online presence on both sites can be beneficial in different ways.  Twitter is all about the simple text and/or link post.  Short, sweet, to the point.  Facebook has become a great place for many types of media, links and information to be posted.

Think about the strengths of each site to determine which one might be better for whatever content or message you’re posting.  If you want to share a new video, Facebook is going to allow you to post it straight to your profile, whereas with Twitter, you’ll have to provide a link to it.  If you want to let people know that you just posted dates for the new tour, then post it on both sites.  There are even applications out there that will allow you to post to both Twitter and Facebook in one post, like Twitter on Facebook.

No one approach is going to work for everyone.  Depending on your brand, your target market, and the content you’re posting, one site may be more effective than the other.  But the most important thing to understand is they’re both pieces of a holistic marketing approach.

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On October 14th we will be joined by our client Road Runner Records in the Media & Entertainment Solutions Showcase at ExactTarget Connections 09 in Indianapolis. This is the largest direct marketing conference in the world and is a super valuable and insightful event for any direct or interactive marketer. If you are going be there, hit us up so that we can hang out.

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On October 19th, The A2IM will be presenting a Tech Day for their members prior to CMJ. We have been asked to participate on the panel discussing direct and email marketing. If you are an A2IM member and going to be in NYC for CMJ, check out this event and hit me up to hang out.

In their words:

Hosted by the A2IM New Media Committee, this Tech Day will feature presentations and question & answer sessions on the topics of Email Marketing and Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Marketing.  It will be our 3rd such event and the two previous have been very informative and no doubt benefited the members who attended.

Following Tech Day, A2IM will host a Cocktail Party starting at 6pm and open to all members.  Last February’s pre-Digital Music Forum: East and last October’s pre-CMJ Tech Day and Cocktail Party were both great successes with over 70 attendees at each Tech Day and over 130 attendees at each Cocktail Party.