But nobody likes the expectation of reciprocity. People want to be generous on their own. The best relationships are driven where generosity and reciprocity are the undertone, not the overtone.

The challenge in every relationship and business is to create an ecosystem of reciprocity. So it isn’t about last pay check, or who did the dishes last night or the product features. It is about value. It is about that golden place where we thrive and help each other grow. It is about creating an ecosystem where both sides WANTS to give. Of course we can’t force relationships. All we can do is our best. So where can I begin?

1. Do something unexpected and remarkable every day.
2. Accept criticism and improve.
3. Give praise freely and generously
4. Be fearless to follow your bliss

Ok… now go.

• DO make sure you’re landing site is mobile optimized.  Forgetting this most important step can cost you, the whole point of QR’s are to enable quick access and sharing of your digital content on a mobile device.

•  DON’T be the guy that forgets the aforementioned note.

•  DO create value in what your QR offers.  Having a QR code directed to a website or landing page is common and useful, but not what your fan is always looking for.  Making the content access something fun and value added gives your fans incentives to check it out, share it, and lets you as a marketer engage them better.

•  DO be relevant and create a call to action.  Along the same lines as creating value, make sure there is a point to your QR and let your fan base know what that is.

• DON’T make your QR too small or else the photo capture applications might not be able to pickup on the embedded code.  1”x1” is pretty standard.

•  On the same hand, DON’T make it too complex either.  Links with long URL’s will create a more complicated code and can be harder for readers to decipher.  If you do have a long URL use a URL Shortener site like Bit.ly or Goo.gl so that your code stays simple and accessible.

•  DO be creative in your QR code design.  Many sites and mobile apps let you add custom flare to your QR design to where you can brand it with your logo or create a completely unique design to reflect your campaign or company.  For some creative ideas checkout Custom QR Codes site which has some neat images and ideas.  Also checkout this interactive campaign by Zoo Records in Hong Kong which has implemented some pretty advanced and guerrilla marketing style QR’s that have generated a lot of buzz.

Check the difference out between a basic and creative QR code design:

• While being creative with your QR can be cool, DON’T forget that too complicated is bad as well.  Over design, too many colors, and too light of colors can all make for a hard to read QR.

• DON’T link to Flash enabled pages, most mobile devices cannot access this.  So while you might have some cool content, it won’t matter if people can’t see it.

• DO test you QR code and DO it on multiple devices.  A code directed to a broken link is one of the worst-case scenarios and a code that is difficult to read by some devices is just as bad.

And last but not least, DON’T wait to implement a QR campaign after everyone else has caught on, and DO look out for my follow-up blog on uses of QR codes in the music industry.  If you have any questions or looking for ideas on how you can implement your own QR, feel free to leave a comment or reach-out to me at: Jeremy@fanmailmarketing.com.

According to ExactTarget‘s Subscribers, Fans and Followers Report #8, The Social Breakup, there are several reasons subscribers unsubscribe from an email list.  The top 4 reasons for unsubscribes are simple to address in your email marketing efforts.  If you can counter these 4 obstacles, you can keep subscribers happy, and keep them on your list.  So, below are my recommendations for avoiding these pitfalls.

#1  Emails came too frequently

The general rule of thumb for a typical newsletter send is one per month.  But each case is unique.  If you have a deeply engaged culture of fans, they may want to hear more frequent updates.  This is typical of a label that caters to a genre, and therefore tends to build a large culture around their brand.  When you have 20 bands on your label, all metal and hard rock, your fans are going to be more open to receiving frequent updates, because the messages may have to do with several different acts or events.

#2  The content became repetitive or boring over time

Fans want interesting, engaging content.  If your email messages are a constant sales pitch, or the same barely interesting update about the new merch item in the store this month, your subscribers will get bored.  And they will leave.  Sometimes this starts with the band and their team’s ability to constantly generate new, interesting content.  Other times, its a matter of understanding the fans’ perspective, and trying things that will elicit a response.  Contests, user generated content, and special offers are all ways to get and keep your fans’ attention.

#3  I receive too many emails ad needed to get off some lists

Pretty much a nicer way of saying #1 and #2.  Don’t send too often and don’t bore me with uninteresting content.  If they are really happy with your messages, they’ll make room for them in their crowded inbox.  Moving on…

#4  The content wasn’t relevant to me from the start

This is where segmentation comes in.  No matter how you do it, you are going to need information about your subscribers.  It can be more advanced data, like past purchase data, or just simple information the subscriber has provided to your organization.  When subscribers opt-in you are presented with your best opportunity to collect valuable data.  So ask them for it!  Geographic data is useful to just about any organization.  Geotargeting gives us the ability to target specific show information to subscribers in that area.  Or, a label could use data about their subscribers like favorite artists, so they can send relevant, band-specific information.  And don’t even get me started on automated, dynamic messages.  But if you’d like to get your mind blown, drop us a line.

In the world of music, there is probably never a more engaging experience than the live show.  It’s time to fully leverage the deep connection that exists during a live event.

With FanMail’s Live Capture Program, you can collect email addresses for your subscriber list via SMS/text message.  And it’s easy.  You choose a keyword that will activate the message.  It could be a band, label or event name, like Lollapalooza.  There’s a quick setup process that FanMail will assist with.  Then BAM!  Get the word out and start collecting emails.

Live Capture can be a great alternative, or a great compliment, to a smartphone app, when thinking in terms of a mobile strategy.  It’s also a convenient way to collect emails without the standard clipboard and paper.  We can even set the program up in conjunction with FanMail’s Sound Cloud Integration to deliver media as incentive for fans to sign up.

Check out this video to see how it works!

Try it yourself: Text Fanmail to 88769.  If you are looking for help with establishing an effective mobile marketing strategy, including Live Capture, drop us a line.

3 Easy Programs to Automate Today:

• Confirmation Messages: Right after somebody gives you permission, a confirmation message is the most important message you will ever deliver. Make it valuable, make it remarkable and make it laser focused on the person who gave you permission. This single touch point will set the stage for how a subscriber interacts with your message the next time they see it.

• Birthday Wishes: Everybody loves a birthday. By automating a simple happy birthday message to go to subscribers on their birthday, it carves a special place in a person’ heart forever. Add a coupon or a free visit or a free ticket or an album download to make the experience extra special. Engagement and conversion on birthday emails is out of this world.

• News/Blog/Media Posts: You don’t need to spend weeks working on a newsletter or crafting the perfect message. Use blog feeds, news feeds and media feeds (twitter, youtube, facebook) to syndicate content from other places online and automate that content into a single piece of communication. In this way you have fresh content and social engagement from across the web.

Even the most sophisticated companies have a hard time understanding why to automate and how to put automation into practice. Of course advanced automation like geo-targeted event alerts, dynamic content, triggered sends and so forth are really dependent on the data which is accessible. For example, you can’t automate geo-targeted show alerts without knowing where subscribers live. So any deep automation program is going take an investment both in data collection and building the automation.

Why Invest in Automation:

• Time Saved/Money Saved: Automation saves a ton of time. Often we find that the cost for manual tasks to build and send messaging, is 30x the investment of automation over the course of a year.

• Increased Engagement / Increased Revenue: Using data to target and deliver messaging, we can drastically increase the interactions which people have with a message. For example, I there isn’t enough time in the day to write an individual, personalized message to a subscriber list of 100,000 subscribers. With automation and dynamic content, I can deliver personalized messages ever single day.

• Happy People: People love relevancy and to be given only the information which is important to them. Extraneous messages train people to no longer pay attention and tune you out. Automation makes it easy to deliver relevance and make subscribers and customers happy.

If you have program which you would like to automate or a great idea of something which you think we should explore, drop us a line.