Mail Chimp is an online tool for email marketing and email list management. I recently created an account in order to manage email list for my “fans.”

Why? Because many of my fans won’t actively read my blog or visit my website without a little nudge. But they all check their email. Sending an email is really the only guaranteed way to get their attention, even if you only hold their attention long enough to delete your message. Hopefully they get to the subject line before deleting it!

I have to be very careful in how I go about doing this email marketing. If not executed correctly, an email newsletter can be viewed as useless spam, in which case it’s doing more harm than good to your personal or corporate brand.

I listened to a podcast interview on CD Baby with the lead guy from “I Fight Dragons.” They have a fairly successful email campaign to promote their new music, videos, and shows. One of his main points was that, in order for people to actually read (and maybe even appreciate!) your emails, you have to much sure you give them a gift in EACH AND EVERY email.

What kind of gift, you may ask? The “gift” can range from a free song/album download to a discount code, or even just a cool new YouTube video. The point is, you’re delivering them valuable content, not just saying “I’m still alive and here’s what I’ve been doing.” Everyone is fighting the same fight to keep their inboxes clean, and if you don’t show them that your emails provide them with valuable content, then their cursors will be pointing closer and closer to that “Unsubscribe” button after every mediocre newsletter.

Some gifts I’m considering for people who decide to receive my emails:
YouTube videos
Free song downloads
Download codes and coupons

“Permission marketing” is a term coined by Seth Godin, an extremely smart man who’s been writing business books for the past decade or so. It’s pretty self-explanatory – only market to those who have given you permission. He describes it as a two-step process – make friends out of strangers, then make customers out of friends. The opposite of permission marketing is called interruption marketing, in which case content is thrown at you against your will (such as when you’re automatically signed up for an email newsletter).

Just because someone opts in to your email list doesn’t mean that they will let you abuse that power, however. That’s why I plan to keep the email campaigns relatively sparse (I’m thinking monthly, with twice a month being the maximum).

What do you think about email campaigns? At what point do you allow a musician (or company, artist, celebrity, etc.) access to your email inbox via a subscription? What kind of gifts would you want in an email newsletter? Leave it in the comments!