| Why Emailing Your Fans Regarding Your Next Live Show Isn’t Working
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON GETSIGNED.COM
While there are multiple reasons why most artists don’t get the response they want from email announcements---some dealing with the timing of their emails and some with the message itself--one major reason artists don't receive the turnout they expected to their live shows is that they may be emailing their announcements to the wrong people!
One of the biggest problems I have found is that artists don’t collect some of the most important information when having people sign up on their mailing list. You need much more than just an email address from a fan to really make a connection. Here’s what you need and why.
Their Name - Personalize your emails sent to fans. It makes the email recipient feel "important"--plus, it helps defend against spam accusations.
Email Address - Review your captured email addresses carefully. Make sure you can read all the letters and numbers. If recipients have a Hotmail, Yahoo or other free email address, expect your emails not to get through! Free services offer “limited box size” which spammers fill quickly and these companies have been accused of “dumping” emails before they are even delivered. (That means erasing email messages before they go through their servers. Some companies have already been fined for this.) If your fans give you a free service email address, ask for another.
City & State - While you may know where they signed up, you still need to mark it down in your database for easy reference. When your e-list expands to thousands of people, you won’t remember everyone on it. Besides, it doesn’t do much good to email fans about a show that is hundreds of miles away from them! Capturing city & state also helps you pinpoint which areas you have the highest concentration of fans. These areas may be the places where you want to spend most of your time playing shows or places where you will be sending the most email announcements when promoting your next CD release.
Zip/Postal Code - One of the most important if not the most important element to capture is the zip/postal code. Most cities are huge. For example, Los Angeles is considered to be 90 miles in size. Simply listing someone as living in LA doesn’t do any good. As you know, fans who come to see your live performances at bars/taverns/clubs & pubs will only drive a few miles from the establishment back to their home because of drinking and driving issues. In other words, the safe distance they feel they can get home before the cops will catch them! Research what are the closest zip codes around the venue and only invite those fans that reside in those zip/postal codes to the shows. After all, even if you were invited to a show that didn’t serve alcohol, would you drive 20 plus miles each way?
Venue & Date - The venue & date are things you should definitely put in a separate field when entering fan/subscriber information into your database. Always make a note of which venue each fan came to see you at because they will most likely come see you at that same venue again. Noting the date is important because it shows you when they last came to a show.
These are just a few of the items that your email database should include. Good luck building an effective mailing list! | 
