In case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to use the internet to reach people with my music and my message! It seems like a neat idea. There are millions of people on-line all the time and I’m hoping one or two of them may find something they like should they happen upon me and my ideas about The Fun Side Of Life!
But I have to admit that I have reservations about “On-Line Marketing.” Let me tell you a story.
I used to go to conferences where I would market my music to colleges and universities. They were loads of fun and I met tons of wonderful people. During this time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about the music business. One of the things everyone said you had to do was build a mailing list. The first conference I attended was in either 1998 or 1999, I can’t remember exactly and I had just started to build an email list.
So hoping I might meet some people at this conference who might want to hear more about my music, I put out a clipboard and a sign up sheet. The top of the sheet said, “Join The Matt Wahl Mailing List,” or something like that and I asked for peoples’ names, addresses, etc. and email addresses. Some people signed up and that was good. I went home and dutifully added their info to my email list.
When it came time for my next email to go out, I sent it to all the names and got back one of the most angry emails I have ever encountered. He called me names and kept yelling (at least I assumed he was yelling) about something called spam. I had no idea what he was talking about. To me, Spam was the meat in a can:
But I quickly gathered that he was accusing me of sending him “junk” email that he had not asked for. I was still quite new to the internet, email and all of this stuff. But this fellow had painstakenly drawn out, in lower-case x’s, a TIE fighter from the movie Star Wars:
This was the signature to his email! This TIE Fighter in x’s!!!! So clearly I was up against someone who had a lot of time on his hands and I figured he knew more about the internet and email than I did. I must have screwed something up!
But In those days, I kept copies of all the sign-up sheets that I had used a different shows and events in case my computer died and I needed to recreate my email list. I went back to the sign-up sheets from the conference and there he was! Luke Skywalker, plain as day. (I changed his name for the purposes of this story.) Ha! Now I had him!
I waited the 10 or 15 minutes for my computer to dial up and connect and I sent back an email with his full name, address, email and phone number. I told him exactly where and when he signed up on my mailing list. He didn’t have a lot to say after that. He sheepishly asked to be removed from my list, I obliged and that was the last I heard of him. I won the battle! But lost the war!
What I mean is that the whole incident made me realize how quickly people can be offended by the things they receive by email and see on-line. Here I had done everything I was “supposed” to do to try and build a following and connect with people and I made someone really mad at me. That was the last thing I wanted! It made me pretty gun shy about sending out emails and marketing myself and my music on the internet in general.
So for years I would send out my schedule of shows and when I released a new CD, I would timidly mention it in my monthly list of tour dates. Then just this spring I got brave! I made some pre-release copies of my new CD, Sunny Side Up, to bring with me on a trip out to San Diego and Laughlin, NV. I didn’t have the artwork and manufacturing done yet but the music portion was finished. The pre-release copies allowed folks to get the music right then and there and I arranged to send them the finished copy when it arrives (next week!!!)
Anyway, I ended up with some extras and I thought folks on my mailing list might be interested in getting a copy. It had 5 bonus songs, 3 never before released, that won’t be on the finished CD. So I sent out an email to the folks on my mailing list telling them about the pre-release copy and how to get one. I was thrilled to see emails coming in from old friends and fans ordering copies of the CD! Only 2 days after I sent out the emails, I got a response back from a woman in my home town. All the email said was “please delete me from your site, sorry.”
Wow! I felt awful. It totally spoiled all the good feelings I had from folks excited about the CD. Here is someone who took the time at one of my shows to fill out a postcard asking me to add her to my email list. And now she wants off the list. Why? I have to guess it is because I tried to sell something.
Man that’s tough! I don’t play in very many, if any places that charge a cover charge. So this person could come and hear me play music FOR FREE over and over again and the second I say, “hey, I have this product you might be interested in,” she’s gone. And what’s sad is that I’m about to send out my summer schedule with tons of free shows in her town and she will not get that email. The whole reason I started a email list was to communicate with folks who might enjoy my music!
But I have some things to say. Some things that I really, really believe might bring some joy and happiness to people if I can connect with them. As I’ve said in some other posts, I have had this idea of The Fun Side Of Life for a long time. I was scared to do anything about it and I had no idea what to do with all of this information!
Most marketing information will tell you to define your audience. I will admit right now that I have no idea who my audience is. All I have is an unshakable belief that there are people out there who might like this stuff. And I’m hoping that by starting a blog and posting some videos, I might help some of those people find me.
I guess my point to all of this is that I am now marketing myself and my message on the internet and I’m nervous about it. I don’t want to be an internet marketer! I’m just a guy who wants to create a community of folks who really believe that life is supposed to be fun and this seems the best way to start doing that.
But I’m new to a lot of this stuff so I’m probably going to screw up and in screwing up I’ll probably offend some people. I’ll either send out too many emails or I won’t send out enough emails. I’ll post too many blog articles or not enough. I don’t know how I’ll screw up yet! If I did know, I wouldn’t do it! All I know is that when I’m new to something, I’m bound to make mistakes and people seem so touchy about things they get on email or things they see on-line. I hope if I screw something up in trying to reach you that you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt and I hope you’ll realize that my heart is in the right place, I have the best of intentions and that I’m doing the best I can!
Thanks For Being Here!
Matt