What’s Wrong With Sending Newsletters Through My Email Account?

After last week’s post, “DON’T DO THIS: 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO WHEN PROMOTING YOUR MUSIC” one of our readers asked “What’s Wrong With Sending Newsletters Through My Email Account?” We thought we should dedicate a post to this. Here are just a few reasons:

1. IT LOOKS LESS PROFESSIONAL
This is the biggest and most important reason. Mailing List Providers (MLPs) offer clean-looking layouts and designs that give newsletters a professional look. In most cases these layouts make it easier for you to include multiple forms of content (i.e. video, social networking buttons, images) in a readable non-cluttered format.

Maybe you’re comfortable with what you’re already doing because it works. And yes, it does. But you could be holding yourself back from the next level. Kick it up a notch. Give your email newsletter a face lift and it will multiply your efforts, better-engage your fans, and possibly change how seriously people take you.

2. IT MAKES THINGS MORE DIFFICULT FOR YOU AND YOUR FANS
Yes, your fans can easily send you a message with the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject line, but mailing list providers allow subscribers to easily change preferences, update their email address, city, and more…all without hassling you. Believe me, this especially comes in handy as your newsletter subscriber list grows in number.

Even better, MLP’s allow you to stick forms on your site, like this, that immediately collect emails for your list. You don’t have to do anything. They also filter out addresses that bounce-back.

In other words, deciding again using an MLP ultimately makes things much more complicated for you…especially as your list grows.

3. YOU MISS OUT ON STATS
There’s nothing like getting an idea of who’s reading your email, how many people are opening them, and seeing what links they are going to. It gives you an idea of what your readers deem as most important. Read: STATISTICS RULE THE WORLD

4. YOU LIMIT THE REACH OF YOUR INFORMATION
Your information will go much further when using an MLP. MLPs give you the option of sticking a “click here to view this in your browser” link at the top of your newsletter. When clicked, that link goes directly to a web version of your newsletter.

Not only does this option offer an alternative place to view your E-blast, but you can also share it with anyone…even if they’re not subscribed. You can tweet that link, share it on Facebook, post it on you website…etc. My views multiply with the “view it in your browser” option. And thanks to that option, here are just a few, great MLP Newsletter examples from various indie artists.

And yes, I highly endorse Your Mailing List Provider (YMLP) not just because they are one of our advertiser, but because I’ve personally used them for the last 5 years and because they have a clean format and affordable pricing.

http://twitter.com/balford82 Ryan Alford

Sending an email out with a service truly saves a lot of time in the long run.

Formatting can usually be saved as a template in these mail-list services. My band uses MailChimp, which actually lets you pull information from RSS content. For instance, every other Thursday, an automatic email will go (formatted to your template) only if we have a new weblog post.
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