…And the six mistakes that singers often make when doing so

 

(See Mistake Number 6 For a Top Tip At KNOWING What The Industry Professional Did With Your Email!)

 

Mistake Number 1…. Not Including the Person’s Name in the Email.

 

Dear Matthew, Dear Frank, Dear Jennifer,

what a difference that can make compared to:

Hi, Hey there.

Which one would you respond to?

You’re contacting this person presumably because they may be of benefit to your career and therefore you are making a first impression with the very first words that person reads of your email.  If you can’t even research their name and write it in the email what does that say about you? Perhaps more importantly what does it say about how highly the person you’re writing to thinks you value them?

 

Now I know that we have a lot of emails to send and often people will go on to a site searching for a list of music managers, music industry contacts or producers – or if you are thinking about how to contact a&r at a record label – whoever it might be., it’s likely that you will want to send the same email out to everybody – and that’s understandable. I’m sure we’ve all done that.

But include their name, make it personal.  It’ll take you an extra minute, but it changes the odds of them replying to you massively because it’s the difference between making them feel like you’ve written an email to them personally, or whether you’ve just written an email to everybody.

It’s not rude to not reply to a generic email sent out to everyone is it?  But to ignore an email that’s personally written for you? You’ll see where I’m going here.

So please,  the next time you send an email. Never hey there.  It’s ‘Dear’ and whoever you’re writing to if you want to make that best first impression.

 

Mistake Number 2…Forgetting To Take Out Company Information from a Generic Email

Even if you are using your own email template to send to people and you have put Dear …..   Let’s say that you want to work with 360 artist development, so you’ve put some text in about how you’re an artist and you’d love to work with 360 because you’re impressed at how we get great opportunities for our artists and it could help your music career…

Don’t then accidentally send that same email on to somebody else with a different name on the Dear….. and still including 360 artist development!   I’ve seen it happen many times before with emails, where somebody else’s company is named in it!  So if you are going to use your template, be very, very careful and triple check before hitting send!

 

Mistake Number 3…Do Some Research first!

We live in an information-rich society and it’s not that hard to find information about the person or company you are writing to.  Yet it is amazing how few people actually fully research the person or the place that they’re sending their email to and simply focus on themselves. You should be able to say something that you like about that particular person’s achievements, or that particular company.

For example, if you were writing an email to us you could say “I see that you’re an award-winning development company and I would really like you to be involved with my music”.

Great. That one sentence shows that you’ve researched us. It shows that you actually do want to work with us, the email is definitely meant for us and so must be a genuine comment.  If you make somebody feel good about themselves while they’re reading your email, they may feel more inclined to want to help you out.

So don’t just focus on yourself, remember who you’re writing to and why.

Another example would be f you’re thinking “how do I contact a record company?”  You’ll need to ensure that you are focussing on why that label is right for your kind of music and how you compare with their current roster.

 

Mistake Number 4….CC’ing Everyone into the Same Email

The next mistake that I want to talk about is CC’ing (carbon copying)  everybody into the same email.

This usually happens when people are making mistake number 1 and they will accidentally or deliberately include everybody in the CC line. Now this is a big No-No.  A lot of music professionals do not want their email address to be given to everyone on the email list you have sent out, which means your first impression is abusing their privacy and opening them up to spam.  This shows a complete lack of respect.

Sending a generic email, thereby making mistake numbers 1 and 3 shows that you haven’t researched them,  you’re not really interested in working with them. You just want to send the email out to everybody and by putting it all into a cc, it’s lazy and it’s unprofessional.

So send each email separately, even if it takes you longer.

 

Mistake Number 5….Not Following Up

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not following up.

People will send one email, if they don’t get a reply, that’s the end of that relationship.

Let me tell you something. Music industry professionals are very, very busy. You might have sent that email when they’re away, you might have sent that email when they had a really busy day and they may have glanced at it and thought, “Oh I need to come back to that”

but they might forget – everybody is human. They might have forgotten to look at your email, they might have forgotten to reply to you and if you never follow up with them then they will forget about you.

If you don’t get a reply, that doesn’t mean harass anyone, but do follow up – because it’s those people that follow up who often get the best results!   Here is an idea for a follow up email:

 

Dear…..

I sent you an email last week and wondered if you’d had a chance to listen to my song?

Thank you very much in advance.

Kind Regards

(Your name)

 

This may potentially trigger them to think. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t reply to you. I have listened now and XYZ”.

Of course, they might still ignore you in which case move on, but follow-up because you may then get those connections that you want.

 

Mistake Number 6…..Using Attachments

When you send an attachment, a lot of companies block them, which means that your email may never reach your intended recipient, or it will go into their spam box.

It will also fill up any storage space on their hard drive if thousands of artists sent attachments and that is another reason why they are often blocked.  Use download links in order to be able to send those emails and they will get through the system all the way to the music industry professional you are trying to contact.

It’s also a great idea because you can monitor when they’ve listened, if you use a service like disco.ac or similar, then you will end up with the ability to create custom links for each person that you’re sending it to and you will then be able to see when they have accessed your music, if they’ve downloaded it, if they have streamed it or not – which means that when it comes to following up,

you’ll be able to write an intelligent email, because you’ll be able to say:

Dear…….

I noticed that you haven’t listened to my music yet, would it be possible for me to send it to you again?

 

Or

Dear…

I hope that you’ve had a chance to listen to my music and I would like to get some feedback, whatever it may be?

 

So try and change your way of working to incorporate download links and see how it can change your whole perspective on how to follow up and when!

 

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