your fans. So, you need to stay in touch with them, right?

Many bands use MySpace, Facebook, et. al. to spread news and info about the band. However, very few are taking advantage of the next step – a mailing list. You should keep a mailing list of fans email address (and street addresses) for your future campaigns.

I find most people don’t do this for two reasons:

1) It is work – There is some effort in making sure that you capture email addresses of fans.  In practice, there really is only a few technical details to work out, these details seem daunting to many folks. It is a lot easier to push a few buttons in Facebook than craft an email message.

2) It feels invasive – With all the spam emails being sent around,  some musicians are timid when it comes to sending out emails for fear of annoying fans. The reality is this – If they’ve signed up for your list, then they want to hear from you. As long you use discretion for distributing information to your list, your list will grow faster than it shrinks.