An Email Written From the Heart5 min read
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Today, I got a wonderful email from Rene Safier, a wonderful singer in the folk/rock world.
Rene also happens to be the wife of my best friend, Patrick Summar, and she’s a dear friend. And I’ve always been enthralled by her resonant and soaring singing voice.
The email was an announcement for the new album, Fuse32, by Renee and her musical partner, Andy Hill (shown above).
Her email was a wonderful example of a marketing message from the heart. It sure worked for me, as I ordered the album minutes after reading the email (yeah as a fan, I’m biased, but it was impossible to resist).
In addition, it was a refreshing contrast to the majority of crappy emails I get every day.
Let me give you some excerpts from the email with some comments from me.
Subject line: Re: Read this 2 Minute Note to the End, and Win a Million Dollars!” (Really? No, not really 🙂 )
Nice use of humor.
“Seriously though, Please do give me 2 minutes of your time. I’m in a bit of an introspective mood today, so it might not be the best time to write an email about our new CD and CD Release Concert, but I want to share my thoughts and feelings around it with you, so here goes!”
I like this approach; she makes it personal and takes a risk to communicate to those on her list.
“First, if you are receiving this email, you are a person who has been a friend/fan for some time now. Andy and I could never have been full-time working musicians as long as we have without people like you supporting us over the years, coming to our shows, hiring us for parties or House Concerts, buying our CDs, sharing the music that we all love, and mostly, having fun! We really want to thank you for that. Not many people get to do something they love for a living, and we count ourselves among the fortunate few.”
She thanks the recipients and shares her gratitude in a sincere and uplifting way.
“The business of making music is in a funny, transitional place right now. More and more people get their music for free, or practically free, on YouTube or any of the streaming services. Fewer and fewer people have places to even play a CD. Yet, we are still writing and recording music. This is an important part of who we are as people, performers, and, dare I say, artists. Creating something from nothing is a difficult, daunting and joyous experience, and when we are finished with that creation, we want to share it. Now, it’s up to each individual as to whether or not they like what we’ve created, but we certainly do our best to make something that makes you move, think, and feel.”
She acknowledges the challenges of making music these days but communicates her excitement of making and sharing her music.
“I have been performing with Andy for over 30 years. That seems really weird to say. How can that even be? But, indeed, it is true, and I feel so grateful to have been a part of the music he has written and we have recorded and performed, both as a duo and with the band. I think Andy is a highly under-appreciated songwriter, and more people should be hearing his music. Every time Andy writes a song for me to sing, I feel like he has given me something precious to take good care of.”
Renee acknowledges the importance of her partnership with Andy. Thirty years is longer than most marriages!
“The songs on our new CD, Fuse32, are among the best he has ever written. Moving, poignant, fun, rocking…all this territory is covered on this album. There are also songs by the talented David Tokaji, The Title Trackers, Katell Keineg, a guy named Bob Dylan, and even me. There’s another song written by a dear friend, but I’ll save that story ‘til after the CD comes out.”
Here she gives a little taste of what the album is about. Sounds good, right?
“Now comes the “buy our CD” pitch. We make about $0.00225 per song if you stream us on Spotify! Yes, that’s less than a penny. We get $.29 for the streaming of an entire CD. Now, that’s a great deal for the consumer, but it costs us the same amount to record the album (around $18K), whether we get paid $15 for a CD or 29 cents.”
Wow, some sobering thoughts about the realities of the music industry.
“To this point, we haven’t done GoFundMe campaigns for our CD projects. Throughout our career, whenever we sell a CD, that money goes right back into the recording fund we began over 30 years ago, so we can record another album. That’s how we have managed to put out 16 CDs over the years.”
Yeah, Andy and Rene, like most musicians, make very little money from their albums. The money they make goes into making their next album. Are you starting to feel for them?
“So, we’re asking you to buy our CD. You’ll get the liner notes…the lyrics…graphics…photos…Everything that goes with an actual CD, just like in the olden days when your new record or CD brought a whole universe into your home. We’ll give you a way to download it digitally as well so you can get it into your music library. We’re asking you to spend $15 so we can go on recording music….If you are so inclined, here’s the link: http://www.andyandrenee.com/albums.php. We really appreciate your reading this far, and if you decide to add our music to your collection, Thank You!”
A final call to action: “We have something great and we think you’ll love it, so I invite you to order it.”
Now, the main purpose of this email is to model a really good promotional email. It follows all my marketing principles – Relevant, Interesting, Unexpected and Authentic – and it comes from the heart. There’s a lot you can steal here for your own promotional emails.
But while you’re at it, check out Andy and Renee’s website at AndyandRenee.com. You can click on the MUSIC section to see all their albums and preview most of them on iTunes with just a click.
Cheers, Robert
P.S. Renee paid me big bucks to post this for her. Well, no, but she sure made it easy to write my ezine today!
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