Constant Contact and Aweber and more…

I have been trying to decide which platform for email marketing to use, so that I can deliver to my fans, timely information they want delivered in their email box about my music, my shows, my life. I want to be able to provide an easy to read newsletter and autoreponder using either Constant Contact or Aweber.

I’ve used Constant Contact in the past for another project that I worked on, and it was really easy to format for building a newsletter. The templates were also very “pretty” and looked extremely professional. Even though I knew nothing about programming or writing HTML, my newsletters looked great.

The templates were set up with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) format, just like a word processor. It was like I was typing a MS Word document. I was able to cut and paste my images into the newsletter, as well as place any hyperlinks back to my website with ease. I just read that they have integrated a way to incorporate a paypal button into the newsletter itself, so you could always have your music for sale with every newsletter that email out.

Both Aweber and Constant Contact have simple newsletter or report sign-up forms to integrate into your website. The difference with Aweber, is that that have pretty decent templates, not as many to choose from as Constant Contact, BUT, they have this awesome autoresponder system that allows you set unlimited number of email marketing campaigns that stay on auto-pilot after you set them up. This makes sure that a flow of information about your indie music, is consistently being delivered to your fan’s inbox. You can stay on top of providing them with great service. Aweber also has a function that allows you to Twitter your newsletter subject matter.

Which email marketing system works for you? Which one have you used and what was your success like?

Putting your music artist or band website together

I was just thinking about how I first started this blog. I wanted to share some of the things I was learning on my journey back into the music world, that can asist other artists like me in getting thier music out there to be heard by the world. At first I was blogging like I was giving a class, but I want you to know that as I am learning you are following me on my journey.

So here are the steps I took to put my website together:

1. I looked at several other websites to find a few format that I liked. I actually liked the design of a couple of templates on template monster but wanted to include some features that I found on other artists websites that I thought were nice.

2. I decided on the color of the website that would fit the mood and the image I wanted the world to see as far as my artist site was concerned

3. I figured out the pages that should be in the site from what the other sites that I like and I looked at had…they were of course a Home Page, Music, Videos, Bio Tour Dates Contact Us

4. Some other links that I wanted on my site that I hadn’t really thought about were links to my social network pages on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. (Even though I am a singer/songwriter…I really have gotten into facebook more than myspace…it seems so much more personal and less spammish).

5. I wanted to make it really easy for my friends and fans to be able to access and buy their favorite music of mine so I definitely am putting a link or links to the individual songs that they can download on Tunecore.com or buy the whole CD off of CDBaby.com.

6. I wanted to also do the merchandising of some of my songs, so I am incorporating a cafepress.com store.

7. Start a blog or two.

8. Make sure you have a place where your fans can sign up to receive notices or become part of your VIP list so that they can be invited to your upcoming shows. You can do this with a ConstantContact.com newsletter.

Ok…I think that’s it. If I think of anything else, you’ll see it on my website. Got any suggestions?