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I have been collecing email addresses now since I started running a show. I probably have close to 200 working emails and growing. Every one of my song slips has a line at the bottom requesting an email address (and you should see the humourous and XXX rated ones I get from time to time).

Here is my question, once you have an established show (3-4 months+), how often do you email your list of people about the same show? I am starting to run out of snappy titles and the content is generally the same- venue name, location w/ map, and showtimes.

I just don't want to be thought of as "SPAM" by my regulars, but don't want to be forgotten by newer people that have only recently left their email.

So, I guess this turned into a 2 part question- how often, and what do you say to keep it fresh?

Side Note: Moment of silence for the recently exterminated reptile. Services have not been scheduled. [/sarcasm]

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Let's Kick the Tires and Light the Fires!

dbk
Remember the old "Bill Cosby" lp's.....with "SNAKES" as one of his "routines"? You are a funny guy m'man  :O  :yes: . Back to the post..I never even thought of doing that.....what was I NOT thinkin'? Great idea!!! Thank you for this one. ( I guess this means I've never done it) If I come up with some "catchy ways" of making the emails " refreshing/interesting" once I start getting and doing, I'll certainly keep you posted. Thanks again.



                      Donny "B"    

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It's a wonderful life!!

I have over 700 some emails over the years, problem with emails I found is alot of people SPAM filter will automatically place something that has been sent to more than a certain allotment of people into the SPAM box so many won't ever see it.  There are programs you can get that will send out each email individually - not sure if the filters can determine if it was sent by an automated system or not.  Also if you have a free account like AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, etc...these are almost always tagged as SPAM unless the receiver untags & oks.
Then you got the problem of people changing their emails CONSTANTLY.  So many emails get bounced back.
I honestly found more people using MySpace & it's easy & more like a website as well where you already have the tools to put up slide shows of your singers, videos, bulletin board announcements that will reach everyone on your list, blogs that everyone can read - great for announcements like new discs or special events or congrats/happy birthdays plus a bunch more.  Plus it's free.  I use the MySpace more than standard email anymore.  Went through every email address I had a few weeks back & several of them were dead addresses anymore, but many did have MySpace - so I added them to my friends.  Just started using this seriously for singers in the last year and am up around 266 contacts.  Getting a couple new ones almost every night.

Keep it fresh isn't always a necessity if they are interested they will read, if not, then they'll delete.  But say you send out something every other week, make it like a news report, keep tabs on certain things that have been going on in the bar for those weeks & report on them.  Upcoming events, hype them up.  SOme of your singers - Mindy tried a new suicide that's a keeper while Eric....etc.  Make it lighthearted and fun for these.
Also make it a feedback mail as well.  Tell them we are about ready to do another big disc buy, get your song requests in now that we don't have.  How are our shows doing, any suggestions - that kind of thing.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Sorry if I made an assumption that it is a standard practice, but for risk of sounding like a blowhard, if you are not getting them, YOU SHOULD BE!

I have found that it is a great way to keep those 'occasional' singers and peole that like to show hop informed. Every few weeks someone will come in and say "Got your email and didn't realive you had a new show!" Even if I was there for 6 months...

so Donny, what I do is below the last line for song number on my request slip, I have a line for email address. I store them in groups of 10-15 in my aol account, so when I send email out it doesn't look like SPAM to the email gods.

Myspace is also a good way to keep people informed. It is free to have a page, and if your singers become your 'friends', all you have to do is post a bulletin and it goes to all your friends. I make it a habit that whenever I send an email, I post a bulletin too.

Maybe that is why I am worried about saturation...

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Let's Kick the Tires and Light the Fires!

Man...I'm losing it!!! For awhile, everytime I came on-line, there was always this thing.....like a big wind or something that "rattled" me. Now ..it's quiet...my minds starting to work again, just not as fast as yours and lonnie's. Must've been having a "senior moment"...or something,.. to distract me like that. Great ideas..from both!!  :beermates:


             Donny "B"    8)

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It's a wonderful life!!

For a long time my site was not generating any business. Most of the singers around didnt have computers let alone surf the net. Now more and more are on the net and have email addys' I have been considering generating a list and emailing or sending out a newsletter.

Question along the same lines. One of my regs is graduating from UNC Other than putting it on the site and announcing at shows what would be some other ways?

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By far the best thing to do is to use Google or Yahoo Groups, or some other mail list software  like MailMan.  When you add an email address to the list, it sends a message to the person asking if they intended to sign up and requiring confirmation for them to be added.

Then every message you send has unsubcription info in it, and people can put themselves on hiatus, change to a digest, select text or html mail types, etc.

Once you have converted to something like that, you can send mail with confidence that people will be able to unsubscribe and that no one should complain of spam. I have run mail lists in this fashion for over a decade with zero trouble beyond the occasional person unable to read unsubscribe instructions.

Right Mjk....I understand that. I include a disclaimer in regular font at the bottom of every one of my mails saying to opt out all they need to do is reply with an email asking to be removed.

The "SPAM" part of my question was more speaking as a perception then as a technicality. How often can you hear about the same show befor you say "I get it already, leave me alone!", or how long in etween emails do you go so they still say "Oh yeah, I almost forgot he was there on Fridays."

Does that make more sense?

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Let's Kick the Tires and Light the Fires!

Same show, as long as you have something new to post about the show - new bar specials/events.  New discs.  Host lineup change.  New nights.  Then I don't think anyone would mind.  If you are emailing the same exact thing week after week, then yeah they might get a little tired of it.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

[font=verdana] My son put a page for Blue Rose Karaoke on my space, which I think is a really good way to keep in touch with your singers, and remind them of where your gigging.  However, because he doesn’t have access to the internet right now, he’s not keeping it current.  When he first put it up, he had people joining nearly every day and leaving messages, etc.  Then it dropped off sharply because there wasn’t anything new on it.  Why bother, right!   I have the domain name registered, and would like to build a regular page.  Does anyone know of a good site builder program.  I am not the computer geek that he is, so will need lots of templates and aids in building a site.
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Dusty Rose
Blue Rose Classic Karaoke
More Sound! More Selections! More Fun!
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Except that it isn't possible to do that reliably. If someone receives email at more than one address via an alias or multiple accounts fetched from one client, then their reply may not yield you any address that can be unsubscribed. This is common, and mail list software prevents the problem by reading tags in the message replied to.


I would think a once a month "newsletter" should be reasonable. If you tell people how often you send in your first message -- the one they have to act on if they subscribe -- then there should be no misunderstanding.

Again, doing it manually is a mistake in my opinion, at least if you are in it for the long haul where you might reach a couple of hundred people on your list. It takes very little time to set up a mail list, and the payback is large.

dbk,

That is a great idea, asking for emails at the btm of your slips, I've never thought of that.  I do the myspace thing and try to stay current up there.  But I don't have a list of common singers emails.  I think I will try and plug that into my next slip print off.  Great idea!  MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

Blue- I used angelfire . com they are now owned by lycos, but they are real easy and template driven. I have had sites on them going back to 97. They also allow you to use an outside domain name as well. If you have Costco and a small budget, let me know- my day job is involved with their web design...

Mjk- as of right now, my email list is still manageable sending to 2-3 "groups" at a time (appx 20-30 addys). I have less than 300 ACTIVE emails, and purge the inactive ones after each send. I just send out 6-10 emails, and and that covers everyone. I guess it's the same mentality as the people that do their own books in Excel rather than MBD.

As for Myspace, I am stilll learning. I tend to be a corporate weasel, and do much of my internet work during the day, at my 'real' job. They have Myspace blocked here, and that has kind of held me back from learning it better. I have 20-30 friends in there, but I know it has much more potential.

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Let's Kick the Tires and Light the Fires!