Cheryl B. Engelhardt - Building, Managing and ROCKIN’ Your Email Subscribers for Musicians

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When you post on social media, on average, anywhere from 0% to 5% of your audience see your post. The acception to that algorithm rule is when people are actually engaging with your post by commenting, sharing, and liking it. However, the less engagement, the lower the impression rate. Meaning, if you have 1,000 followers - 0 to 50 people see your post. However, the average open rate on emails is closer to 20%, and if you write really good emails that percentage can be significantly higher. This means instead of 0 to 50 people, 200+ people are actually opening and reading your email, and 66% at least see your email. That’s 660 people on your list of 1,000. With those kind of odds, don’t you think email management and building your email list as a musician, and really any business, should be part of your strategy? Maybe even one of the main focuses of your strategy? What has been holding you up from building, managing, and ROCKIN’ your email list? Is it lack of creativity on what to send or do you think it’s to time consuming? Today’s guest Cheryl B. Engelhardt raised over $40,000 from an email list with less than 2,000 subscribers. Motivated now?

Cheryl B. Engelhardt is a true pioneer in the world of DIY Musicians, and one the only or very few people that extensively talks about building and managing your email lists. In this episodes, she shares some amazing insight on creating a welcome series or welcome sequence for your email subscribers. Also, she shares some of the strategies she used for her crowdfunding campaign to raise over 5 figures on consistent basis with less than 2,000 subscribers. We discuss some amazing insight on the right time to start asking your audience for money, and when to start a crowdfunding campaign. The beauty of it all is that Cheryl is a fellow musician and songwriter at the core. She started her journey writing jingles and scores, and continues having a successful career in synch licensing. One of my favorite things about Cheryl is that she used the tools that have helped her with her career to teach other musicians on how they can do the same. She offers some amazing courses to teach you how to ROCK YOUR EMAIL LIST, writing a Perfect Pitch, and so much more.

There are so many ways to make a full time and fulfilling living being a musician in today’s world. You don’t have to wait for a label, manager, or agent to give you permission. Give yourself permission to educate yourself, learn new thing, and becoming a practitioner in the things you learn. The only way to get better is to start doing. Cheryl is a great example of how so many musicians today can find creative ways to “live the life they love.”

To learn more about Cheryl check out http://www.inthekeyofsuccess.com/ and https://cbemusic.com/

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Highlights from this Episode
[4:05] Working with Ari Herstand
[7:40] Writing Bio’s, books, and more
[12:57] Sharing your story and journey
[17:25] Scuba Diving for the United States Government to a Music Career
[21:48] Coaching Resources for Musicians
[29:45] Communicating with your audience over email instead of social media
[33:00] Strategies to building your email list
[38:42] Email welcome series
[43:15] Sending a regular newsletter or broadcast
[50:42] Creating a Year’s Worth of Content with 30 Emails
[54:35] Crowdfunding through your email list and asking fans for money
[1:00:00] Rapid Fire Questions - Getting to Know Cheryl B. Engelhardt

Quotes from Cheryl B. Engelhardt
“It’s so easy now days to find the person before you even find the music.”
“The things that makes the story and the bio really interesting, is the points of transition.”
“What were the transitions, and what then were the decisions.”
“It’s awesome to not have to be full-time on the road and still have an artist career.”
“Get clear on what you want so it’s very obvious on your website and emails.”
“You get undivided attention when you’re reading an email.”
“Emails are way more likely to get delivered and seen than a Facebook post.”
“66% of people are more likely to purchase something through your email than the same ad over social media.”
[About Email and Social Media] “It’s not one or the other, it’s about how we can make these things work together.”
“Every email should have a call to action even if it’s not a promotion.”
“Your welcome series is meant to train them [subscribers] and engage with you in a certain way.”
“The most opened email will be the first email, because people sign-up for a thing, and they want the thing.”
“The key is to be consistent, so they can manage their expectations of you, and you’re not surprising or disrupting them.”
“The once a month rule, is a very outdated music industry rule.”
“If you can write 30 emails, and send one out every 2 weeks or 3 weeks, that’s a years worth of content.”
“When someone is reading a newsletters with so many things in it, you’re distracting them from yourself.”
“If that person said no, Fuck It, on to the next.”

Links to people, places, and things mentioned
Ari Herstand
“Inevitably” by Cheryl B. Engelhardt
Uni ted States Geological Survey
Cornell University
Lou Playa
Rev erbNation
SXSW
Anthony Snape
Pre-Writing Your Automated Emails
Sara Bareilles
Dave Matthews
Tim Reynolds
Amy Porterfield
Key Conversatio ns with Cheryl B. Engelhardt

Cheryl’s Definition of Making It:
“Where I’m constantly participating in projects that allow me to be fully self-expressed in partnership and creative.”

Get in touch with Cheryl B. Engelhardt
All the stuff I offer musicians lives: inthekey.c o/results
Rock Your Email List course: inthekey.co/emailcourse
The Perfect Pitch course: inthe key.co/perfectpitch
Free Checklist on Pitching Music: inthekey.co/prime
MX4 course: int hekey.co/mx4
Podcast: inthekey.co/keypod cast
Cheryl’s music: cbemusic.co/officia l
Instagram: cbemusic.co/cbegram