He also encouraged folks to take any email that you come across and put it on your band’s mailing list and followed that up with “Let them decide that they don’t want to be on my list.”
- Discmakers Product Specialist Sydney Alston

One of my pet peeves as of late has been the number of band newsletters – and mailings from music publicists – I have had my email addresses added to unwillingly. For whatever reasons, since the summer there has been a noticeable increase in such happenings. Now I know the majority of those folks were not at the conference referenced below but they appear to be following a similar train of thought.

The following is from Bob Lefsetz’s email newsletter. You can find his archives online but not everything makes it there. It is worth signing up for the newsletter directly [and that's the only way you'll ever receive it, as it should be]. There are plenty of emails and responses that do not get posted to his blog that make the emails worthwhile, since this is one of those responses I have posted an email response in full from a reader of his regarding some very disappointing advice staff at Disc Makers is spreading.

The email below represents what not to do in growing an email list. For advice on what to do check out Seth Godin’s blog. He coined the term Permission Marketing: “delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them…It realizes that treating people with respect is the best way to earn their attention”. If you have never read anything by Seth Godin and are responsible for marketing your band or someone else’s you should plan to spend sometime reviewing his ideas.

The Emails

Subject:        Re: NewsChannel 5 Investigates

Great article Bob, per usual.  It’s the age of accountability and you’re doing your part.

I had an interesting thing at the TAXI Music Convention this weekend in Los Angeles and I thought you might enjoy it.  I’ll tell you the quick story and then tag on what I sent to TAXI’s forum about it – still waiting for a response.  Now first up – TAXI does wonderful things for independent artists but one seminar I went to was too much.  Briefly:

Class was “Acheiving Success with your Music” by Sydney Alston.
Sydney has numerous credits including being a Product Specialist for Discmakers and formerly of the band “Joyride”
He encouraged sharing email lists with other bands to grow your own and then use that to work corporate sponsorships by selling your email list.
He also said that Discmakers were the only company worth making cds with
He also encouraged folks to take any email that you come across and put it on your band’s mailing list and followed that up with “Let them decide that they don’t want to be on my list.”

That’s the gist of it but below is what I sent to TAXI.

Thanks for listening Bob – you are one of the beacons of hope in this “industry”.  I’ve learned so much from your newsletters that it has really helped me in my career.  Trying to figure out how to say – you’ve created a sense of concience and a moral code that I believed in before I even read a word you wrote.

I would love to know your thoughts on this.

–
Bobbo
www.thefallenstars.com

To TAXI:

I really struggled with whether or not to post this but I think it’s important. While I got so much out of all the classes I went to this weekend, I had some significant concerns about the Achieving Success with Your Music seminar with Sydney Alston. It wasn’t the fact that the session was a Discmakers “infomercial” disguised as a class, though that was certainly irritating. It wasn’t even the fact that Sydney clearly stated he didn’t write his own presentation, but rather it was supplied to him by the president of Discmakers, which was pretty surprising considering the general high caliber of TAXI presenters.

No, what bothered me was that I believe some of the information provided was misleading at best and downright unethical and possibly illegal at worst, and this is not the type of behavior that should be recommended as a best practice by the TAXI or any music community.

Sydney was talking about his time in his band Joyride and how he and other bands “shared” their email list with each other. This got him over 40,000 names on his email list. With this list he was able to secure endorsement deals with Jagermeister, Trojan Condoms and record companies’ interest – in return for giving these companies access to his compiled email list. He also said that he would add any email address that he came across, in any context – band-related or not – to his email list and “Let them decide that they don’t want to be on my list.” This sounds suspiciously close to email harvesting and spamming to me.

I treat my mailing list like family. I don’t share it with anyone else – I’ve been offered endorsement deals where they have asked for our mailing list and I have turned them down. I use an opt-in subscription based system to manage my list. Each email specifies that folks are receiving the email because they signed up with our band’s mailing list and provides an “Unsubscribe” option if they so choose.

After doing some research today into the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, I was surprised to discover that email harvesting is only illegal if the website provider has explicitly stated that they will not make that information available to other parties. As of today I will also be adding the following statement to my website and mailing list tools, “We will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer your email address to anyone else. Ever.”

It’s important to me that our fans know we value their privacy and believe that any violation of that privacy is a gross misuse of the trust they placed in us.

In summary bands: DO NOT DO THIS!!

Related posts:

1. it was nice hearing from you – bands that called it quits in ‘06
2. Disc Revolt – Digital Sales/Marketing
3. Today’s Email Blast
4. Advice for Bands looking to Build Fanbases
5. Prologue – Hottest Bands on the East Coast