Using Email to Get Gigs

Hey, what's up gigging pros. It's Jared Judge. Welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. And I'm simultaneously streaming this live to the Gigging Musicians Facebook group. So shout out to you if you are watching this live. So I wanted to share with you an email strategy that I have tested out to get gigs by reaching out to emails of local business owners in my city. I am a part of a, it's a tourism group called VISIT Milwaukee. And it is like the Tourism Board of our city. And they have other members in it, they have 645 members, and they all give you their email addresses by being part of this group. And so I figured I'm not really using my partnership that Well, I have these email addresses, I haven't sent anything to them. So why not just send something to all these business owners and see what happens with the intention of getting more awareness of my groups, and possibly getting some gigs out of it. So if it's cool with you, I'm going to share the email that I sent. And then I'll tell you the results because the results have been awesome. So far, so far, I've gotten five responses, which there are a couple of gigs that are already coming out of that, but also some cool partnerships. So here is the email subject line is VISIT Milwaukee, which is the name of the group. By the way, I'll share with you after why I'm not going to use that subject line again, but it was very effective. So here is the email that I sent out. It said"Hi fellow VISIT Milwaukee partner. I just got my annual renewal call from Meg and realized I haven't been using my partnership. That's why I'm reaching out to get to know you. My name is Jared Judge and I run Milwaukee's top live music company Dream City Music. I'd love a chance to meet you and hear about your business. If you're interested, feel free to schedule a time to chat here. And then I insert my Calendly link. I run two award winning groups Dream City Strings a live String Quartet that plays everything from Bach to Bruno Mars, and Dream City Jazz, a live jazz trio that plays everything from Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald. Our groups just won a few awards, (Wisconsin bride Magazine's, Best of 2021 WeddingWire's Couple's Choice Award, et cetera). And I wanted to share a few videos with you to see if either you or any of your clients might benefit from incredible live music at your next event. Here's a video of Dream City Jazz playing Girl from Ipanema." And then I have a video embedded in it. It's got an image with the jazz group on it and a play button. When they click that link, it goes to YouTube for that specific song. Then I say "Here's a video of Dream City Strings playing Christina Perry's A Thousand Years", and then a picture of the string quartet with a play button on it that goes to YouTube for that. "I would absolutely love the opportunity to partner and work with you. If you or your clients have any live music needs, please feel free to reply to this email or visit DreamCityMusic.com. I would also love to meet you either via Zoom or grab a beer with you at one of Milwaukee's amazing breweries. Either reply to this email or schedule a meeting with me here. All You Need Is Love Jared Judge". And then there's a picture of me playing violin in my email signature. So I sent this email out because my hypothesis was that nobody knows my group. Well, I know that some people know my group, but I know that not everybody in Milwaukee knows my group. And my goal is to drive as much traffic into my funnel as possible. And so this was a viable way to do that. So the results, I have a way to measure how many people received my email. Let me just close that. How many people received my email versus how many opened it versus how many clicked it and how many unsubscribed so I sent it into 645 people as of 24 hours after I sent it 233 People opened it which was 36% open rate. By the way, your open rate is a measure of how effective your subject line is. And typically, you know 10% open rate is considered good when you're just cold emailing people. 36% is amazing. So I am very proud of that subject line. Except I got a call later in the day from VISIT Milwaukee, saying that my email subject line confused a couple of the other partners because they thought that it was official VISIT Milwaukee Business. So I did have to apologize, I felt embarrassed about that. And I said I'll be more conscientious of my subject lines, but the proof is in the pudding. This was a very effective subject line. And that all goes into the hook story offer framework which I've chatted about on previous episodes of The Gigging Musician Podcast. So listen to that to hear why did I choose that subject line in the future, I will definitely switch it around. Because I do not want to offend any of my partners, or confused people, then the click rate is 3%. Click rate is a measure of how many people read your email and then clicked a link inside it. So out of 233, people who opened it 22 people clicked it, which is 3%, according to this email software, so that is a pretty low click rate, I would definitely want to revisit the text of the email to try to get that higher. But it was a cold email out to these partners that are inside VISIT Milwaukee. So you have to understand cold email outreach tends to have lower open rates and lower click rates, because the relationship just isn't built yet. So I wanted to send this one to start that relationship. And I'm going to be sending follow up emails, and that will increase the click rate later so that people will find out about my group, and then book us, I was actually surprised to see that there was no unsubscribes yet, because when you're doing cold email outreach to get gigs, and you're marketing yourself, you know, not everybody is going to appreciate being cold emailed. And so having zero unsubscribes was actually pretty shocking to me, I have to check again later to see if there were any unsubscribes in the next day or so. But so far, this is looking good. Even if there were unsubscribes unsubscribes are a good thing, because people, the people who unsubscribe weren't going to be booking you anyway. So you want to stop annoying them and then being able to unsubscribe is a way to get them to opt out. So that was those are the results. What has happened since I sent this email is I've actually had five different business owners reach out to me to have them scheduled meetings with me via my calendar link. And so we're going to chat and discuss possible gig opportunities for them. One person called me it was a garden venue here in Milwaukee, they said, Hey, we're looking to host jazz in the gardens in the summertime, and we'd love to partner with you. So I am assuming we'll get at least one gig out of that. An art museum called me and also said, Hey, in August, we're going to be doing a jazz in the park kind of thing is your group interested. So that's another gig that I'm assuming as long as I stay with it, there'll be opportunities for us. And then Oh, awesome. I see someone's commenting on my live stream, by the way, Facebook user, either type who you are, or click the streamyard.com/facebook link, and it'll let us know who your name is. But thanks for jumping on this live stream. So yeah, the other opportunities that have come out of this is somebody emailed me asking, Hey, how did you send a list? How did you send an email to this list. So I put together a helpful video of how to do that. He appreciated it. And then he invited me to the grand opening of his venue, which also hosts private events where gig opportunities will happen. So that's another amazing thing. And then the last one that came out of this was an email from the CEO of a local theatre company, who does a lot of private events, but also larger productions where they have VIP events. And he said, how can we work together? So I'm starting that relationship to working on getting a lunch date from that. So that is my experience sending a cold email out to 645 local Milwaukee businesses with the intention of getting gigs or at least getting the word out there. By the way, my hypothesis was one was that people don't really know who my groups are. And the first phone call I got with the garden venue, they said to me, hey, we'd actually never heard of your group before, which we've been around since 2016. So I found that shocking, but it proved that my hypothesis was right. We musicians just don't get the word out there about us ourselves, enough. So this email is how I did that. And I'm going to be sending follow up emails, I'm going to try to get into a regular cadence with this group, so that they are reminded that I exist, but also provide value towards them. Maybe some ideas on how to make their events more spectacular, make their clients happier. That way, when there's an opportunity for our groups to perform, they'll think of me. So that is email marketing. That is my cold email outreach. And if you're just tuning in now, you can watch the replay of this or listen to the Gigging Musician Podcast episode that will come out with this to hear the contents of the entire email. So thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, you are just one gig away!