How Email Marketing Helped Us Sell Out The Biggest Music Venue in Moscow
A case study of email marketing for musical business by Alexandra Solodkaya, email marketer at Black Star Inc.
I work as an email marketer at a Russian music label Black Star Inc. It has grown from a small company to a major player on the market over the past ten years. Our artists received all the music awards in the country, and our songs are played on all music channels and radio stations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Now, we work with 13 musicians who sing in different styles — from hip-hop to pop music.
When I was hired, no one really believed that email marketing would be successful. The management doubted for a long time whether the email marketer position was a necessary step, but eventually they decided to give it a shot.
Let me tell you about email marketing features in music business, and how this channel helps us sell out events.
How Did Email Marketing Begin
What was at the start line:
- Black Star Inc. already had a subscriber base of 20,300 contacts. Nobody worked with this base before;
- There was no segmentation of contacts;
- Emails didn’t have a single template. We had to develop a design concept from scratch.
Start Goals
The management doubted emails would bring results. Therefore, the main task was to show the financial success of the email marketing campaign:
- Design a single email template for different artists;
- Segment the subscriber base and increase it;
- Launch a series of emails for each artist.
Now, first things first.
Email Design
We planned to send out a lot of letters, so we needed a universal template that would be easy to adapt for any artist.
We prepared a series of 5–7 letters for each artist’s concert. During the tour, the series was sent to every city separately. The artist visits about 12 cities, which means we have to send 60–84 letters for one band.
Usually there are up to seven groups on tour at the same time. It means we had to send 300–400 letters per season. It’s difficult to prepare a unique design for this amount of emails, so we made a universal template.
We hired a designer and a copywriter to create a letter template. The main purpose of the emails was to sell tickets to the subscribers.
Segmentation and Base Increase
We have added a subscription form to the home page of every concert. Thanks to that, we could immediately segment subscribers by city and artist.
After subscribing, the user received a welcome letter with a promotional code and instructions how to use it. In the first letter, we also talked about the frequency and content of emails.
In eight weeks, we’ve managed to put together a base of 8,000 contacts and divided it into 12 segments (different cities, artists, or events).
The base increased by 40% in the first 3 months and by 775% in the following year. Now, it contains 178 segments — one segment for each concert.
Automatic Series
We launched a series of letters for each artist. Let’s take the email campaign for L’One, Russian singer, first artist signed to Black Star Inc., concert at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium to see how it works.
We sent the first seven letters before the start of sales. We offered to register for a concert and get a 15–25% discount off a ticket. Also, we added an opportunity to pick a seat at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium at the start of sales for the subscribers.
After the start of sales, we have sent out 27 letters (from April to November 2018). Here’s what we sent:
- Emails with new tracks;
- Motivational letters and stories about an artist;
- News related to an artist;
- Reminders about a concert (every day during the week before the concert).
We sent letters once a week. If there were new tracks by an artist, we would send out an additional message.
The Outcome of the Series
On average, 69% of the subscribers opened the welcome letter. 45% of the users clicked on the website link in the email.
Here are the statistics for the two content letters:
Thanks to the email channel, we sold 25% of the tickets as soon as the sales started.
Here is the dynamics of ticket sales. The first surge coincides with the start of sales.
From April to November, a total of 50% of all tickets to the concert at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium were sold via email.
After this, the management was convinced in the email channel efficiency. Now email marketing is one of the main sources for selling tickets to Black Star concerts.
Simple Rules to Follow To Get A Sold Out Event
Email marketing works in the music business. We sold 50% of the tickets to the concert thanks to this marketing channel. Based on the experience presented above, I advise to stick to the following rules:
- Segmentation improves the performance of emails and helps adapt to the interests of the audience. For example, we broke down the subscribers into segments by city, artists, and events. As a result, we got a separate segment for each concert;
- If you work with several artists at the same time, it’s better to choose a universal email template. It will be easier to adapt design for a specific artist;
- Use automatic series to sell more. As example, we sent out the welcome series before the start of sales. This helped us sell 25% of tickets as soon as the sales started.
This case has been kindly shared by Alexandra Solodkaya, email marketer at Black Star Inc. Thank you!
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