Offer a Free Beat Using MailChimp

One of the best ways to build an email list is to give away something free. A lot of music producers give away free beats to help entice music artists to join their email lists.

In the tutorial below, I will show you how to offer a free beat download using the email service MailChimp.

I like to use MailChimp because their website is easy to use, they offer a great visual editor to design emails, and they offer a FREE plan for up to 2,000 email subscribers.

Tutorial Overview:

This process should take less than 10 minutes to do.

Create a free MailChimp account.
Create an email list for people to subscribe to.
Modify the confirmation email to include the free beat download.
Embed the email form into a website.
Looking at examples of how music producers get people to join their email list.

Let’s get started.

Video Instructions

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Create a FREE MailChimp Account

Click here to sign up for a MailChimp Account.

On their website, click the Sign Up Free button.
Enter your information on the sign-up page and click the Create My Account button.
You will have to confirm your email address in your inbox to activate your account.
Once you activate your account, enter in personal info and save your information.

2. Build Your Audience

From the MailChimp dashboard, click the Create A List button next to Start building your audience.

3. Create a List

Before you build an audience you will need to create an email list for people to subscribe to. So click the Create List button.

4. Enter in Details For Your Email List

List Name Tip: Users will be able to see the name of your list. So maybe make it the name of your website and “Newsletter”. Click the Save button.

6. Click “General Forms”

7. Select Final “Welcome” Email

Under Forms and Response emails, select Final “Welcome” Email. This will allow us to edit the final email that is sent to your subscriber once they have confirmed their email address.

8. Check the Box next to “Send a final welcome email.”

9. Edit Welcome Email

9a. In your web browser, hover over the red dotted box labeled “Your subscription has been confirmed,” and an edit button will appear. Click the Edit button.

9b. Type something like “Click here to download the free beats.”

In this example, we are making the message in this welcome email very simple, but you may want to invest more thought and time into this email.

Thank them for joining your list.
Make it clear how to download the free beats.
Maybe include a short bio and some important links of yours.
I would NOT suggest trying to sell something right away.
Tip: Hit enter a few times when editing the email text to move the unsubscribe button lower in the email, so it’s not their first instinct for users to click a button they see.

10. Upload Your Free Beat Download

10a. Click the Link icon.

10b. Under Link To Select File.

10c. Click the Upload button.

10d. Browse your computer for your free beats.

It is suggested you put your free beats in a zip file.
Maybe include some type of license agreement in a text file or PDF in the zip file.

10e. Once uploaded, copy the File URL and click the Cancel link.

10f. Highlight the free download text in your email and click the Link icon again.

10g. In the Web Address (URL) input, paste the file URL. Click the Insert button.

10h. Next, click the Save & Close button.

Large Download Files Tip: You may also choose to upload your free beat download file to your web server or a file-sharing site like Dropbox. If you upload it to one of those options, copy and paste that file location in the Web Address (URL) input for the user to download the free beat.

11a. Under Forms and response emails, select Signup form.

11b. Copy and paste the Signup form URL in your web browser to test out the email form.

11c. Enter your email address and name, and click the Subscribe to List button.

11d. Check your email inbox for the email. This email can take a few minutes.

11e. Once you get the email, click the Yes, subscribe me to this list button.

11f. Once you confirm your subscription, you should get a second email with the free download link. Test out the download link.

If the download link works, you are ready to start collecting email addresses.

12. Add the Form to Your Website

In this last step, I will be adding the MailChimp email form code to the sidebar of the Music Maker WordPress theme, but you can add this code to any website you want.

12a. In MailChimp, click Signup Forms.

12b. Next, click Embedded Forms.

12c. On the Embedded Forms page, I will…

Uncheck “Include form title.”
Check “Show only required fields.”
Uncheck “Show required field indicators.”
Uncheck “Show format options”

Preview

12d. Next, select and copy the code from the “Copy/paste onto your site” box.

12e. In WordPress with the Music Maker Theme, I will go to the Widgets page and add a Text Widget to one of my sidebars. I will make the widget title “Get 2 FREE Beats Today!” paste the MailChimp code and click the Save button.

Website Preview of How It Appears

That’s it!

What to do next with MailChimp:

Customize the design of your emails – You can change the email’s background color, add images, change fonts, and more.
Plan out your email messaging – Think about your visitor’s entire experience. How do they sign up, what is the first message they will read, and how will you follow up to turn them into a fan and loyal customers?
Automate emails – MailChimp lets paid members send out automated email messages that can help you build a relationship with your email list.

Music Producer Email Marketing Tips

Tips to Collect Emails on Your Website

Create a landing page on your website offering a free download for the email address. Hip Hop Makers Example.
Have email boxes on the sidebar of your website to allow people to subscribe easily. Hip Hop Makers Example on the sidebar.
Test out different marketing messaging to see what works best.

Email Marketing Tips

Spell check and sound professional.
Understand your audience so you know how to market to them. Be a helpful resource.

What NOT to do:

Don’t spam people.
Don’t add people to your list that did not subscribe, this is not a way to build a relationship.
Do not try to force people to join your email list before entering your website.

Email Marketing Examples

Here are a few examples of messaging from music producers to get people to subscribe to their email lists. You should test out different marketing messaging to see what works best for you.