Email tips to help maximize opportunities

Written by Kyle Kraft of Krafty Entertainment

Krafty Entertainment is a music business development coaching company dedicated to providing guidance to musicians (and their teams) on how best to nurture supporters and profit from doing so. Krafty Entertainment’s founder Kyle Kraft has over 20 years experience in assisting both developing and established artists in substantially growing their net income from their music. Interested in working with us? Let’s talk!

Poorly crafted emails tend to be very ineffective in achieving the desired results. Here’s some tips to ensure that how you are putting together your emails to industry people isn’t hurting your chances of getting the results you want:

Ensure your subject line is as strong as is possible

ALWAYS include a subject line, and make your subject line as strong as possible to maximize the likelihood that the email gets responded to or even opened for that matter. Include your name in it (even if your name is in the name of your reply to email) as well as a brief description of what you are emailing about. 

Ensure the email you are sending from looks as professional as is possible

Ensure the email address you are sending the email from looks as professional as is possible. Ideally use an email address associated with your web domain name, or at the very least ensure that the Gmail address you are using is consistent with your brand. Ensure the display name field of your email is also consistent with your brand, not something unrelated.

Don’t send “group” emails

DO NOT send out a general group email to multiple people in the same email (unless they work together), and make sure ALL of the contents of the email are applicable to the person you’re sending it to. If you don’t take the time to ensure that the email you’re sending is relevant to the person receiving it, why would you expect them to even read it in full let alone respond to it or otherwise act upon it? Unless someone signed up for your email mailing list, you shouldn’t be sending them group email. NEVER send a group email to a bunch of people who don’t work together by including them all in the cc (carbon copy) field of your email, as that will result in everyone you’re sending it to seeing everyone else’s email address which is a serious violation of privacy and makes you look unprofessional as hell.

Address the individual recipient by name

Address the individual recipient(s) you are sending the email to by name. If you can’t be bothered to take the time to address someone personally, why would you expect them to take the time to respond or even read your email? If you don’t know who you should be addressing to do some research to find out, Google and picking up the phone to find out the name of someone who handles something are both good means of figuring out who you want to connect with.

Spell check

Set up your email to spell check every email as you are sending it. When you are pitching people to spend some of their time on your behalf there is just no room to be unprofessional. People have too many other things they could be spending their time on behalf of people that are professional and therefore less likely to waste their time.

Use proper punctuation

Make sure you are using proper punctuation in your emails, your email is less likely to get read if you don’t. NEVER USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IN YOUR EMAILS, it is considered the written equivalent of shouting, is unprofessional, and may reduce the likelihood of your email getting responded to or even read.

Be professional

Be professional, and don’t ever have the attitude that people owe you anything… if you don’t already have a working relationship with someone you shouldn’t even expect them to spend their time to even respond to you. Most initial email solicitations don’t get an answer in this business. 

Be brief

Be to the point, don’t waste people’s time with unnecessary info. Be as concise as possible, essays are less likely to be read never mind responded to.

State a clear reason for sending a message

Only send messages with a clear reason. Don’t send messages with only small talk type inquiries ie “How are you doing?” unless you are actually already friends with the person you are emailing. Business people appreciate people who are to the point and not taking up extra time with unnecessary communication. You do business first, and then sometimes build a friendship as a result. The opposite is rarely the case.

Thank the recipient for their time

Be sure to thank the recipient for their time in every solicitation email. The only people that you should expect a response from are those who you have already paid for their time.

Be polite

Be polite. Saying please when you are asking for something goes a long way.

Don’t include unsolicited attachments

DO NOT include unsolicited files as attachments. Not only will some people dislike you immediately for doing so since it uses up their mobile data and potentially slows down receiving other emails, but many people are not willing to open email attachments unless it is something they asked for due to the amount of viruses and malware out there these days. Some people have emails with attachments that aren’t from people in their contact list automatically go to their junk folder, so including attachments can actually result in some people never receiving your email.

Include clickable links

Do include links, and make sure you are sending people links to stream instead of to download audio or video. Make it as easy as possible for people to check out what you are sending, every extra click needed is going to decrease the likelihood of them hearing/ seeing what you are trying to get them to check out. Make sure that the links that you include in your emails are as likely to be clickable as is possible. Starting the address with “www.” will make the address clickable in most email readers. Do not include social media links that start with “@”, type out the full link so that it is clickable. 

Include legitimate impressive stats

Do include stats (like play numbers, subscribers, etc) from credible sources that AREN’T paid for (and don’t think that the reader is too stupid or busy to be able to tell what is) right in the body of your email if you have good numbers. The better the numbers (aka social proof), the higher the likelihood of the reader clicking on a link, responding to the email, or otherwise taking action.

Make it easy to respond

Whenever possible structure your emails so that the person could respond with a simple yes or a no. The more people have to type to respond, the less likely they are to do so.

Include your website link in your signature

Have an email signature with a link to your website in it. If you don’t have a website yet (get a simple one set up ASAP!) at least get a .com domain name registered and have it point to whatever social media profile of yours that you use the most.

Send when its most likely to get read/ responded to

Unless you know that the person you’re emailing has a different schedule that would make sending them email at a different time make more sense, the best times to send emails that are going to stand the highest chance possible of getting read or getting an immediate response from people who work normal business hours are during the late morning or mid afternoon on weekdays. Schedule emails to send (using boomerang for Gmail, etc) during optimal hours to maximize the likelihood of a response.

Don’t tell people you are going to follow up with them

Avoid telling people that you are going to follow up with them if you don’t hear back from them, as it takes some of the pressure off them to respond since they know you will remind them to do so later.

Ask for confirmation of receipt

Finish off all email communications asking for them to confirm that they received your email, AND also to let you know their thoughts once they've had a chance to consider your email as well. That way you hopefully at least get a response confirming receipt, since lots emails go to junk mail folders, accidentally get deleted, get overlooked, deprioritized indefinitely, and so on. If you know someone received your email you can focus on getting a response to the content of the email as opposed to ensuring it was even received.

Following up without overdoing it

While following up is often necessary to getting a response, be sure to not follow up any more frequently than several BUSINESS days after your last communication. The squeaky wheel gets the grease BUT its all about persistence without annoyance. 

If the person you emailed responds saying they’re going to do something in a certain amount of time and you don’t hear from them by then, follow up with them the following business day to check on the status is totally reasonable. 

Thank people for their responses, even if you don’t like their response

If you do get a response, be sure to thank them for their response regardless of the content of their response. Unless you paid someone for their time, no one owes you a response. 

If they do respond and you are contacting them about something that is going to require additional communication, you are usually better off to send your response the following business day since it will help you put yourself back in their mind after they have slept (unless it is a time sensitive issue) and so that you don’t seem too anxious to communicate with them.

Respond to everything that you’re asked about

Be thorough and address ALL questions that the person responding brings up BUT be concise in addressing each point, people generally don’t want to read long emails.

ALWAYS respond to questions you are asked before asking questions of your own. This is basic manners and should go without saying, but I have seen countless emails from people asking questions without answering questions I asked them.

Quote previous messages in an email thread when you respond

Be sure your response email is set up to show the previous emails in your conversation when reply to someone’s email, so that people who have a lot on the plate are able to go back and refer to previous correspondence easily.

Following the above recommendations will put you ahead of a lot of the people sending emails pitching for opportunities. Maintain these habits, and you should see the amount you are responded to increase.

This information was compiled by Kyle Kraft of Krafty Entertainment. Whether you are an artist who is in the early stages of building your career and have next to no money to invest into it looking for the best paths to generating income, are an artist that has established a following and are interested in getting assistance with securing tens of thousands of dollars in funding to further your career, or are an artist or collective with an extensive fan base that would like assistance with increasing the efficiency of your business development, we can help you.

Want to read more articles written by Kyle? You can do so here.