Rob Town MA, founder of Stampede Press
Rob Town MA Founder, Stampede Press · Email marketing & direct-to-fan systems
Music Managers Forum UK logo MMF Member

Email marketing for musicians & music businesses

Email Marketing & Automation.

Build a list you can actually use.

Stop treating your mailing list like one big newsletter database. I build email systems that help you capture the right people, segment them, automate useful follow-up, keep the database clean and measure what actually drives action.

For bands, artists, labels, venues, promoters, studios, producers, merch businesses and other music companies.

Send me three quick answers about your current list, what you want email to achieve and what’s coming next. I’ll reply personally with the most sensible place to start.

Own the relationshipBuild a permission-based audience you can contact directly.
Send more relevant emailsUse behaviour, purchase history, engagement and location.
Automate the repetitive workWelcome, nurture, post-purchase and re-engagement can run without manual chasing.
Keep the list healthierReduce dead weight, improve signal quality and protect deliverability.

What email should actually do

More Than Sending A Newsletter.

The useful question is not “how often should we email?” It is who is this person, what do they already know, and what is the most relevant next message?

01 / CAPTURE

Turn attention into permission

Give social followers, gig audiences, website visitors and customers a clear reason to join your list.

02 / NURTURE

Build familiarity before the ask

Use music, stories, access, archive material and useful content to deepen the relationship over time.

03 / CONVERT

Support sales and enquiries

Use relevant sequences for tickets, merch, physical music, services, releases and other commercial actions.

04 / RETAIN

Do not lose the customer after purchase

Post-purchase, repeat-customer and reactivation workflows can extend customer value beyond the first order.

Anonymised results / insights

What A Warm, Nurtured Audience Can Become.

This example comes from an established warm audience that had been nurtured over time and regularly gifted valuable / exclusive material before commercial asks. It is not cold email and it is not a promise of future results.

The important point is not simply the headline revenue. It is the structure underneath it: a customer base that can be segmented, reached again, measured and moved through different journeys depending on what they have already done.

In this anonymised snapshot, platform reporting attributes substantial revenue to email and shows individual campaigns generating meaningful orders, opens and clicks. The commercial value comes from relationship + relevance + timing, not just sending more broadcasts.

Warm audiencePeople already knew the artist, had received value and had reasons to keep opening.
Segmentable customer dataRepeat buyers, first-time buyers, engaged subscribers and inactive contacts can be treated differently.
Measurable commercial signalEmail reporting can connect campaigns and workflows to opens, clicks, orders and platform-attributed revenue.

Already have subscribers, previous customers or a warm audience? Tell me what you’re working with and what you want them to do next.

Anonymised email marketing results snapshot showing customer, revenue, order, open and click performance
Anonymised performance snapshot from a warm, nurtured ecommerce audience. Platform-attributed figures are shown as reported by the email/store system. No equivalent result is guaranteed for another artist or business.

Segmentation

Stop Sending The Same Email To Everybody.

Someone who joined yesterday is not the same as someone who has bought six products. Better segmentation makes the message more relevant and helps avoid unnecessary email.

Useful segments can update as people open, click, buy, stop engaging, change location or move through the customer lifecycle.

Example dynamic segments
New subscriberWelcome / nurture
Engaged fanHigh opens / clicks
First-time customerPost-purchase
Repeat customerAscension / VIP
Location segmentTour / event
Inactive subscriberRe-engage / suppress
Shopify to Drip post-purchase email automation workflow
Example post-purchase workflow: a Shopify order triggers timed follow-up automatically.

Automation

Build The Sequence Once. Let The Trigger Do The Repetitive Work.

Automation is not about making the relationship robotic. It is about making sure the right follow-up actually happens when somebody joins, buys, clicks, abandons or becomes inactive.

Welcome

Introduce the artist, story, music or business when interest is fresh.

Post-purchase

Thank, reassure, deliver useful information and introduce the next relevant step.

Re-engagement

Identify subscribers who have gone quiet before continuing to mail indefinitely.

Behaviour routing

Use clicks, purchases, tags and segments to change what happens next.

Email hygiene / scrubbing

A Bigger List Is Not Always A Better List.

Old databases accumulate dead addresses, duplicates, bounces and people who have not engaged for years. Keeping every contact forever can distort your data, increase platform costs and hurt deliverability.

Review hard bounces, unsubscribes and obvious data problems
Identify inactive subscribers and build sensible re-engagement logic
Suppress or remove contacts that should not keep receiving campaigns
Check imports and migrations before moving old customer data
Review sender-domain basics such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC where relevant

Measurement

Track More Than Opens.

Opens and clicks are useful signals. For ecommerce and direct-to-fan work, the more valuable question is what subscribers and customers actually do after the email.

Where the platform/store integration allows it, we can use reporting to look at campaign performance, workflow performance, orders, customer value and platform-attributed revenue over time.

Attribution is platform reporting, not proof that email alone caused every purchase.

Email platform revenue chart comparing total revenue and Drip-attributed revenue over time
Example email/ecommerce reporting showing total revenue alongside platform-attributed email revenue over time.

What should you fix first?

You Don’t Need More Emails. You Need The Right Email System.

The problem is often not “we should send more.” It is that the list, segmentation, automation or follow-up is doing the wrong job.

Lots of old or inactive contactsYour database is getting bigger, but engagement is getting weaker.
List hygiene + re-engagement
Everybody gets the same emailsNew fans, buyers and repeat customers are all treated alike.
Segmentation
New subscribers hear nothingPeople join the list and the relationship immediately goes quiet.
Welcome automation
Customers disappear after purchaseThe transaction ends, but there is no structured follow-up.
Post-purchase automation
Subscribers open but rarely buyThere is attention, but the sequence towards a commercial action is weak.
Nurture + offer sequencing
You have followers but few email subscribersAttention exists, but there is no clear route into a direct audience.
Fan capture
You cannot tell what email is producingOpens are visible, but commercial impact is unclear.
Tracking + attribution
You are not sure which problem matters mostYou do not need to diagnose the system before getting in touch.
Start with a review
Ask Rob What I Should Fix First

You do not need to know which automations or segments you need. That’s the part I’ll help diagnose.

Email Marketing & Automation Setup

The Deliverable Is A Working System.

I start with what you already have and build the simplest useful system around the actual business goal. This is not a generic newsletter template and it is not a report that leaves you to implement everything yourself.

Platform / account review List structure + segmentation Capture / signup route Welcome + nurture automation Post-purchase / re-engagement Email copy + sequence logic List hygiene / scrubbing Tracking + handover
Rob Town MA, founder of Stampede Press

Why Stampede Press?

Email With Music-Business Context.

I work with email as part of real artist, ecommerce and audience-development campaigns. That means thinking beyond newsletters: what people signed up for, what they bought, what they care about and what should happen next.

I work with platforms including Drip and Sender and can assess an existing setup before recommending whether it should be kept, improved or migrated.

Rob Town MA 30+ years around music Music business educator Systems Engineer PR + direct-to-fan

Frequently asked questions

Email Marketing & Automation.

Practical answers around segmentation, automation, list cleaning, ecommerce follow-up and deliverability.

Why does a band or music business need an email list?

A permission-based email list gives you a direct way to reconnect with people who have already shown interest. It can support releases, ticket sales, merch, physical music, enquiries, repeat purchases and reactivation without relying entirely on a social platform to show your next post.

What email automations should I build first?

The strongest starting point is usually a welcome sequence. Depending on the setup, the next useful workflows can include post-purchase follow-up, re-engagement, cart recovery, release or ticket sequences, customer ascension and win-back.

What is email segmentation?

Segmentation means grouping subscribers by useful signals such as lifecycle stage, location, engagement, purchase history, product interest or customer value so different people can receive more relevant messages.

What do you mean by email list hygiene or scrubbing?

List hygiene means reviewing the database for problems such as bounces, duplicates, unsubscribed contacts and long-term inactivity, then deciding what should be re-engaged, suppressed, corrected or removed. The aim is a cleaner list with clearer engagement signals and fewer unnecessary sends.

Can you clean and migrate an existing mailing list?

Yes, where the contacts were legitimately collected for email marketing and the data is suitable. Existing lists can be reviewed, cleaned, structured and migrated rather than automatically starting from zero.

Can email help sell CDs, vinyl, merch or tickets?

Yes. Email can reconnect with people who already know the artist or business and support launches, offers, ticket campaigns, post-purchase communication, repeat sales and customer reactivation. No specific revenue or sales outcome is guaranteed.

Will automated emails make us sound like a shop?

They should not. Automation handles timing, routing and repetitive follow-up. The actual emails should still sound like the artist or business, using the stories, music, personality, archive material, offers and reasons to care that make the relationship human.

Which platforms do you work with?

I work with platforms including Drip and Sender and can assess an existing setup before recommending whether it should be kept, improved or migrated.

What about deliverability and domain authentication?

Where relevant, the setup can include list hygiene, permission and unsubscribe handling, sender-domain basics such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and checks around how subscribers are being collected before campaigns are scaled.

Get A Clear Recommendation For Your Email System.

Send me three short answers. I’ll look at where you are now, what you’re trying to achieve and tell you whether the priority is list cleaning, segmentation, automation, capture, nurture or something simpler.

Get Rob’s Recommendation For My Email System

No sales call required to enquire. If one specific fix is enough, I’ll say so.

Example results shown on this page are anonymised and are not guarantees of future performance. Email attribution is platform-reported. Permission, data quality, offer, audience, ecommerce setup, sending history and execution all affect results.