I chose Constant Contact as the focus for this article because, thus far at least, it is easily the most popular professional service, especially in the opera world. I make this assessment not only because of the recommendations of my colleagues, but because of the plethora of Constant Contact e-mails I have received from opera companies and other performance organizations. Other similar services are available (I also tried Express E-mail Marketing but found it to be not as good a deal), some better than others. Most are inexpensive or offer a free trial, so experimenting with different programs is not difficult. They may have different interfaces and payment plans but the idea is basically the same.
Constant Contact is a subscription program to send mass e-mails, such as the mail blasts about upcoming performances that you need to get out to your fan base so they can come see you, buy your CDs, visit your website, and read your blog.
After years of running an always-evolving e-mail newsletter, I bumped my head against a problem I couldn’t get around: I was over my daily relay limit. My list had grown too large for my e-mail account to send. I’d get error messages after the blast was sent and wouldn’t be able to send any more e-mail for the rest of the day. I compromised by including only the e-mail addresses of areas where I was performing, but after several runs of this, I was afraid my contacts in Boston (where I haven’t performed in ages) would feel left out (or forget that I exist). I asked my friends what to do, and someone recommended Constant Contact.
Signing up at www.constantcontact.com is pretty straightforward. You have to fill out the standard information. Warning: you are required to put a phone number, and they will call you to “see if you need any help.” Bad, bad form. Normally I would be furious, except they happened to catch me at a good time and I actually did happen to need some help. My unsolicited contact person was very helpful and e-mailed me some detailed instructions on how to import my contact list. So that worked out nicely, but if you would like to avoid having a stranger from this company call you to see how you’re coming along with the service, consider using a fake number.
You will have to deal with another privacy invasion issue. A law requires commercial e-mails to include the sender’s physical address. Thus, Constant Care will include the address you entered on the registration form at the bottom of your e-mails, without warning. If you don’t want your crazy stalker fans to know where you live, you might want to find an alternate address to type in—a business address, your agent’s, or (newly legalized) a P.O. box. (Input a fake address at your own legal risk.)
Importing an existing contact list (from your computer address book or from your e-mail account, for example) can be tricky, depending on what format your list is in and how much computers confuse you. You may have to convert your address book into an Excel or text file, which may involve downloading software to help you with the conversion. It’s not as hard as it sounds, but if you’re already breaking out in hives, contact the friendly staff at Constant Contact for help, or have one of your nerdy friends come over.
You will have to check off boxes swearing up and down that you have permission to send to these e-mails. You will have to do this every time you add a contact. This is one way Constant Contact can confidently assert that it is a spam-free service. (Of course you could be lying when you check off those boxes, but then it’s your fault, not theirs.)
Annoyance: In the free trial, you get only 100 contacts. This renders the trial period pretty useless, because if you have less than 100 people on your list, you probably don’t need to be paying for a mail blast service. So don’t count on a real-world test run in which you actually get to send an e-mail to your whole list—once you get past 100 contacts, you will be prompted to sign up and pay for the service.
Once all your e-mails are in place, you get to the fun part—designing an e-mail. Start by choosing a template. Most are designed with a certain industry in mind, but all are customizable—I’ve used the “automotive” design with some lovely results. None are specifically centered on classical music, although rock band and folk rock options are available. (This just goes to show that not enough classical musicians are running mailing lists.)
This is where you really get creative. The template may include pictures (which you can change) or space to add your own pictures. You may want to include production photos of yourself, your headshot, a flyer for an upcoming production, or a map to the location—or just do a Google image search on the topic at hand and see what comes up. Another, more legal-friendly way to find photos (it is not always easy to know what the licensing rights are for photos you find at random across the Internet) is to search for Creative Commons licensed photos. Using the advanced search function on Flickr, I found 10,275 photos based on the search term “opera” available for free commercial use.
You will probably want to include some pictures of yourself. At the basic level, you can’t upload many photos, so you’re better off getting them from another storage point online, such as your website or your photo host (Flickr, Photobucket, etc). You will have to type in the URL so the photo can be accessed. You will also have the option of having the photo link to a website.
Besides adding your photos, this is also the point at which you can change the layout (move, add, or delete sections) and add your text. The template will probably have some text already built in—don’t forget to change it, or you may be sending out an e-mail with poetic nuggets such as, “Feel free to contact us with any questions regarding the tips or deals,” or “Thanks for taking the time to check out our newsletter! Here are a few special winery deals, as well as some useful travel tips.”
Navigating the editing page can be unintuitive, and the biggest problem I’ve had with this service is losing edits (most notably large blocks of text) that didn’t get saved. If you navigate away from that page for a split second, your work is gone. Make sure you save very frequently, and even then, be careful about navigating away from the page or closing the window.
Before you finish up, Constant Contact can run a scan to see how closely your e-mail resembles spam. Mine always rated 0 spam points, but I can’t tell you what happens if you mention webcams or Viagra.
When your masterpiece is completed and you are ready to send your e-mail, you can choose to schedule it for a future time, a handy tool for those who like to send out a reminder e-mail the day before a big show.
Once you hit “send,” Constant Contact works its magic. You and your contacts receive the final version of your fancy e-mail. You can read a report on the stats of your blast: how many e-mails recipients opened, how many bounced, how many links were clicked. Your subscribers can unsubscribe at the click of a link, and you don’t have to worry about deleting their e-mail addresses by hand. (Constant Contact sends you a subscriber update later that lists who unsubscribed, so you can still have your feelings hurt.)
Constant Contact will also help you make a sign-up page for your website, so it can add people who want to subscribe.
Of course this is just a brief overview of how the service works. I haven’t touched on many other aspects—creating groups, sending to certain geographic locations and not others, making surveys, offering text-only e-mails—but this should give you the general idea.
Constant Contact monthly prices start at $15 (less if you pay for many months upfront) for 0-500 contacts. That’s not cheap—you probably pay much less for your website and domain name, and other online promotional tools for singers (blogs, Facebook, MySpace) are free. But the service is extremely useful, and for now it seems to be the best option on the market for those of us trying to run a smooth mail blast operation. I am using it for now and really enjoying it. My subscribers keep raving about how fabulous my e-mails look, but I expect something better to come along sooner than later. With any luck it will be free!
