There are few formal business rules in the music industry, however, sounding like a pro will inherently get you taken more seriously. Multiple times a week I get emails basically beg me to not respond to them. This is not to say “I’m important & you’re not” - often, it’s emails that are incredibly tedious and hard to follow. Unfortunately, these tend to sit in my inbox until I have a very slow day (which isn’t too often). I do my best to respond to every single email, but most people in the industry do not. I’m here to help you get that email read and responded to!
Here’s a quick guide to writing a pro email that is more likely to get a response:
Keep it short.
Get to the point.
Limit to one or two questions.
If you’re cold emailing, give a very short background on who you are and why I need to be reading your email.
Make a relevant subject line. No “Help!” or “Please read.”
Know your audience. Agents or venue bookers want facts and few sentences whereas a potential publicist may be willing to look at your story immediately.
Include 3-4 important links (example: website, social page, nice piece of press)
Keep it grammatically correct
Do not send attachments. I don’t care - everything can be linked these days. Need to send a photo? Tips here.
Have an even tone & leave out superfluous formatting, capitalization, and punctuation. You really don’t need an exclamation point at the end of every sentence.
Finally - get the receiver’s name right! (The amount of emails I get to “Mr. Ron” or “Clark” is borderline maddening)
If you’re not getting responses, chances are it’s too long, it doesn’t get to a point, it sounds like you just woke up yesterday and decided you wanted to have a career in music, OR you give me zero details on how to find out more about your band. Saying “check us out” without giving a link is unacceptable. Yes, we all know google exists, but acknowledge that my time is a precious as yours is and toss in a link for me to follow easily.
Here’s a great example of a cold email:
Of course, once you have a working relationship with someone, these rules tend to get thrown out the window - and that’s totally cool as long as you’re on the same page. My email style absolutely changes depending on who I’m emailing with.
REASON TO IGNORE THIS ADVICE: Ur 2 cool for rulz.