email

Another great way to develop a sense of community and keep your fans up-to-date is through the use of email. This is one way you can stay in touch with fans even if you don't have a Web site. The most popular way to use email is to set up a mailing list. There are mailing lists for almost any subject you can imagine on the Internet, ranging from 10 to thousands of people subscribed. How you implement a mailing list depends upon how much time you have, how big the list is, and how much you want to spend.

Some methods of setting up a mailing list:

• Small List:
  Until your list of subscribers reaches several hundred, you may not need any special software other than your email program. My favorite free software for this is Eudora , which comes in both a free version and a commercial version with additional features. Even the free version allows you to set up "Nickname" lists, where you can assign a name to a group of email addresses. Most other stand-alone email programs and even those in Web browsers have this feature. You just put the name of your list in the TO: field and it will go to everyone on the list.
  In an effort to cut down on spam, many ISPs are cracking down on the number of addresses you can attach to one message. If this is the case, you may not be able to use these techniques.

  You can also put a fairly substantial number of addresses in the BCC: field. BCC: stands for "Blind Carbon Copy" and sends a copy of your message to every address you list. You must separate each email address with a comma. Use the BCC: field rather than the CC: (Carbon Copy) field. When you put your list in the CC: field, everyone on the list can see the address of everyone else on the list. This is an easy way for spammers and others to quickly grab all those addresses you have worked so hard to obtain.

• Large List:
  You will have to decide when your list reaches this point. When doing a list manually, you will have to manually "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" each person. This can easily begin to take up a lot of your time. You will also have to track down each address that bounces back (fails to reach the person). There are software packages called listservers that can do all this for you automatically.

  Listservers vary in features, but can usually subscribe and unsubscribe people automatically using special commands. Some can take a person off the list after a certain number of bounces. The downside is that they can be complex to set up and you generally have to have the help of your Internet provider.

  Some Internet providers will provide the use of listserver software to you for a monthly fee, plus a setup fee. If you have access to your own Web server and are computer savvy, you can probably set up the software yourself.

• Where To Find Listserver Software:
  The two biggest names in Listserver software are Listserv and Majordomo. However, a lot of new products have recently appeared on the market as well. Some will even work through a Web interface. You will need to research the options to see which one is best for you. Here are some places to start:

  Listserv
  Majordomo
  UnityMail
  Lyris
  Listbuilder

  There are also some places which allow you to set up free mailing lists with some restrictions. You may have to allow a small ad in your messages or keep the size of your group to a certain minimum. Yahoo Groups took over a service called OneList and is probably the best known of these.

  Yahoo Groups

• How To Get People To Sign Up:
  This is where a Web site comes in handy. You can set up a form where people can ask to be added to the list. Some software even lets a person enter their email address in a field on a Web page and they are automatically subscribed. Email is a great way to tell people when you update the site, as well as tour, album, and other band info.

  Let people know about your list through any means possible. If you have a regular fan mail list (postal mail), begin to collect email addresses along with the street address, etc. You can also mention your email list along with your Web address, in your albums, posters, promotional material, postcards, and merchandise. Newsgroups and signature files are some other ideas.