Welcome [back] to another week of your weekly dose 🎶

Every Tuesday, I’ll be sharing tips, updates, and must-know music marketing insights to help you get your music heard!

By Finch Bergling

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This week's newsletter is sponsored by... me 😀

I would like to introduce you to "More Than Streams 🧩" - the weekly music marketing podcast that will teach you how to get, you guessed it, more than streams.

Listen to the most relevant music marketing tips, case studies, interviews, and everything you need to grow your music career.

LISTEN TO MORE THAN STREAMS 🧩

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Your Weekly Tip

If you sent an email to your list right now, how many people do you think would see it?

Most musicians would say something like "everyone who's subscribed." And that's kind of the problem.

The answer is probably a lot fewer than you think, and it has nothing to do with your list size.

When someone on your list receives your email, Gmail sorts it before they ever see it. It goes into Primary, into Promotions, or into Spam.
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Primary is usually where people open things [my newsletter usually goes there, right?]

Promotions is like a 50-50. And Spam is where emails go and nobody ever sees them.

Most musician emails end up in Promotions, and most musicians have no idea, because your open rate doesn't tell you which tab your email went to.

It just shows you that a lot of people didn't open it.

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I feel like email is the most underrated tool a musician has right now.

Your list is the one thing in your career that nobody can take away from you.

Instagram can change the algorithm. TikTok can disappear.

But your email list is yours.

I've sent 72 newsletters over the past year and a half, and the ones that reach people's Primary inbox get opened at rates that social media posts won't come close to.

A list where half your emails end up in Promotions is worth half as much as it should be.

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So what pushes a musician's email into Promotions?

Gmail has a classifier that reads your email before your subscriber does. It looks for patterns that say "this is marketing" and routes the email based on what it finds.

The important thing to understand is that signals stack. One link is fine. One image is fine. One "available now" is fine. When you combine all three in the same email, the combination is what triggers the classifier.
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Here is what musicians run into most:

→ Sending your show announcement as an image-heavy email is one of the fastest ways to end up in Promotions. A show flyer, an album cover, and a ticket button stacked together in one email reads as a marketing send to Gmail.

→ Stacking multiple links adds up fast. A Spotify link, an Apple Music link, a ticket link, and a merch link in the same email is four links, and Gmail reads that combination as promotional.

→ Phrases like "available now," "get your tickets," "limited merch," and "last chance" each carry weight on their own, and putting several of them in the same email stacks the signal quickly.

→ Sending from a brand name instead of your own name makes a difference. "Finch" as the sender name reads differently to Gmail than "More Than Streams" or "FinchMusic Newsletter."

→ Using a designed template with your logo, multiple images, and styled buttons makes the email look like a marketing send. A plain, text-based email that reads like a personal message is the strongest deliverability move you can make.

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What about Spam?

Spam is worse than Promotions. In Promotions, people sometimes scroll past and notice your email. In Spam, they don't see it at all.

A common Spam trigger for musicians is the all-caps announcement subject line. "NEW MUSIC OUT NOW!!!" with caps and multiple exclamation marks looks like a scam to Gmail's filter.

The other big reason musicians end up in Spam is a list that hasn't been cleaned in a long time. If a lot of your subscribers haven't opened anything in several months, Gmail uses that to lower your sender reputation over time.

Clean your list regularly and remove people who haven't engaged in six months. A smaller, engaged list will always outperform a big, unresponsive one.

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The simplest version of all this:

Write your next email like you are sending it to one specific person on your list.

One link where possible. Keep the show flyer off the email body and link to the event page instead. Short paragraphs. Send from your own name.

I feel like a lot of musicians look at their open rates and think something is wrong with their writing. Most of the time, the writing is fine.

The email just went to the wrong folder.

Once you understand what Gmail is looking for, it becomes a lot easier to avoid, and you stop accidentally writing emails that look like announcements and start writing ones that look like private messages.

Your list is worth protecting, and protecting it starts with making sure your emails show up where people can see them! :)

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So, fo you know which tab most of your emails are ending up in right now?

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Your Weekly Reel Idea

Did you know that when you add music to a carousel on Instagram, it automatically turns it into a Reel?

Your carousel will show up in the Reels feed, giving you extra exposure for content that's as simple to create as a regular carousel post. This carousel idea is perfect for connecting with your audience and showing gratitude for how far you've come in your music journey.

📝 Want to watch this full content idea + hundreds more? Find this and hundreds of other proven content ideas inside my 'Content Vault'. Click here to unlock lifetime access to the full collection - never run out of content ideas again!

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Let's work together

• ​Submit your music to my Spotify Playlists.
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• Learn step-by-step promotion strategies with Your First Hit Song 2026.
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• ​Book a 1-1 consultation.
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• ​Build a playlist and grow your streams, email list and fanbase.

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Discounts & Links 🔗

• Get 10% off on SubmitHub​
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• Get ​7.5% off your first campaign on Playlist Push - use code finch
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• Get 40% off your first month on PlaylistSupply - use code finch40
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• Get 40% off your first month on Booking-Agent.io - use code finch40
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• Get 40% off your first month on RadioPromo.io - use code finch40​
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• Get 7% off on DistroKid​

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That’s it for this week! Hope today’s email gave you something useful to work with.

Until next week, Finch 🎶

P.S. Newsletters aren’t social media - I can’t see what you’re enjoying unless you tell me. Hit reply and let me know what you liked (or didn’t) - I’d love to hear from you! 😊

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