I have no idea how conscious it is, or if he has someone framing his voice in  way that is conducive to sales but comedian Louie C.K. is doing some incredible stuff with email marketing and direct to fan distribution. I posted an email of his some time ago, and thought I'd post another one that I got today. It's really a good illustration of how an artist can communicate to his fans in a way that makes them really want to read it. This particular email isn't a sales email. He's just basically promoting an HBO show and letting you know about the chance you will have to buy a new special of his in a few months from his site, but his tone is great, entertaining, reinforces his brand, and creates desire. Many musicians I have worked with get really stuck on this part of the process. They don't seem to know how to weave their own voice into a promotional message. I thought this was worth reading as an example.

Incidentally, if you haven't been following it, Louie CK has been doing some really innovate stuff where he is bypassing traditional distributors and selling things to his fans using direct response marketing. Not only his own stuff, but other comedians stuff as well. If nothing else, he's hilarious

Anyway, here's the email...

Hello. This is Louis C.K. I'm writing for two reasons. Maybe three, but two that I can think of right now. If more come up, I'll return to this sentence and up the number. Ugh. Okay.

Reason one. I want to thank everyone who came out to see me on the road this year. I have never traveled so much and done so many shows. The tour covered over 100 shows in 39 cities. 300 thousand people came to see me. I can't think of one city where I didn't have a great time. That doesn't mean there wasn't one. I just can't think of it right now. Anyway there really wasn't one. (I'm so tempted to say "except Tampa" or something, just to be a dick. But the truth is I really enjoyed every show I did in every city I visited. This part is now too long to be in parentesies. I can't spell that word.) I went to a lot of places I had never been to before. Tulsa Oklahoma. Athens Georgia. Actually I think that's all. I had been to just about every other place.
Everywhere I went, the audiences were generous and energetic and just lovely and other puffy positive happy adjectives like that. And even though I keep undercutting my appreciation with sarcasm at the end of each sentence I truly honestly appreciate how many of you came to the shows and for your help in honing the material for my next special, which I'll get to in just a second.
I would also like to say thank you for participating in the experiment of buying the tickets directly from my site. We found that, while the average national tour can expect about 25 percent of it's tickets to be sold on secondary markets, the final count for this tour was less than a 1% scalping rate. So over 99 percent of those who came to the shows were able to pay the basic 45 dollars for their ticket. So yay about that. I felt like I saw more regular actual people in the front row, rather than Cohiba smoking loafers with no socks dudes who buy their tickets on stubhub and brag about how much they had to pay. Not to disparage anyone who smokes Cohibas and fits that description. But yeah, I'd rather see a tired looking couple who got a sitter and took the bus into town and they have a great time but then at the end of the show they are leaning on each other and sleeping. But they had row one tickets and they didn't have to pay some douche a bunch of money.
Okay so that's about tour.

Toward the end of the tour I recorded 4 shows at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix Arizona, which became my next standup special "Louis CK: Oh My God"  I picked the Celebrity theater because George Carlin shot one in that same place, which hasn't changed a bit since he did his in 1977. I got very intrigued by the idea of shooting a special "in the round".
Anyway, that special premieres tonight on HBO at 10pm.

"Louis CK Oh My GOd" will also be available on my website, louisck.com in September, globally, for the same 5 bucks you pay for all my shit that is there.

Okay so please watch the special and enjoy it.

Lastly I'd like to apologize for all of you who have been confronted with my stupid fucking face as you go down into the subway, watch a bus drive by, or drive through time square, or buy Roling Stone Magazine, or the magazine two magazines down from Rolling Stone. Or the one next to that.

I'd like to write more or, better yet, go back and edit this, but I have noodles and a chicken just finishing and my kids need to eat in front of project runway. Then I'm going to Radio City to see Donaire beat the shit out of that guy who's name begins with R., right after my special airs.

Thanks again for everything.

regards,

Louis CK