7. Mastering the Cold Email w/Justina Shandler

In this episode, we talk about how to write an email to a person that you don’t know, that quite frankly, you need something from. 

Whether that something be a connection or a foot in the door, cold email is HARD. Justina talks about some of her email hacks that have landed her some deals.

A songwriter for media/sync, and teacher at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and School for Music Vocations, Justina Shandler loves leftovers, otters, spontaneous dance parties, and the enneagram. 

Justina’s latest release, "Either Way" can be heard on the Hulu series, Good Trouble.

Transcript

I've also done things before that are like new song plus. Eggplant recipe where I'm just like, Hey, here's this eggplant recipe that I tried. Also, like, you know, here's my song.

So.

Hey, music Executive Cinnamon Denise here. The tune that you're listening to is called Taking Back My Love by Just Shandler. And Justina is our guest today. Justina, what did you have for breakfast? Oh gosh. What a good question. So I had, it's like a combination of a brownie and a cheesecake together. What?

It's a brownie cheesecake situation, and I couldn't be happier about it. My roommate made some for work to take into the office and she messed them up. So now we get to eat them all, and that was. My dessert breakfast. Very nice, very nice. Well, Justina, thank you for being on the show. We're so happy to have you.

I'm stoked to be here. Thanks for having me. Yes, for sure. So y'all, Justina is an amazing songwriter and amazing singer as well. She may not toot her horn on that, but she's a great singer and Justina is gonna talk to us today a little bit about placements and even a little bit about the. Art of the email.

Um, when it comes to, gosh, that, that word networking, I, I need to think of a better word. It's yucky. So, Justina, talk to us a little bit about your placement story. Sure. Okay. So it started in August of 2019 that I signed up for this music licensing course with Kathy Heller. So that course was just like telling you the do's and don'ts of sync, like.

They want you to write overly happy songs. Songs that are like the best day ever. They advise you to not do duets or not do like songs that are about romance. And this is all sort of gearing you towards writing music for ads and placements that like have this very in your face. Overly lush arrangement, like super happy.

I've never had a better day type of song. I just think it's really funny because my first placement was everything that they told me not to do. They told you not to do, do not to do a duet, and I did a duet. They told me not to have like a sparse arrangement and the arrangement super sparse. And so I just love that because I feel like it's, it's breaking the rules and a lot of people break in.

By doing what you know, by doing what they say not to do. So, although I learned a lot from the course, yeah, I learned to just like sort of write from the heart. The song I wrote was something I wrote and then like a very emotional time. And then this lady, Tamara Bubble, she has her own agency and she posted this brief on her Facebook page that was like looking for sparse emotional songs.

I was like, okay, I have a song that's far and emotional. Um, but the problem was the song wasn't finished yet. So I messaged the producer and I was like, Hey, this brief is due in two hours. Is there any way we can finish the song? And he was like, um, okay, let me finish it. Okay. And it was like the most frantic two hours of all time trying to finish the song, trying to submit it, and we got it in on time.

And you know, the rest is history. We ended up getting the placement. What's the name of the song? It's called Either Way. Either way and tell us what it's about. It's about sort of letting go of a lover, but like wanting them to know that they have everything they need and pushing them well. Gotcha. That's, that's nice.

I have actually need to listen to it again. 'cause I didn't catch, I didn't get that from that song when I listen to. Okay. Yeah, you get different things when you listen to songs. Right? For sure. Um, from your perspective, that's what it's about. But for me it was about something totally different. I love it.

I love that. Yes. Um, the other thing I do wanna talk about is the art of the email, right? So there's so many different approaches people take when they're cold emailing, for lack of a better term, and you don't know the person that you're emailing. You kind of found their address in a sort of snarky way and Yes.

Yes. And you just kind of guess like, I think their email is their name@thecompanyname.com, you know, and you're guest. Yes. I've done that so many times. It's so like, sneaky. Sneaky. Exactly. So talk to us about, you know, some of the steps that you've taken and things that you've found have worked when it comes to reaching out to individuals that you don't know.

Great. I love the question. I, I've done some thinking about this and I think I've whittled it down to four things, and they all start with the C because I want, you know, consistency. So it's click bait, concise. CTA call to action and connection. So the first thing, clickbait that is referring to the subject line of the email, the subject line is like, your, I feel like is your most important piece of real estate in your entire email, because that's the thing that they're gonna see in their inbox.

So I've gotten a lot of success just writing something that I think is gonna make them click it, something that might shock them or. My most successful subject line was r and b song with sex harmonies. Mm-hmm. I would click that. Who wouldn't click that? And every single person I sent that email to, every music supervisor opened it.

Not all of them, you know, listened to the song, but all of them said something like, oh, interesting. Subject line, or Nice ha ha. You know, sort of breaking the ice a little bit. I've also done things before that are like, new song plus. Eggplant recipe, you know, some where I'm just like, Hey, here's this eggplant recipe that I tried.

Also, like, you know, here's my song. Just a way for them to feel like they're being treated like a human I think is really important too. Yeah. So I would, I would put some thought into like, how do you make your subject blind shine? The second thing, concise, keep your email short. Are busy. I assume whoever you're emailing is gonna be busy and so you want your introduction to be short, a couple sentences, you want your ask whatever you want from them to be short as well.

I would say like as a rule of thumb, if it takes you longer than a minute to read, it's probably too long. 'cause you know, nobody has time for that. I don't wanna read an email that takes me longer than a minute to read. Yeah. And that brings me to the third one, which is CTA call to action. You wanna ask them a question at the end of the email that is specific and easy for them to answer.

For example, so your call to action can show that you've done research. You, you can say like, I see that you're working on this new project and I see that this project includes, you know, eighties alt rock music. Is this song, does this song fit the vibe that you're going for? So you sh you show that you know what they need.

You're not just saying, here's a song, it's in any genre. I have no idea what you're looking for. Your call to action says, I've done my research on you. I know what you're looking for, and I think that this fits y yay or nay. You know? And if you feel like you wanna connect with this person, but you don't have something that is what they're looking for.

You know, anything to have to make a connection like, Hey, I just moved to LA and I see you live in la. What's your favorite pizza restaurant? They can answer that. And so I feel like that will make them feel excited that it will take them 30 seconds to answer you. It's not gonna require a lot of them. And they can choose to ignore you, of course, but they can also choose to be like, go here for pizza.

And there you have a connection. Which brings me to my last thing, which is connection. I would say like ask yourself how, how do you feel most connected to people? For me, I feel most connected when it's like a visual component. Like I'm looking at you now and I feel connected, so that makes me feel connected.

So I decided to make, um, a 32nd video of me, like a selfie video, introducing myself and saying, Hey, I'm Justina. This is who I am. Like I have blue hair. I like playing word games, you know, like, nice to meet you. Something like that. That worked really well. A lot of people said, oh, interesting. No one's ever sent like a YouTube video of themselves.

Before, like, cool, it's nice to see you. And I would say like, that might not be your thing too. If you are not a person who connects well visually, maybe it's, you know, maybe the written word is more effective for you. So the connection piece is like, I'm not saying you should do a video. I'm saying you should do how whatever makes you feel most connected.

Because if you're not doing something that's genuine to who you are, then that I think will also come across. You're trying to be fake or it's not real. Right. I just had a random thought in my head where I was like, oh, well if you're not good on video, you could always send a gif or a meme or something.

Really? Yes. Who wouldn't wanna open an email with a gif in it like that. Sounds great. I want that email. There you go. So what has been one of the best responses that you've gotten? Even if it was still technically a no, what has been a cool response that you've gotten? Yeah. I had one person who was like.

Cool video. Loved your hair. Send your music my way. That's, I could hope for another person who was like, oh, what's a mushroom latte? Because in my email was like, Hey, I'm just drinking a mushroom latte. Like here's a song. And so that opens the door for connection and lets me talk about something that I love that makes me come alive and.

That's, that's what we want. We wanna come alive in our emails.

Right. I don't know if, if you, if y'all can tell, listening to Justina, but she's really a pleasant person to speak to, so, um, we haven't hung out in quite, we haven't hung out in quite some time, but I, I enjoy, I know right. The University of Miami, but it's, it's been. It's been great connecting with you Justina.

Justina Streams regularly on Twitch with her original music, and I'm assuming some covers as well, but here and there. She's really an original songwriter. That's really her, her thing. But Justina, is there anything else you want the audience to know about you? You know, I think. I think I'll leave it at that.

I feel complete. Thank you so much. Good. Well Justina, thank you so much for being on the show and music executives will see you or hear you or watch you or talk to you in the next episode. Y'all take care. Don't forget to leave a rating of the show. Helps to make us better. Thanks so much y'all. Take care.