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Summary
In the world of marketing it’s a recognized fact that repetition of your message is crucial to achieving good results. Email marketing is a powerful and inexpensive method to realize the power of repetition to promote your website (and therefore your art) to buyers and galleries. Juggling hundreds or thousands of email addresses in a regular email system is not fun however and will literally consume all your valuable time. The solution is to use an Email Management System to automate the repetitive tasks of sending email. Read on for details…..
Authors
Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent provide creative services for artists including web design, artist weblogs and marketing materials at Beautiful Artist Websites. Visit us at http://www.beautifulartistwebsites.com
Why Email Management?
Email is an attractive art marketing tool because it is inexpensive and allows you to promote yourself to a large volume of potential patrons. Used in conjunction with a well-showcased website and lower-volume snail mail, email marketing can bring great results. There are down sides too however:
• It can be difficult to entice a reader to open your email.
• Managing a large volume of emails each month can be very challenging and time consuming.
• In order to benefit from the power of repetition as a marketing tool you need to keep track of
all your emails and exactly when they were sent.
An email management system can solve many of these problems by:
• Allowing visitors to sign up on your website to receive emails from you.
• Allowing you to send personalized messages to hundreds or thousands of email addresses with
the same effort required to send a single email.
• Automatically sending emails on a regular basis to remind buyers of upcoming events and
special offers, • thus bringing the power of repetition to bear in your marketing.
• Facilitating the use of visually compelling email templates which capture the essence of your
work. Your emails can be a joy to read!
How It Works
Adding Email Addresses
At the heart of an email management/marketing system is a database which maintains a record of all customers, email addresses, and preferences as setup by you. Clients or potential clients can be added manually by you, or by providing a sign-up link on your website (normally both are used).
When a user signs up to join your email list, they will fill in a form with requested and compulsory information which is then added to the database.
Sending Emails
In order to send an email to all the people in your mailing list, the following steps are followed:
1. Login to the Email System (Username and Password)
2. Create the email content
3. Choose a template style for your email
4. Select the email list you want to send to (you may have more than one list for different types
of clients e.g. current customers, potential buyers, Galleries, etc.
5. Schedule when you would like the email to send.
6. Logout and go painting!
Emails can be easily setup to personalize the content that each person receives. For example, by using a “first name” variable in your emails, the system can be setup to start each email with “Dear First Name” and each person will receive the appropriate result based on what the database has stored as their first name (Dear Jon, Dear Mary, etc).
Each email should also include an “unsubscribe” link. If a client should not want to receive more emails they can simply click this link and the system will remove them from the database and no further emails will be sent.
Sending Auto-Responders
Auto-Responders are pre-written emails which are automatically sent when a specified event occurs. For example, you could have an autoresponder setup to send a thank you message to a visitor when they join your email list. You might also have a series of auto responders so that a new client receives a series of messages about your art over a period of days, weeks, or months.
Repetition Rules!
In our current age, we are accustomed to receiving all our information in short sound bites. Very few people have time or attention span to sit and read your email essay, even though the content may be superb. However, the same information split into smaller doses delivered frequently may very possibly bring results.
Marketing research shows that it typically takes between 9 and 27 impressions of an advertisement before there are significant results. The same goes for your emails. This is why an email management system is so important to any serious art marketing program.
Important Note
In sending email, especially to large numbers of addresses it is very important to make sure that you are complying with current local, state, and federal SPAM legislation. If you send only to people who have opted in (signed up) for your list and who requested information and updates from you this will likely not be an issue.
Conclusion
An Email Management System will add great value to your art marketing program. Take the time to learn how to use the system efficiently and you will be amazed how much marketing it will do for you and with minimal effort from you. It really is a modern art marketing marvel!
If you have queestions about Email Management Solutions, please contact us at:
info@beautifulartistwebsites.com
© Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent 2005. Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent are the founders of Beautiful Websites for Artists (www.beautifulartistwebsites.com.) We design beautiful cost-effective artist websites that showcase and sell your work to arts professionals. Visit our articles page for effective art marketing tips and sign up for our free report: 6 Steps to Easy Online Art Sales.