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"Words matter. Artists love to trot out the tired line, 'My work speaks for itself,' but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself"  - Austin Kleon The Power of Context In the book The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, one of Gladwell's observations is that humans act very differently toward the same inputs in different situations.  In other words, context matters.   Here's a dramatic example of how context matters:  A few years ago an experiment was staged with world-class violinist, Joshua Bell, who, fresh from a performance at the Library of Congress with the Boston Symphony, panhandled for free during the morning rush at a Washington [...]

In our last article about email marketing, we looked at what type of content you should send.  In this post, let's look more specifically at the right way to structure your email newsletters: Use your real name as the from address.The "from" address is the most important field in an email newsletter and it determines, more than anything else, if your email will be opened and read.  People open emails from people they know or follow.  They often ignore emails from "brands."  So use your name in the from address, not the name of a newsletter, brand or studio.  If you sign [...]

  In any company communication overhead increases proportionally the square of the number of people on the team. In layman’s terms, this simply means that as your team gets bigger you spend more and more time coordinating activities, and while the team size grows linearly, the coordination costs grow exponentially. However,  in the strictest sense, these coordination costs don’t add any customer value.  In fact, if the coordination costs get bad enough, they can actually subtract customer value.  This is a major reason why small teams often outperform large teams and why huge companies reach a point where they seem oblivious to the customer.  [...]

  When it comes to email newsletter marketing, many artists seem at a loss for what to actually send.   Most artists, however, have far more than most businesses to send.  Let's face it, a new beautiful piece of art is far more inspiring to see in your inbox than an announcement of the latest changes in terms and conditions of your credit card.   With that in mind, here are some content ideas to get you started.   Your Latest ArtworksSend images of your latest artworks - and the story behind those works.  What inspired you?  Why did you create it?  When sending announcements about your latest artwork, [...]

Every email sender has a sender reputation calculated by the big mailbox providers.  If you send email newsletters, this will include you.  Yes, this means Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Apple and many others will assign a specific reputation to you, your domain, and your emails. Your sender reputation is based upon how engaged your subscribers are with your emails.  The more engaged your subscribers,  the better.  The higher your open rate is, the better your chances of landing in your subscribers’ primary email tabs and not in their junk or promotions folders.  Conversely, the more unsubscribes, un-opens, and email bounces you get from your recipients, [...]

  We espouse email marketing as a primary way for artists to build their audience.   We typically hear two big questions about email marketing: 1. How do I start my email list and 2. How do I grow my email list?   We covered how to start your email list last week.  If you haven't started yet, we recommend you start with that article.   In this article we'll discuss some ways you can grow your email list.     Grow your list through people you already know   First of all, who should be on your list?   Here is a list of people who you should invite to join your email list:     Past [...]

  "How do I start a newsletter when I don't have any subscribers?  How do I get people to join my list?"   When we've talked about email newsletter marketing in the past, questions like these are by far the most frequently asked.   Today, we're going to tell you how to get started.  This is a very actionable idea and something you can do, to further your art business, during this unusual Covid19 lock-down time.  Remember, everybody has to start somewhere. You have to start with the connections you currently have and with things you can control.  A list and a brand are built, one [...]

Here in San Antonio, my favorite restaurant is Pam's Patio Kitchen.    The food is unique and amazing.  Plus, David, the owner, has great taste in wine and has a knack for finding wines that you don't see anywhere else.   Over the years, the owners, Pam and David have become great friends of ours.  [1] Every so often, they host a "private" wine dinner on an evening when the restaurant isn't normally open.  Often, they invite a winemaker, and they pair the winmaker's wines with various courses of dishes that David dreams up.  It's great food, great fun, and we learn (and purchase) [...]