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Newsletter signup popups are a contentious subject. Nobody seems to like them, yet everyone seems to use them. Marketing "experts" constantly recommend them. If you're reading this post, you likely think that I occasionally have a few good ideas when it comes to art marketing, so I'm going to share with you my thoughts around popups. Personally, I think they are a bad idea.  This post explains why I feel that way. Should you disagree with my thinking then, by all means, feel free to add a popup to your email marketing strategy. First Impressions Matter Imagine this:  You walk into a high end art [...]

  Peter Thiel, Paypal founder, in his book, Zero to One, pointed out that the greatest companies are those that create an entirely new category of product that is so good that they end up with a natural monopoly.He argues that "creative monopolists" give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world. (As opposed to "bad" non-creative monopolists that simply exploit a favored position to prevent new entrants into the market - such as AT&T did for much of the 20th century).The quintessential example of a "creative monopolist" is Google. Google created a search engine that was [...]

"Your biggest risk with collectors is not that they'll stop liking your work, it's that they will stop thinking about you." - Jason Horejs, Xanadu Gallery.   Art bloggers often advise artists on the "right" frequency for sending an email newsletter.  This advice generally warns artists not to send too many emails, you don't want to "overwhelm" your subscribers, after all.  That's good advice.  Here's the rub, though:  the recommended frequency is all over the map.  I've read recommendations ranging from once a month, to once a week, to no more than 2 times a week.  Where are people getting these numbers?  They seem [...]

This is a letter that I sent our team on the importance of building trust with customers. Last week I logged into my Stripe account for the first time in years.  (I was planning to investigate how we can start integrating Stripe into FASO). Upon logging in, I received a message stating that my account needed to be verified by phone and asked me to setup a time to talk to Stripe support. Since I was very busy with many projects and meetings, I carefully picked a day and time that I knew would work for me and submitted the form. I was informed that [...]

  We've focused a lot over the past few articles on how to encourage people to subscribe to your email newsletter. But what happens when people want to unsubscribe? All email lists to decay over time. By "decay", I mean that email addresses that were once active, engaged subscribers become inactive and those addresses are no longer addresses you can send your newsletters to. That is why it is important to have a plan for continually adding new subscribers. Don't try and fight that natural list decay. Instead, accept that it is a natural part of marketing via email and plan accordingly. List decay happens [...]

I recently spoke with a man who is an art collector, an art lover and has been a director of several major art galleries over the past few decades. We'll call him "Jim." He told me a story about how much he enjoys the Boldbrush Contest and how he loves discovering great new artists who enter the contest. Recently, he was delighted to discover a new artist whose work caught his eye. So he "liked" her work on our contest page. That's something that happens millions of times a day somewhere on the internet - somebody "likes" something on social media. What usually happens next? [...]

When wanting to grow your email list, it's natural to turn to social media as a way to encourage people to subscribe.  Here's how to do that in a way that works. Most artists, when they start this process, simply post something to their social media accounts that lets their followers know that they have a newsletter and why they should sign up. That is what nearly everyone does and it works for almost nobody. While simply posting might get you a subscriber or two, most of your posts will be lost in the noise.  As soon as the next funny cat video [...]

  25 Rules that Great Email Marketers Follow   1.   DO Write each email with one goal and one call to action2.   DO Optimize each email for reading on mobile3.   DO Preview every email4.   DON'T send more than one newsletter  a day5.   DON'T  use too many images - 1 or 2 is best6.   DON'T  send giant walls of text7.   DON'T send from your personal email account - use an Email Service Provider such as ArtfulMail, ConvertKit or Mailchimp8.   DON'T hard sell in every email - ask for small micro-commitments in most emails, only occasionally ask for a big sale9.   DO Clean non-engaged subscribers off [...]

  "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." - Terry Pratchett"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 KleonWe've covered a lot of important topics about email marketing, from how to start your list, to how to grow your list, to technical issues about how you should structure your emails.  Now we come to the most important part - the actual process of writing and sending your newsletter. Decide Upon the Topic or Story First, decide what story you want to tell [...]