The Importance of Email Marketing for Artists

GROW YOUR LIST, INCREASE YOUR SALES

Email Marketing is my favorite tool to market artwork to potential clients. We love the beauty and ease of Instagram, but email still holds first place as the best marketing tool for artists and small businesses overall. The key is to learn what to send, when to send it, and to start growing that list now! Below you will find my top reasons why I love email marketing even more than Instagram!

IT'S A HOT LEAD

The main reason I love email over all other types of marketing is that it is the hottest lead. What does this mean? Anyone can follow you on Instagram. They might enjoy your aesthetic or enjoy your time-lapse videos, but for someone to subscribe to your email list, they have either already purchased work from you or have the intention to learn more or buy in the future. Think about it, every email list you are subscribed to you either bought from them or intend to in the future…can you say that about every Instagram account that you follow?

INCREDIBLE CONVERSION RATES

Email has the best conversion rates of any platform. According to a recent study, businesses can expect to gain $44 for every $1 spent on email marketing! That is incredible! Everyone with a social media account most likely has an email address, so use your social account to connect with your fans and ultimately drive them to join your email list.

NO EVER-CHANGING ALGORITHM

Who else gets frustrated with the Instagram algorithm? Instagram is always changing, but you are in charge of building your email account. You decide what to do with it.

Instagram can change at any time. You can get blocked, not receive many views, or lose followers. Email is not going anywhere and you control the narrative and who reads it.

EASY TO GROW

Your email list can be easy to grow. (I will write a lengthier blog post on tips to actually grow your subscriber list in a few weeks.) Some quick tips include having anyone that buys from you automatically added to your list, ask for emails on Instagram stories, and offer discounts to people who sign up!

People that love your art will want to join to learn more! The most important tip is to start now!

EASY TO USE

Many email providers have templates set up that you can save with your logos, fonts and colors. Each time you want to send a newsletter you can just drag and drop images and text to create seamlessly beautiful newsletters.

Automating emails is also a great tool to save time and increase passive income. For example, anyone who subscribes to our list through our website automatically is sent a 10% discount code. This incentivizes people to subscribe and happens without me having to do any work!

You can create automations for anything. You can send a thank you when someone buys a piece or a gift card if they buy more than one painting. The options are endless and it all can be set up to happen automatically.

SEGMENTATION

You can create separate lists to reach different groups of people at different times and often the email provider will do this for you. For example, I have a list of people who have purchased more than 2 times from me. I can send them a 10% discount code as a thank you for being a repeat customer. This encourages them to come back and is a nice gesture.