I know that learning all about how to set up and grow your Mailing List as an artist may very well not be in your top 100 ways to spend your time… But I’m here to show you why this should be the core focus when establishing yourself as a profitable professional artist or creative business.
Right now if you are doing any marketing yourself online, you have a LOT of competition.
So the first question is, how do you stand out?
One of the easiest ways to provide real value for people who find you and your work is to give them a reason to stay in touch with you. Not everyone is ‘ready to buy’ right now. Maybe they would come back later at some point more convenient to them?
But if you are not regularly staying in touch with them, chance are they’ve forgotten all about you…sad but true.
So how do you set up and grow your Mailing List?
The answer is you will need to give them something of value for free. Then communicate regularly in order to start building trust and on-going awareness about you and your products.
So, what exactly should you give them?
The fact is that people are skimming through websites at high speed, looking for something that catches their eye. So you only have a few seconds to stop them in their tracks and keep them on your site. Or on your Social Media Platform.
How can you capture people’s attention?
By having exactly what they want sitting right there dominating the website or page – Oh and letting them have it for free in exchange for their name and email address.
This is the first step to an on-going relationship.
Here Are The 3 Simple Steps To Setting Up Your Mailing List With A Free Giveaway:
1. Understanding Your Target Market, Their Challenges, Wants And Desires.
This is basic but so many businesses (and particularly artists and creatives) still seem to work on the principle of ‘anyone’ or ‘everyone’ can buy their product or service. Whilst I’m sure this is technically true, it’s going to be very difficult to market to ‘anyone’ or ‘everyone’ unless you have 24 hours in the day and an unlimited marketing budget.
Imagine you produce large high quality original bespoke abstract canvases that command a price of $20,000 upwards – is everyone going to be your possible customer? Or would this be someone who maybe collects abstracts, has a large disposable income, big walls, large house or office, and is happy to even commission the right piece?
For example, your Ideal Customer could be corporate couples, 25-45 years old, living in New York, in large loft apartments, working in a competitive career, who love the arts and collecting high-quality original art.
So go ahead and work out your Ideal Customer, and then you are one step closer to providing exactly what this market wants.
2. Creating Something That Provides The Best Solution.
Having worked out your ideal market and customer, it will be a lot easy to dig deeper into their challenges, wants, needs and desires. Don’t forget to get creative and ‘make it up’ if you are just starting out and don’t yet have any customer profiles to go on.
Next, go ahead and write out these on a piece of paper. Then come up with a list of ideas of simple solutions you could provide as a first step into your business. Then circle the one that stands out for you.
Examples: Going with our young New York couples who love their art:
- ‘The 5 Things You Must Know To Properly Look After Your Original Oil Paintings’.
- ‘How To Make The Most Of Your Wall Space When Choosing Artwork’.
- ‘The Top 10 Ways To Enhance Your Property With Sculpture Inside & Out’.
OK, so you get the idea. When you know your audience this becomes very easy to do.
Next, you have to put your content together. Think Beginning – Middle – End.
Have a compelling introduction, a bit about you and your story. The ‘How To’ content in the middle, which is easy if you have used the ‘3/7/5 Steps’ structure. Then a conclusion and of course a ‘Call To Action’, telling people what to do next, or how to get hold of you.
Of course if part of your art business is around teaching your subject matter, then this is even easier. You can teach something simple and offer them your workshops, courses or products afterwards.
3. Choosing The Right Platform To Deliver Your Free Giveaway.
Let’s talk delivery methods. Here are some simple solutions:
- Reports or E-Book (PDF)
- Chapter of a book (PDF)
- Audio file (MP3)
- Video series (MP4)
- Webinar (MP4)
- Quiz (online form)
So the most important part here is to think about what your ideal target market would consume the best. Do they like reading? Or perhaps they love watching videos and webinars; or perhaps they would actually like to be involved with something every day. Think this through before committing to your chosen platform.
The Report or E-Book is probably the easiest to get done, and in my experience can be completed in just a few hours. Because it’s just a case of typing, editing & formatting – the last two of which you can always outsource. Then save your file as a PDF and you’re done. And well on your way to growing your mailing list.
The audios, videos and webinar take longer, as you have to plan out the content, record and then edit. (After which you will need to upload to a hosting site which can sometimes take hours depending on your internet).
After which your final task is to link this all up with your Email Marketing provider and you are away.
There you have it, how to grow your Mailing List and how it all starts with putting together your Free Giveaway.
I’d love to know what YOU have created, so please send me a message on Social Media and a link to your website so I can see how you are growing a healthy Mailing List too.
Catch me on on my Instagram or Facebook – I look forward to hearing from you!
