Email is one of the few marketing channels that you completely own. Your email subscriber list belongs to you. It allows you to communicate directly with your audience. This connection and control makes email different from organic search or social media marketing.
In both those channels, a third party (search engine or social media platforms) possesses tremendous control over your content distribution. A change to the algorithm could upend your marketing efforts.
In a world of change, email marketing offers certainty and control, which is one of the reasons why it's such a popular marketing tool for artists.
Leverage it correctly, and email marketing can help you build your art business, building connections, fostering relationships, and ultimately, selling more art. Whether you’re a digital artist trying to grow printable downloads on Etsy or a fine artist looking to network your way to Art Basel, this guide gives you everything you need to know about creating, growing, and maintaining a successful art marketing email program.
Short answer: control, customization, and effectiveness. Email marketing can help connect with fans and art collectors alike, build demand for your work, create a sense of urgency and hype, and ultimately build a successful art business.
Email marketing is a crucial tool that can help you:
Keep in touch with past clients
Cultivate relationships with potential buyers
Stay connected to fans who like your work but may not be able to afford it (never underestimate the power of word of mouth)
Promote art shows and art sales so that your business will perform better (which in turn, will lead to more opportunities)
Your email strategy is your why. Email without strategy isn’t marketing. It’s just a whisper and a prayer. To launch a successful email program, you must begin by clearly defining what you’re trying to achieve, the tactics you’ll use, and how you’ll measure success.
Here are some questions and tips to help you set your email strategy:
Who are you trying to reach–potential buyers, existing customers, art galleries, fans? Define your target audience. Who you’re trying to reach will inform everything you do—from the email templates/design you use to the content of your emails to how often and when you send them.
What do you want your audience to do after they receive your emails? Buy art from your website, a marketplace, or a gallery? Come to a show? Commission work, or something else?
If you read this list in a panic, thinking, “But I want to send emails to all those people for all of those reasons,” worry not. That’s why segmentation exists. And we’re going to cover that.
The second key element of a winning email marketing strategy is to set measurable goals. Pick something quantifiable and achievable. Email goals might look like:
Increase email list subscribers by 20% in the first 6 months
Sell X pieces of art in the first 6 months
Increase email open rate by 15% every quarter
The goals you set will depend whether or not you have an established presence in other marketing channels (like social media). If you have an existing audience that is eager to engage with your content, your goals will look different than those of an artist who is building an email marketing list from scratch.
If you’re just starting out, be kind to yourself by setting small, achievable goals. The most important thing you can do is be consistent. Stick with it, and your email list, click-through rate, and conversions will grow over time.
Choosing the right email marketing software provider will lay a solid foundation and help you get the most out of your marketing efforts. Look for a tool that offers:
A Beginner-friendly setup
Landing page builders
List segmentation
Automation workflows
Autoresponders
Drip campaigns
Templates for email newsletters
Twilio SendGrid provides a full suite of email design and deliverability tools, making it an especially powerful tool for artists with large, established email lists.
Building an email list from scratch is hard and worthwhile. Collect emails when participating in art shows, craft fairs, and galleries. If you’re selling your work on Etsy or other online marketplaces, those customers can potentially become part of your email subscriber list, but you will need to use an opt-in too to get them to sign up.
The most effective way to grow your email list is to make a compelling offer. Give your audience a reason to sign up. Make it clear what’s in it for them with a lead magnet. For artists, you might consider:
Providing email subscribers with early access to your latest art
Raffling off a piece of art for new email subscribers (this can be a great opportunity to cross-promote with a fellow artist)
Discounts or free shipping
Exclusive content
Some other brilliant perk that you thought of while reading this list
One big no-no. Never buy or rent an email list. We know. It’s so appealing. If you only had a way to jump-start your email program… But here’s the thing: buying (or renting) an email list will likely come back to bite you in the behind with poor engagement, damaged sender reputation, risks of deny lists, or even email service provider (ESP) shutdown. Start small, and build your list over time. It’s worth it.
Want the full run-down? Check out our guide to building your email list the right way.
Segmenting your email list helps ensure you contact the right people at the right time. Instead of taking a one-message-fits-all approach with newsletters, email promotions, announcements, and special offers, you can create a personalized, one-to-one experience.
The basic approach to email segmentation is to divide your email list by demographics, customer insights, the types of emails you’ll send (transactional, promotional), engagement level, and purchase activity.
If you’re taking your first steps into email marketing, you’ll likely find it most helpful to work from an existing template and customize it. That way, you can rely on the user expertise of template designers while also delivering something that feels personal and true to you, your brand, and your work.
Write subject lines that will stop them in their tracks. People have shorter consideration spans than ever. Grab your audience’s attention with compelling subject lines and intriguing preview text.
You can really flex your creative muscles in your email body copy. Just be sure you prioritize clarity—both in the message you want to share with an email recipient and the action you want a recipient to take.
The next step is to create an email calendar that outlines the email schedule for drip and nurture campaigns. We recommend integrating your email calendar with your existing marketing calendar so that you know how your email plans intersect with other marketing efforts. Once you’ve planned your calendar, you will also want to automate and schedule whenever possible.
You’ve invested a lot of time and effort into your email list. Set aside some time to ensure it stays squeaky clean. Regular email list cleaning, also called scrubbing, can help improve your sender reputation, boost your engagement rates, reduce your chances of landing in the spam folder, and lower your email costs.
Once you think you’re done, it’s time to double, triple, and quadruple-check. Choose a small group of friends or colleagues to be your test audience and send all emails to them prior to your full send. This will help you catch typos and broken links. Listen, it happens to all of us eventually, but you want to avoid it whenever possible.
Track email metrics like your deliverability rate, inbox placement rate, open rate, and click-through rate. Do more of what works. Tinker with what didn’t. Truly successful email marketing programs are the ones that are forever changing as the marketing team learns more.
Ready to put these email marketing tips to use? Start using Twilio SendGrid email marketing campaigns, and you can develop efficient, effective email marketing and get back to making art. Start your free account today to start sending in just minutes.
