Did you know you can easily grow your email list just from social media posting?
What if I told you "Likes" on your posts, if you do a little more work than just scrolling by, were actually marketing leads that can grow your email list?
Here's how:
Our top strategies to market art involve an email list and personal outreach.
When we tell artists this, they often say, "How do I get people on my mailing list?"
One way to get people on your mailing list is to go through all your contacts, all the people you interact with in your email box, and people you know in real life. Most people know at least 150 people, so it rings hollow (to me) when someone says they don't have anyone to approach when they start email marketing.
But you can also grow your email list to people you don't necessarily know just by being more strategic with how you approach social media.
After you post one of your artworks on social media and someone "Likes" your art, what do you normally do?
My guess is that you feel good and you scroll by and never think about it again.
And you just missed out on a potential sales lead. If one person likes your art, you have one lead. If five people like your post, you have five leads. If one hundred people like your post, you have one hundred leads. Don't throw them away.
Instead, when someone "Likes" your art on social media - send them a direct message.
Just ask them if you can have their email address so you can keep them informed about your art (and only your art) in a way that's "more reliable than social media."
Most people will say yes, after all - they already "Liked" your artwork. Once they say yes, you now have permission to add them to a newsletter list. But be sure you don't use that list for anything other than updating people about your art.
If they aren't interested, most will ignore you. And even if someone says "no thanks" they're still likely to be polite.
If you feel too uncomfortable with this, one modification to the strategy you can make is to pay attention to who likes your posts and only approach those that you notice like 2 or 3 posts, so you can see that they like your work enough to interact more than once.
Whatever you decide, the key to making this work is ASKING DIRECTLY.
If you just post a link on social media that says, "Sign up for my list", which is what most artists do, nobody will sign up. First, if you include a link - most platforms will bury your post and few people will see it. And even those who see it are unlikely to take action. That's why you have to proactively and personally reach out to them. That creates a personal connection and leads to interaction.
