HOW TO OPEN STUDIO #21: How to Build Your Mailing List

Email is still the best way to grow a loyal customer base. And…it’s free! (Usually….)

Back in the day before social media became a thing, the best way to let my peeps know about an event was….postcards!

It was a lot of work. First, designing (or paying someone to design) a postcard. Then having postcards printed. And then, buying postage stamps, and applying a postage stamp to each and every postcard. Also printing out the mailing labels, and applying them.

My mailing list grew to well over 1,200 people. (Many artists with a huge following have 5-10x that many.) Yes, postage wasn’t as high back then, but it was still quite an investment. (Today it costs 48 cents, so I would be spending $500 just to mail the darn things.)

Email is soooooo much easier, and a heckuva lot cheaper. (I use Fine Art Studios Online (www.FASO.com) which offers free emails, up to a limit, depending on what level of site you use.)

And we still need mailing lists for our open studio tours here in Sonoma County, so we can ensure our customers get a free catalog mailed to them.

If you’ve been doing shows, open studios, or other art events, then you probably already have a big list of contacts for email and snail mail.

But if you don’t…   If this is your first event, show, open studio….

How do you get started??

Here are some suggestions, and feel free to add your own in the comments!

Friends and family   Consider the people you already know, and ask them if they’d like to get emails from you. (NEVER sign someone up without their persmission. First, it’s kinda rude, and second, your emails can be reported as spam if they didn’t give you permission.)

For snail mail/catalogs, I don’t sign up many people, especially if they don’t live within driving distance of my studio/event. Yes, getting a catalog with ME in it might be appreciated. But catalogs are expensive to produce, and the cost of mailing tens of thousands can really run up the budget.

So I focus on who’s told me they’d like one, and who’s in our neck of the woods.

Casual acquaintences, social groups, etc.  Are there groups of people you are involved with? Clubs, sports, rallies, etc.? Organizations you volunteer for, events you attend regularly? Hey, ask them if they’d be interested in visiting for your open studio event! Keep it light, don’t twist arms, don’t take offense of people who are lukewarm. But it never hurts to ask, either.

Stores & services you use/patronize   Are you a loyal patron of a local business? Are you in galleries? Do you buy local for your supplies? Ask them if they’d like to here about your events, and if they’d like to get a catalog.

Use your social media connections   Post to your social media sites, letting people know they can go to your website and sign up for emails. And if some of these people are locals, ask if they’d like to get a catalog. (Have them either email you, and/or send you a PM with their address.)

Sign-up sheets in your studio   This is hands-down the best way to build your mail lists, both online and snail mail. Why?

Because if they came to your studio, it means they saw your work in that catalog, and they were interested enough to come and check out you and your work! And if they stay, and engage, and chat, BINGO! Pretty sure they’re gonna want to come back.

Most of my open studio events are under an organization that creates a sign-up sheet for us to print out and display in our space. It asks for their name, their address, and their email.

On mine, I let them know they will receive notices of classes (if and when things get back to “normal”, whatever that is anymore), my next event, etc. and if they also provide their snail mail addy, they’ll get a catalog next year!

Some people say, “Oh, I already get them!” But I told them I was new, and had to turn in x number of snail mail addresses. If they sign up, they’ll still only get ONE catalog, but I’ll get credit for having the minimum number of addresses.

The downside here is, it can be really hard to read people’s handwriting. Some people recommend asking them to TELL you their contact info, and YOU write it down. If this is too much/studio is too crowded/etc., then try to see if you can read their info before they leave.

Want to fine-tune this even more? Clint Watson, founder and creator of FASO.com, has written a slew of articles about email newsletters. Here’s his latest, at FineArtViews.com (a free FASO feature) about how to protect your (email) reputation and make sure your emails aren’t going to be tagged as ‘spam’:  Hit Inboxes Not Spam Folders With Your Newsletters.  (Click this link to sign up for FREE FineArtViews emails.)

Postcards and business cards  I still buy postcards, but I don’t mail them anymore. I need them for galleries and exhibitions, so people can follow up with me if they like my work. And I always carry business cards with me, so if I meet someone who expresses an interest in my work, I can give them one to follow up with me.

There are some great, affordable, design-your-own cards nowadays, including GotPrint.com, VistaPrint.com, PSPrint, and OvernightPrint.com if you’re running late. And again, back in the day, I would order enough postcards with one image, to get me through the year of events.

But my go-to favorite now is Moo.com. (Yes. I don’t know why they decided on “Moo”. Maybe I should ask….??) They aren’t the cheapest, though the more you buy, the better the price gets, and they have sales that make a big difference!

The reason is, I can order as many as 100 postcards, business cards, etc….

With 100 different images! (Or 25 images, 4 of each, or whatever….)

They even have a postcard template that allows you to put TWELVE images on one postcard!

I LOVE my MOO postcards!

And if you are sharing a site or building with other artists, you can easily create a postcard with an image of everyone’s work. (Sites that have multiple artists tend to draw a lot more people, because…artist saturation!)

If designing your own cards is too much, check in with other artists (or the organization managing your event) and ask for recommendations for a graphic designer. This can be very affordable, with wonderful results, too.

Remember, we all started from zero to get to where we are today. If this event is your first open studio, don’t fret too much about how many people even come to your studio, let alone sign up, or even buy anything. Trust me, I know how it feels! My work has always been an outlier, and it took time for people to “get it” (and me!)

Words of wisdom: It’s not who ‘comes by’, it’s who ‘comes back.’ And the more people come back, the more likely they will (eventually) make a purchase.

And even if they don’t, if they love our work, they will still come, and maybe even bring a friend (or three) who will also love our work, and maybe have a bigger budget, too.

Okay, I’m behind on like ten other things that are due tomorrow, so I’ll sign off for now. But I’ll double back as more thoughts and suggestions pop up.

And if you’re a pro at this already, please share your own insights and experience/suggestions/sources. I’d love to hear ’em!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINDING MY WAY BACK HOME

 

 

Almost didn’t make this little fox necklace yesterday (“What’s the use?”) but then I thought, “Why not??”

I’ve been in a funk for awhile. Okay, haven’t we all? A lousy holiday market show, slow sales, a disturbing conversation with a gallery owner who used to carry my work, my studio is freezing,

I have two journals I use, one every single day and the other when I’m in a funk. The first is my daily schedule of appointments, deadlines, tasks, shopping lists, etc. Sometimes I add a few notes of a movie to watch, a book to read, or an adage/quote/insight that help me move forward.

The blort journal is where I dump my toxic, angry, sad, frustrating notes on my shitty day.

I even posted about these journals on Facebook a few days ago, where I admitted that I never write in beautiful/handmade/expensive journals, because I don’t want to mess them up. My mess of a life goes in those cheap college notebooks, or my favorite style of spiral-bound notebooks I get at TJ Maxx every time they go on sale. Hah!

So yesterday I blorted, then made a list of the things that happened that made me happy/grateful/curious/grounded.

Then, today, I read a book review in our local newspaper, called In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility by Costica Bradatan.

From a review:

Squarely challenging a culture obsessed with success, an acclaimed philosopher argues that failure is vital to a life well lived, curing us of arrogance and self-deception and engendering humility instead.

And this quote from the book knocked me over (in a good way!)

“Striving for success prevents us from dealing with our mortality and hence, from living a more meaningful life. Fear of failure can sap the meaning from our lives….”

Well, poo. That’s exactly why I’ve been sitting on my hands for a month (or two.) Why bother working on that age-old project in my heart? My work sells slowly, always has, and that’s never going to change. Oh yeah, I should do it because I want to do it, right? But my studio is already stuffed full of finished work, and whenever a gallery sends back my unsold work, it all just sits there, staring at me.

So that quote gave me a little lift, a bit of validation.

But then, I had to kill a little time today (watched pots never boil, etc.) and picked up a book I’d started to read years ago, The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. And three pages in, everything changed, again.

In three pages.

This book is about how random almost everything emotional, experiential, artistic is in life. In fact, almost everything that happens to us is random.

And how we tend to not see that, to believe that, if we do it right, if we get really good at what we do, if we even already have fame and fortune, our changes of more success, recognition, and money, are just waiting for us.

Nope.

It was an echo of one of my favorite life lessons, the Four Stages of Competency. (This link will take you to my articles about that.) My favorite was the time I took a pottery class, centered and threw a pot in my first try. (“Hey! I’m a natural at this!”) And failed miserably the next five weeks to even get a blog of clay centered on the wheel.

It was when I hit the lowest point of my creative life, and found my way through.

I turned the page, and there was my second ‘hit’. You know who really scores in life?

People who don’t give up.

The author reminds us that success in movies and books is much, much more random than we think. The Diary of Anne Frank was almost never published, because it was considered pretty boring, “…a dreary record of a typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions….” John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by 26 publishers. Dr. Suess’s first children’s book was rejected 27 times. J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter manuscript was rejected by 9 publishers. (There are even sadder stories, but you get the drift.)

Perseverence may not pay off, too. Not in our lifetime, anyway. But if Vincent Van Gogh had quit painting immediately, we wouldn’t have his work in the world today.

Which circles back to randomness vs. predictability, and that first quote about a meaningful life.

Short story: Life is soooooo random. We literally can’t guarantee we’ll make it through the day, let alone a long life, let alone a long life filled with joy, fame, wealth, and health.

But when we embrace today, this moment in time, we let that ‘real world’ into our heart.

When we make our work because it feels good to step back from the easel, the computer screen, the kiln, the sewing maching, and think, “Yeah, that’s COOL! I LOVE IT!” With nothing more really needed than to look forward to do more the next day.

Look, if I were giving YOU advice (that you didn’t ask for), I’d tell you to make room for the work of your heart in your life, no matter how little money you make from it. It restores us to our higher, best self, and helps us do the work that DOES earn us a living.

Me? I forget that all the time. And that’s what my blort book is for. When I’m struggling, if I make the time to write, and I make myself write, I will always…always…get to a better place, a place that helps me get back to my own heart-work.

And I’d tell you that we have to reset that concept, that approach, every day.

That success is not the absence of failure, but the product of fate + chance + hope, minus the expectation that everything will work out in our lifetime.

Not living in the past (because we can’t change it) nor living for the future (because we are really bad at predicting it), but embracing our life, deriving our own meaning from it.  And living our best life with what we have right here, right now.

Two (or three, or four) tiny little miracles that helped me tremendously.

I’ll shut up now. My thoughts are still bouncing around in my head, BUT… I’m already back to my happy place.

And I hope you find YOURS today, too!