newsletters

Watercolor painting by Jane Fritz

The Purpose of Your Artist Newsletter

An artist newsletter is not for sales. Rather, it helps you maintain a warm connection with subscribers. It’s a commitment you make to yourself and your art.

Without the nurturing, you might find yourself having to reintroduce yourself at some point to a list that has gone cold.

Bonus: Staying in touch makes you the artist who comes to mind when people look for art.

The Purpose of Your Artist Newsletter Read

How To Warm Up a Cold Email List

What good is an email list if you’re not using it? (Answer: No good.)

Neglecting subscribers for months or,yikes!, years, renders your list cold. If you’re ready to commit to staying in touch with the people who asked to hear from you, you might need to reintroduce yourself.

It’s not as difficult as it sounds, but the longer you wait, the bigger the task seems.

How To Warm Up a Cold Email List Read

Painting by M. Jane Johnson

Test Your Art Marketing Efforts for Better Results

Have you been promoting your art the same way for years without seeing better  results? Allow me to remind you of this quote.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It first appeared in 1981 text from Narcotics Anonymous and has been misattributed at various times to Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Mark Twain.

If the quote is true, are you nuts?

Being Persistent and Consistent with Your Art Marketing

You are undoubtedly investing a lot of time and resources into your art business: websites, blogs, social media, videos, newsletters, postcards, and more. That’s terrific!

I’m a big fan of persistence and consistency—in doing the same thing over and over again—in marketing. You must commit to certain repeated marketing tasks before you can judge their effectiveness.

At the same time, I believe in tweaking aspects of your marketing as you go along. As an entrepreneur interested in earning money from your art, you want to understand what’s working and what isn’t. This is why it’s critical to track your numbers.

You should learn something with each new artwork, email, newsletter, or blog post, and you need to use that knowledge to get better results in the future.

Every marketing effort should be a test. Nothing in your routine should be considered sacred because you want increasingly better results.

What brings you the most clicks?
What blog post is attracting the most attention?
What results in more subscribers?
What leads to more opportunities?
What has given you the most engagement on social media?
What did you send that encouraged immediate responses from recipients?

Use the lists here to adjust, test, and repeat for improved results.

Test Your Art Marketing Efforts for Better Results Read

A Blueprint for Producing Your Artist Newsletter

If you’ve had Write Newsletter on your task list for too long, it might be because you haven’t identified the individual components that will be required for the process to be successful.

Producing an artist newsletter is a project that consists of multiple tasks in order to complete. Writing is only one part of the newsletter process, and even the writing can be broken down into multiple stages.

You will always get stuck when you see a project on your to-do list rather than single tasks.

For more than 16 years I produced a weekly newsletter without skipping an issue for any reason. We’ve had the current system (of multiple tasks) in place for many years, so it’s a well-greased machine. I thought hearing about how we’ve made it work at Art Biz Success might help you create a blueprint for your newsletter process.

Here are the basic steps.

  • Dedicate a place for storing and adding to content ideas.
  • Make sure your writing time is defined and organized for maximum focus.
  • Allow time to rewrite and edit.
  • Send your artist newsletter draft to someone else to proofread it.
  • Design the newsletter and send a test to yourself and your proofreader before scheduling it.
  • Be available immediately after the newsletter is sent.

Before you click Read More, a word of caution. Yes, I have a team that works with me, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t. This process can still work for you because, regardless of whether you have help or do it on your own, you need to work through all of these steps.

A Blueprint for Producing Your Artist Newsletter Read

Cecilia Borghi Ceramic Scupture

Sifting Through Noise that Throws You Off Course

I’ve taken great pride in the fact that I’ve written a weekly newsletter since March 30, 2002 without ever missing an issue.

It’s a story I’ve recounted repeatedly. Until now. I skipped last week’s (April 26, 2018) edition – on purpose.

I did it because I want to own a better story.

I don’t want to be known as the woman who wrote a weekly newsletter for more than 16 years.

I want to be known as the woman who changed the lives of artists for the better. I had to let go of the old story in order to make room for something better.

It’s a Noisier World

When my newsletter started, there were no other weekly newsletters to help artists with their businesses. There were probably others that were less frequent, but I don’t believe they lasted.

There was no Art Biz Blog, which kicked off on November 30, 2004. I remember spelling b-l-o-g for my workshop attendees before explaining such a foreign concept to them. Can you imagine?

There was no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or Pinterest in 2002. No podcast, webinars or Facebook Live.

I had to describe to my artist-followers (in painstaking detail) how to listen in on a teleseminar by simply dialing on their phones. You would have thought I was giving them directions to Mars.

Remember those days? Man, I’m feeling old right now (but can we agree to refer to me as “seasoned” rather than using the o-word?).

The world is noisier today, and you are more tech savvy than you ever thought you’d have to be (or ever wanted to be). You have loads of information at your fingertips, which presents a different problem.

With so much knowledge available, it’s difficult to discern what’s critical from what is noise that will throw you off your path.

What you need instead of more emails is

Sifting Through Noise that Throws You Off Course Read

©Kristen Watson, Digital Immigrant. Used with permission.

Why You Need an Editorial Calendar (and How To Make One)

An editorial calendar is a roadmap for your marketing content.

An editorial calendar buys you peace of mind because you don’t have to scramble for what to say or share. Ideas are stored and worked on over time rather than in a panic at the last minute.

Wouldn’t it feel great to have ideas lined up for your newsletter or blog for the next six months?

Another big reason to use an editorial calendar is that it helps you remember the important things you want to say. You know … those things you forget about until immediately after you’ve clicked the Send button?

For example, let’s say you are teaching a workshop six months from now. You would add promotional content to your editorial calendar for the month or two prior to your workshop, and perhaps even before that time if you had an early registration period.

Those are placeholders for the future. When that time comes, you just

Why You Need an Editorial Calendar (and How To Make One) Read

Mixed media by Darlene Olivia McElroy

Your Artist Newsletter Delivers Trust

I sent my first email newsletter on March 25, 2002.

When I started, there was one other email newsletter that I was aware of that was published to help artists build their businesses.

If you had told me that I’d still be writing it in 2016, I would have questioned your sanity. And then I would have questioned my own for starting.

I’ve been delivering this content every week for 14 years. Every. Single. Week.
I’ve never missed an issue. (Knock on wood.)

I’ve come close. Some editions are down to the wire, as I feel pressure to publish high-quality content in an increasingly noisy environment.

What’s The Big Deal?

If I skipped a week here and there, you probably wouldn’t miss it, but you might wonder if I am serious about nurturing a relationship with you.

You might question whether or not I’m “the real thing” or just another fly-by-night person thinking she has the chops to coach artists about their careers and businesses.

Here’s the thing:

Your Artist Newsletter Delivers Trust Read

Content Crimes: How You’re Misbehaving Online

As I wrote last week, you could waste a lot of time online if you’re not paying attention.

Let’s look at this subject a little closer so that we’re not just looking at where you’re wasting time, but at how you’re harming your art career goals.

My friend, Cynthia, calls them content crimes. Nobody is going to throw you in jail for committing these transgressions, but you might check yourself into rehab when you decide to do something about it.

Here are the top 4 content crimes you might be committing.

Content Crime #1: You’re inconsistent.

You sent a newsletter for a few months and then nothing. Nada. The big zippo.

You tried blogging for a while … um … whenever you felt like it.

You heard that artists were selling art from Facebook, so you built a business page and put a few pictures up. It’s just not working for me, you claimed. Waste of time.

If you are truly excited about your art, you’ll share it repeatedly, even if you think nobody is listening, because you believe in yourself. You don’t give up.

If you do give up, I’m led to believe …

Content Crimes: How You’re Misbehaving Online Read

Rx for Artist Newsletters

Rx for Sloppy Newsletter Syndrome

There’s an epidemic going around.

Don’t panic. If it strikes, you won’t need to rush to the ER or be quarantined. But you will need to take immediate action.

Your physical health isn’t in peril, but the health of your art business is at stake.

The epidemic is SENS – Sloppy Email and Newsletter Syndrome. Let me explain the symptoms so you can self-diagnose.

Symptom 1: Missing Name

This is the most destructive of all the SENS symptoms.

Rx for Sloppy Newsletter Syndrome Read

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