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If you are a paid member (either through FASO or BoldBrush Circle here on Substack), come see the latest ideas from us and our community in the BoldBrush Circle of Marketing community here: https://marketing.faso.com. We encourage you to join us and become a paid member today here. Personal OutreachArt Marketing Circle VII: Awareness -A strategy to encourage people on social media to join your audience and subscribe to your email newsletters
This is a members-only article series. We are making it available to all subscribers today via email, but please be aware it, and other articles in this series that it links to will be locked in a few days and available for paid subscribers only on our site. Get full access to all resources by becoming a paid subscriber. (If you are a FASO member all these paid posts are available in your control panel at https://marketing.faso.com) What did you work on this week? |
We’re currently exploring the final circle in our members-only Circles of Art Marketing series - the first step in your customer’s journey to purchasing your art - Awareness. Since marketing will not work unless all elements are understood and practiced you need to think about all seven circles as a holistic system. One circle alone won’t accomplish anything for you. Therefore, if you’re a new member, or missed what we covered previously, I recommend you catch up on the series at the following links:
Art Marketing Circle I - The Sovereign Artist
Art Marketing Circle II - Your Art
Art Marketing Circle III - Turn Your Art Into a Product
Art Marketing Circle IV - Sales
Art Marketing Circle V - Your True Fans
Art Marketing Circle VI - Your Audience
Art Marketing Circle VII - Awareness
If you missed the previous articles about this circle, you may catch up here:
Alright, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at how to get people who have become aware of you to join your audience.
From Awareness to Audience with Personal Outreach
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, in other words, your audience. 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.
You can’t (like most people do) just post a link on social media that says, "Sign up for my list”,because nobody will sign up. First, if you include a link - most social media platforms will bury your post and few people will see it (social media platforms don’t want people leaving the platform, so they minimize the reach of any posts that contain a link). And even those who do see it are unlikely to take action, because most people won’t leave the platform even when presented with a link. That’s why you have to proactively and personally reach out to them. That creates a personal connection and leads to interaction.
If you are strategic and regular about reaching out to people who "Like" and comment on your posts, you can increase the size of your newsletter list rapidly.
And even with the people who don't respond, or who say "No thanks", you still now have a direct message thread going with them on the social media platform of your choice. When you have something new that you think that person will like (based on their past "Likes") DM them.
Don' t just take my word that this works though! Here's a message we received from an artist who has successfully converted social media "Likes" into people on her mailing list.
Now, take a step back and think about it from the follower’s point of view.
I spoke with a collector (and former gallery director), "Jim", who started following an artist that he discovered in the BoldBrush Art Contest. He was truly blown away after he "liked" one of her Instagram posts that she had messaged him directly
The artist in this case responded directly to "Jim" and let him know that she really appreciated the fact he took the time to like her art and that, coming from him, it meant a lot to her. She didn’t even ask about adding him to her list (at first)!
Jim, the art collector, was so excited that the artist reached out to him personally that he started paying much closer attention to everything she posted. He told me, "Now that’s marketing! That's how artists should market themselves!"
One simple heartfelt "thank you" from this artist turned a casual fan into a superfan - and superfans want to be on your email list.
This is something you have an opportunity to do yourself, several times a day, and, if you ask for their email address, even better.
So remember: Every "like" is a marketing lead. Every comment is a marketing lead.
But you have to do personal outreach.
Personal outreach works the best, while generic posting gets lost with the rest.
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