I reply to the artists whose works I particularly enjoy and ask them if they have an email newsletter and let them know that I'd like to be on it. And even when I go to the trouble to beg these artists to add me to a newsletter list... they don't. I have yet to receive even one newsletter from any artist in this group. [4] Multiply that mistake dozens of times over and you're costing yourself, over your career's lifetime, thousands of dollars in sales (if not more). Make this mistake enough times and perhaps it will even cost you an art career at all. [...]

In my opinion, it is crucial to keep things relevant art marketing-wise. You are branding yourself with every detail... even if you don't realize it. [...]

What all of these different rendering engines mean is that the only way to be sure your email newsletter looks correct is to stick to a small, safe subset of HTML and then to rigorously test each design in every major email program...and different versions of those programs...and with images blocked...and with images enabled. One option for artists would be to pay a designer to design your email designs and test them in all of these email programs. Then you could use the same design over and over, being careful to only change your content and none of the HTML itself. Like I said before, it's a quagmire. [...]

Artists need to be tactful when meshing aspects of life storytelling with art marketing. Point-blank, sharing a little can sometimes be interpreted as sharing too much. [...]

So here's something that surprises me: I see some other artist website services recommending you use their software for your blogging solution, but, for their own company blogs, they use Wordpress or Blogger. That should tell you something. How do they find the pain points? How do they know what to fix? [1] Why don't they think their own software is good enough for their own use? [2] [...]

The question you need to answer is this: are you having fun playing with the 20% on Facebook, while ignoring the much larger network of people you can reach via the "dark social network?" [...]

A common objection I often hear from artists is that they don't have an email newsletter list so who, exactly, are they supposed to send the email newsletters to? Many artists are simply convinced they don't have anyone to send to. But I don't think that's true. [...]

Put on your thinking cap, I'm sure you can think of something more interesting than "check out my art". Your bottom line will thank you for it. [...]

If you send out a newsletter, it’s a given that you’ll want to embed links, and for this example, I am adding the link to a sample newsletter of ours. I counted 15 links in this issue: if I mention a specific work, I link to it; if I talk about a show, I link to the show site or more information about it on our site; at the bottom I append individual links to specific sections in our website; and of course, this being the newsletter, I offer two separate links for readers to pass on to their friends. Whereas in an article or a blog this number of links would be possible overload, in a newsletter it’s not unexpected. [...]

So, go for it! Remember that if you've never put out a newsletter before, the first time is always the learning curve, and the first product will take some time and frustration, but it'll get done, and doing it will get easier, and you will continuously edit and improve and innovate and experiment -- the same way you do with your art. [...]

Nobody will visit your website until they know it exists. So you have to tell people, repeatedly, about it. And email is the simplest, most effective way you can put yourself into one of the “big three” places that most people check every day. [...]

But, by offering something of value that is exclusive to your newsletter, you can convert anonymous blog followers into newsletter subscribers. [...]

We're not normally "I told you so" type of people, but we told you so. :-) We cannot stress enough the importance of sending a newsletter...it worked for Jacki and it can work for you, too. [...]

So if you are one of those crazy seven or eight, sitting in front of the machine, designing that newsletter, when everyone else is out on holiday, look at your calendar. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Schedule that article/newsletter to go when there's actually someone there to receive it. [...]

Of course TV and video don’t replace reading. But when it comes to marketing your artwork or yourself, there is a place for video. Most of us have huge volumes of email and don’t always have time to read a lengthy article. But I can watch/listen to a short clip. [...]

You can send your newsletter as often as you like...as long as you don't have more than 2 people unsubscribe for every 1,000 emails you send (.2%) [3]. If you lose more than 2 people out of every 1,000 emails, then you're either sending too often, or you've strayed too far off topic (such as discussing politics in a newsletter where people were expecting art). [...]

Today's Post is by Lori Woodward Simons, Regular contributing writer for FineArtViews. I don't consider myself to have an addictive personality. I've never used illegal drugs, or smoked a cigarette (probably got enough nicotine from second hand smoke). However, these days, I'm finding that I'm just as vulnerable as the next guy when it comes to being addicted to social media. A month ago, Clint Watson “tweeted” through Twitter that I was being sucked into the Twittersphere, but I denied it! Nope, not me... but Lately, I've been showing all the signs of addiction. Today I'm admitting it, [...]

How do you know when it's OK to send someone your email newsletter? MF wrote me today asking just that question: "Initially I added a lot of my friends and family as well as people I thought MIGHT be interested in my occasional announcements to the mailing list because I thought that was something that you had advocated.  In a later newsletter, however, you were pretty adamant about not putting people on who didn't actually SIGN UP for the newsletter. (So I took you off.)  Of course I know that if people really don''t want to get the newsletters I [...]

Engaged Prospects Thinking About Buying Art

To experience art marketing success, to sell more artwork, to become a microcelebrity.... what you truly need with your prospects is ENGAGEMENT. is Starack of Entrepreneuers Journey defines engagement this way: "Engagement means that [your fans] are not only entertained and informed, they come away truly benefiting from your output. Their life has been enhanced in some way and they want more. . .This is about more than just attention. This is prolonged focus leading to action. It’s not easy to cut through all the information on the web and grab attention and it’s even rarer for people [...]

A few weeks ago we introduced the concept of The Collector Courtship.  Remember, selling your art requires building a relationship with your potential collectors . . . and, we're sorry to tell you, building that relationship is like dating. Where the Art Collectors your first lesson:  If you're going to "date" collectors, you've got to go where the collectors are. My wife recently talked me into watching the 1960's "classic", "Where the Boys Are."  The movie told the story of four college girls on spring break.  They wanted to get away from the ice and snow and [...]

Short answer:  You should utilize both a blog and an email newsletter. Occasionally, however, an artist will ask us something like, "If I can have only a blog or an email newsletter, which one should I go with?" Our answer:  hands down - an email newsletter. Blogs are great for increasing traffic to your web site and for engaging in a more informal discussion with your fans.  However, if your goal is to sell your art, blogs don't always bring the right kind of traffic - buyers.  Blogs also require the reader to actively visit your blog [...]

is your mailing list. A mailing list that you have developed of people who know who you are....and who have given you permission to communicate with them. It can be an email list or a "snail" mail list....or both. Yes, your "in house" mailing list is your most important art marketing asset.....if you use it. [...]

There has been a lot of hype about blogs in the last year and, in many cases, too much hype.  In fact, last summer I wrote a piece that was fairly critical of blogs. See Blogs and Success, Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: http://data.fineartstudioonline.com/dataviewer.asp?page=fineartviews&keyvalue=126&subkeyvalue=379 Since my service, FineArtStudioOnline, has since introduced an integrated blogging platform, today my goal is to focus on the specific, real benefits that one can achieve from blogging.  As an artist, one major reason you want to blog is to bring traffic to your website in hopes that at least some of those visitors will be interested in [...]

Ebneezer blinked.  Andy was gone and a new apparition appeared before his eyes.  The spirit said, “Touch my garment, Ebeneezer, I am the art ghost of Christmas present, come and see things as they are. . . .”  Ebeneezer reached out his hand and touched the ghost’s robe and instantly they were hurtling through the air, flying above the streets of New York.  They flew over the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, over Central Park, over the SOHO galleries.  Out, out to the suburbs. They came landed in front of a small home.  There was a mini-van parked in the driveway.  [...]

Ol’ Ebeneezer, Curator of the Outrageously Politically Correct Museum of Art, placed the key in the lock of his Manhattan loft and thought “Bah! Humbug!”  He still couldn’t believe that his assistant, Bob, would have the audacity to suggest mounting a Christmas exhibit featuring pieces that depicted truth and beauty! Bob actually wanted to display pieces in the styles of realism, impressionism, expressionism, and even beautiful abstracts!  Who ever heard of such a thing?  Ol’ Ebneezer congratulated himself as he climbed into bed.  “The museum is lucky to have me” he thought, “I mean, what kind of funding could we possibly [...]

An Overview of New FineArtStudioOnline.com Features - Blogs, RSS and MoreLast week we promised an announcement of FASO blogging coming "soon."  This week we're happy to say that "soon" is now.  FASO now offers integrated blogging to all Gold Plan and higher members.  It is in your account now and if you've ever wanted an easy way to integrate your web site and your blog. . .it's here.  This week we've chosen to focus our member newsletter on an overview of new FASO features.BlogA full featured blog is now integrated into your control panel.  Simply select "Blog" as a category for [...]

What are links?The word link is short for hyperlink, which is active text that you can click on to go to a web page.  There are three types of links that are important to your web site: site navigation links, outbound links, and inbound links.  The importance of linksMost people try to find information on the Internet by using search engines.  The big three are Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.  But how do the search engines determine the most relevant pages to return for a given search?  That’s a topic in itself, however, a lot of very smart people at these search [...]

Left: The First Thanksgiving, painting by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris (1863–1930)A man and his rag-tag band of followers gather to break bread and share a meal. They start the meal by giving thanks.Astern group of prude Puritans in proto-Massachusetts congregate toshare a meal with the native people. Legend has it that they gavethanks. They were probably thankful that they even made it across theAtlantic in a rickety old ship. . . they were thankful to be alive.Duringthe American Revolution George Washington, proclaimed a Thanksgiving inDecember 1777 as a victory celebration honoring the defeat of theBritish at Saratoga. Thanksgivings were held off [...]

  We Have a lot of Irons in the FireOver the past 18 months, we have been working on a number of new products and initiatives.  Many of you have seen different projects we have been working on and have seen names such as “WebArtSites”, “FineArtViews”, “Praxis Technology”, “MyStudioSite” and have wondered, “What the heck is all this stuff anyway?” We will be explaining in more detail in the near future, but in short, these are all various services and projects that we offer (or are experimenting with), but did not want to integrate directly into FASO until they were fully tested to [...]

  Great Marketing, Dubious Art – People really will buy anything. A few years ago we saw a play about a man who bought a completely white canvas.  The comedy was created in watching the man attempt to justify to his family and friends why he spent a ridiculous amount of money on a blank canvas.  The answer, of course, had everything to do with him being duped by the dealer’s marketing and nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the artwork.  Thank goodness such nonsense only happens in works of fiction!  Or does it?  We happened across a web site today [...]

Reality:Your web site traffic is going to come to your site largely because of marketing strategies and efforts that you undertake.  Please don't expect search engines, your web host or anyone else to do it for you, after all, you don't expect the phone company to market your phone number, but simply to make it work.Essential Elements for Marketing Artist Web Site - Draft 1These are my thoughts on the subject of marketing an artist's web site.  These represent my initial compilation of thoughts on the subject and are not meant to be taken as the final word on the subject.  [...]

A realistic look at blogs and why Duane Keiser sells a painting a dayToday, dear reader, we visit the subject of blogs.  We preface our missive by saying we have nothing against blogs.  No, that would be hypocritical; after all, we post our own scribblings to a blog.  We simply seek to separate life’s truths from media hype . . . to separate the wheat from the chaff . . . to distill out those ideas that will make a difference in our life and reject those that are simply hype and noise.Blogs:  Media ManiaLet’s start with the obvious:  Blogs are hot.  We [...]

Today we offer a practical tip for increasing your sales. . . At least for those of you who are brave enough to engage your adoring customers directly. If you shun the “front line” of sales and purvey your artwork primarily through galleries, then call your galleries and make sure that they employ this technique in their sales efforts. Feel free to tell them we suggested you do so. They might still be insulted at your audacity to question their methods. . . But at least you can point a finger at us. Who knows? It might [...]

In the art production game, continuous practice and improvement is essential to growth, particularly if you’re looking for rapid growth. Along comes Robert Genn of The Painter's Keys, "We're all familiar with the problems associated with Sunday Painters. Cranking up the old machine once a week may be okay in the vintage car hobby--but it's bad news in the creativity game. The steady worker who applies his craft daily is more likely to make creative gains than an intermittent one." If this “law” of creativity weren’t true we could all just recline by the pool for four days a week and [...]

We've been discussing artist agents.  I've received a fair amount of feedback on the subject.  The loose consensus seems to be that the best agent is the artist himself.  There's no way around digging in and doing the marketing and drudge work for yourself, unless you're lucky enough to be blessed with the proverbial marketing-savvy artist's spouse.  However, several people pointed out that in today's art marketplace, the art galleries have, in many cases, assumed the role of the agent.  As such, the checklist that I sent last time might be of some use in evaluating your galleries.  Keep in mind [...]

Artists fairly often ask me whether or not I think having an artist's agent is a good idea.  I don't really have a simple answer to that question.  The short answer is maybe, which I realize is no help at all.I have never personally met an “artist's agent” who I felt really helped the artist at all. In a sense, the art galleries themselves are your agents. So you end up with two agents trying to make decisions on your career without your direct involvement anymore. It seemed to me that the agents I delt with were little more than message [...]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The Declaration of Independence Here in the United States, we celebrate our independence tomorrow: A celebration of freedom. We celebrate the fact that we are free to "pursue happiness." We are free to create our art works, even if they are sometimes controversial in nature. And we have a "free" market in which to sell those works. Our founding fathers recognized the source [...]

I'm coming to believe that developing the right habits is the most important step for success in every area of life. Habits drive our actions and actions drive who we are and what we become. We want to encourage good habits and discourage bad habits. Many accomplished artists I know have described to me the process of practicing their technique until it becomes "subconscious." In other words, they practice until their technique becomes a "habit." These sorts of habits make experts. Michael Jordan developed a habit of “nothin' but net.” Warren Buffet developed a habit of picking undervalued investments (and is [...]

As the days have grown shorter, my to do list longer and the impending holiday closer, I have found myself scrambling to get everything done. I imagine that we all feel a certain amount of pressure during the holiday season.However, it always seems to come together. The presents are wrapped, the dinner is prepared and family and friends gather to celebrate Christmas, to enjoy each others company, and to simply enjoy a day of rest. There's something a bit magical about Christmas. People become more friendly. Most businesses are closed, so most of us can truly enjoy the day without worrying [...]

This article is by Clint Watson,  former art gallery owner/director/salesperson and founder of FineArtViews. You should follow Clint on Twitter here.   In my recent ezine "Sushi's Lessons For Art Marketing", I discussed the idea that if artists want to focus on selling artwork they must take the required step of exhibiting their artwork. If you want to sell original artwork it has to be seen.If you would like a copy of the ezine, visit http://www.webartsites.com and become a member. (Membership is free). Then request the ezine, "Sushi's lessons for art marketing."Taking the step of exhibiting your work requires fortifying your attitude so you [...]