This article is by Keith Bond, Regular contributing writer for FineArtViews. You should submit an article and share your views as a guest author by clicking here.
Recently, I looked at the visitor statistics for my website. I noticed something quite interesting. The following graph shows the traffic per day on my website for the first half of June:
Do you notice what I noticed? There are peaks and valleys. There was a lot of activity around the first few days of June and also around the 11th. What does that mean? More people were visiting my website on those days. But why so much activity on those days compared to other days? That is what I found most interesting.
Those days with more traffic coincided precisely with email newsletters that were sent out. The newsletters were compelling enough to drive traffic to my website. Fascinating, isn’t it?
Now let’s look at another chart. It compares new vs. returning visitors:
This chart tells me something quite interesting. New visitors were greater on the first few days of June, but returning visitors were greater on the 11
th. This is significant. On June 1, an article I wrote was published here on Fine Art Views. This generated a lot of new visitors to my own website. (Thank you for visiting!)
On the 11th of June, I sent out my own newsletter to my mailing list. This generated a lot of return visitors on that day as well as substantial numbers the next couple days. Those who already know my work (and like it) were enticed to visit my website again.
There were also significant new visitors that day. Perhaps new subscribers received my newsletter for the first time, or perhaps they followed a link from Facebook or somewhere else. Maybe a subscriber forwarded my newsletter to a friend. Maybe they stumbled upon it. Either way, both new and returning visitors responded because I sent out a newsletter.
So what can we learn from this?
Send out newsletters regularly to entice people to visit your site. When you are out of sight, you are out of mind. Don’t let those valleys get too large. Make the peaks more frequent.
Have compelling content which will entice them to your site. Interestingly, I also sent out other newsletters during this same 2 week time period (one for Fine Art Views and one to my own list). Those others didn’t generate so much response. The reason? They weren’t as compelling. Have compelling content. Give your clients a reason to visit your site again.
Consider being a guest writer. You will broaden your audience and gain new visitors which may lead to new fans.
Everything you do should lead people to your website. Facebook. Twitter. Postcards. Thank You cards. Packaging Material. You get the point. Do it consistently. Make me and others want to visit your site. Compel us. It is impossible to determine from the above charts the traffic generated from all of these other marketing activities. But even during the valleys, there was a good deal of activity going on. Don’t neglect marketing.
But, as these charts indicate:
Regular, Compelling Newsletters are King.
Best wishes,
Keith Bond
PS Seeing these charts gave me a greater appreciation for the power of the newsletter. It gave me resolve to make mine more meaningful, valuable, compelling… And to send them out more regularly.
Artist Websites |
Featured Artists |
via fineartviews.com