Hi Alison,
I recently got scammed last year by someone who gave me counterfeit money for my dad's paintings. How do your transactions work to prevent that?  Do you accept checks and wait til they clear before giving them the work?  Or do you use PalPay? 

Thanks. Courtney (artfordad)

Hi Alison, I like your tip about sending your buyers a box of note cards - I might give that a try.

I don't have a spam problem when sending out bulk emails, but then I'm using addresses that I've already established in my address book.  If I were to include new addresses in a bulk, then the email would get flagged as spam to those new ones.  If you establish a contact with an email before you send them a bulk mail, their email controls should then recognize your email address as 'friendly' and accept future emails.  So I only limit the reciepients list if I'm sending to a new address for the first time. 

I'm sending out about every two months, too, but I want to try

Annie,

I send out mass emails about every two months. I have to cut and paste and send to twenty addresses at a time otherwise they get spammed. Have you found this?

Thanks for letting me know about how to do email presentations. I just bought Adobe photoshop elements which is pretty snazzy. (After a three day learning curve.)

Here's another marketing tip I try to do although sometimes I miss. When someone buys a painting, I make them a box of greeting cards with their painting. That way, when they send out 8 cards to friends and family they might tell folks about me. It's easy advertising.

Alison

Oh, I mis-read and thought maybe you had a way to find them after they hit on your site.  Going to designers sounds like a good idea, I know of some artists who have really good success with this.

I design my brochure using ms-word, and convert it to pdf to send it as an email attachment.  I could insert the pdf directly into the body of an email (it's done just like inserting a photo), but then the whole email would load slow, and impatient people (um, like me) would delete it before it finished loading.  Of course, I could make it small file so it would be a little faster.  I have a slow connection, so if a graphically intense email takes more than a minute to load I just toss it out. 

Yep, I send mass emails, but not as often as i should.  I do it myself and haven't tried a mailing service.  I have my address book catergoriezed by groups (artists, clients, press, etc) and then only have to hit one button to send out to a group.  I only send out announcements of events, like workshops, shows, or calls to artists, but I noticed a lot of artists send out weekly emails that include recent accomplishments or updates on projects.  I don't know if this is good, or not. I get a lot of emails, so I tend to delete and not read the ones that come on a regular basis from people who are just sending me thier weekly list of accomplishments.  But you're right, I do get more website hits when I send out a mailing, and I should be sending out mass emails a little more often than I'm doing now.

ta ta,

Annie

Annie, I didn't find the designers by hits to my website, I found them by googling for designers in my region. I have no idea how well I'll do with it. There is one that seems very good. She's in the Boston area and sometimes appears on local TV for designer tips. The other designers serve my localality which has some very wealthy people.

I haven't figured out how to send out my "brochure" via the web but I'm going to try. You know how we get those glossy type ads via email? I'd like to do one that looks good but not glossy. Like sending a web page. Maybe I could create a brochure page on my website and send a link. I usually get a good response to my mass emails.

Do you send out mass emails?

Alison

Hi Alison, I use a brochure with price list for commissions, too.  I find it's easier (and less confusing for the client) for them to have all the info printed for them to take with them when they are considering a commission.  I currently print mine on my computor, which allows me to make print on demand and make changes as needed without having a lot of waste, plus it allows me to also email the brochure as an attachment.  I've been thinking about printing it with vista print using the large double sided postcard format, but then I would still need one for email purposes so i haven't done that yet. 

I'm intrigued by your sending to designers who hit your website - do you get their info from just their visiting your site, or from your guest book?  my stat counter tells me how they found my site, but only gives me their ip address and their location, it doesn't tell me who actually are or any really specific info.  Sometimes, if they are using a business network, it tells me the name of the business that holds the ip address, but this still isn't a lot to go on.  I'd love to hear more about this!

ta ta,

Annie