Anyone have any ideas for building an email or postcard contact list, of potential customers. I have tried putting a book and pen out. I have gotten limited results. Even if I encourange visitors to our booth, to do so.
I have seen other artists have great results in sending postcards out to prospects. But I have not found a good way to collect addresses. Any ideas?
Comments
A good topic. Here's what works well for us. We ask the people who visit our booth to add their contact info to our Sign Up sheet. We sell on Esty, but don't have a website, so I can't direct you to a sample. The form urges them to print and asks for full contact info, including email address and phone number. I use the phone number only for clarification on the other info if I can't read it. The form promises to send 1) show notices, 2) discount show tickets (some of the promoters we do shows with give us some of those, which we send to our best customers at the related show), 3) Discount coupons (we include one of these on each show notice we send out), and 4) special offers to those who sign up. Some customers furnish either the snail mail or the email address, but not both. I update my name and address file with a code for the show where we first encountered them, as well as a code for the most recent show. I also enter the city and state where we encounter any given customer. That way, I can select the customers associated with that city and state the next time we're going to do a show there. (I also have some additional selection criteria, which keeps me from spending too much on postage.) I am reluctant to count on the email addresses alone, since people change them so often or they end up in the customers' spam file. So I create a one-page show notice for most of the shows we do, and mail a copy using first class postage to the people I've selected for a given show. The show notice includes location and time information about the show, a picture of one of my wife's latest puzzles, a photo and contact info for my wife, the schedule for the remaining art shows for which we've been accepted in the current year, an article I write on some aspect of our business, and a coupon good for $5 off on any purchase of $50 or more. I select in my database for customers in the city where we're going. I make a .PDF version of the show notice, attach it to the cover letter, and send that to all our customers for whom I have an email address. Normally, from 5% to 10% of those to whom I send one or both come to the show. We've been doing this for 10 years (12 to 15 shows a year), and I can't recall a single instance when the mailing has failed to pay for itself - usually many times over.
Look at MailChimp - I have been using it for a while. I embed their form on my website for email signup. I add emails that I collect during shows to my database and I send my emails via their service. They remove emails from the list if they bounce, they let me know who/how many open my emails, overall it's a great service.
If you want to see how their form integrates into my site look at http://www.heartfirestudios.com/subscribe.html . You can go ahead and "sign up" and they will generate a "confirmation email" that keeps you from going on my list unless you click a link. So, if you want to see how it all looks you don't have to end up getting mailings from me.
Do a search for mailing list app on google. There's at least one that comes up that's $15.
Larry Berman
Is anyone using an iPad with some kind of app for signing up for an email mail list? I thought it would be much easier to get the email address correct if the patrons manually entered it in themselves. It could also have checkboxes for interest in newsletters or reproductions. I'm also considering running an online auction for a piece in conjunction with my participation in a show and there could be a check box for interest in this, as well. (More about this idea later).
We always collected addresses, but after many years in business the list was very large. I segmented the list by region/show and sent postcards before the show. It was expensive, but a cost of doing business not to be discounted.
The last several years we were in business (left in 2006) we did what Larry suggested, hung a clipboard in our booth with a sign above it asking for an name and email address, in exchange we would enter their name in a drawing to receive a photograph after the show. It worked very well and at a big show we'd have pages and pages of addresses. That is how ArtFairCalendar.com got started. I imported those addresses into Constant Contact years ago and now have nearly 25,000 subscribers to my email list, whoops I just checked - it is nearly 30,000 subscribers.
We got names in the booth from the signup clipboard and also collected emails from purchasers. The great thing about email messages to potential customers is that it is really cheap to send them and you can do a mailing to your entire list for the same price, basically free. In addition, people who love art fairs will travel to find them and it doesn't hurt any to send an email about a show you are doing in Florida to your Chicago list. They may wind up in your booth in Fort Myers.
Every artist needs a website and on the front page of that site there should be a way to capture email addresses from the people who visit the site. There are some free services out there. Electronic capture of this information is painless. Don't let someone leave your site without offering them the option of leaving their email.
Here are some places that offer these services: http://email-marketing-service-review.toptenreviews.com/
And: http://www.email-marketing-options.com/
I use Constant Contact. Recently unhappy about how much I was paying for it I shopped around and didn't find anything cheaper, cost of doing business.
"Holy emails Batman" I am out!!!!!!!!!!
I am an email person, and therefor only ask for emails. I have a nice clipboard (faux black snakeskin) and sheets that I print off that have spaces for name and email. Whenever I am talking with customers about my work I mention the mailing list saying that "I can let you know when I do future shows and sales." I have had people that are somewhat resistant, I let them know that I don't send out emails very often. It works most of the time, and if they don't want to give me contact info, then perhaps they aren't that interested.
When I am writing up a receipt, I always ask my client if they want to be on my mailing list. At that point they obviously like my stuff well enough to buy it so I normally get the name and email. I actually prefer writing it down, I know how to read my own bad handwriting, but I can't necessarily read someone else's.
I keep a spread sheet of all the emails, names, and what was purchased so I can easily sort groups into customers and non customers.
It definitely takes a while to get a good sized list. Before a whole bunch of bad shows over the summer, when I was new and enthusiastic, I would be happy with not too many sales but a good amount of emails, thinking that all those people were potential customers... At this point, I feel a bit jaded with the list, I have had some people come up to me at shows and tell me that they had gotten the email, but it seems like a lot of them go into a black hole. I have started using constant contact to see if that will help get my messages to the masses that said they were interested in receiving them. I can now find out that only 20-30% of my email recipients receive them. Good? Bad? No Idea! But at least I know some of them are being opened!
Christmas card is a nice touch, Annette.
I still have a lot of rural clients that aren't web savvy so I don't push the email contact with some, but good idea Larry - I might have to try your suggestion.
Whilst I process a sale and wrap etc., I ask the customer to fill out their details on the sales dockets - name address telephone and email and there is a check box as to whether they want to received updates or newsletters from me. If they say yes, I add them to my newsletter database when I get home. If they say no I don't - the good thing there is that I can still contact them if I need to about their purchase, but they don't get unsolicited mail/email and so my unsubscribes from my newsletter are virtually nil.
If they only provide snail mail they don't get newsletters etc., but I may do a mailing when I'm doing a show local to them plus I send anyone who's purchased over $100 in the last 2 years a handwritten card at Xmas :) I believe postage rates are higher here in Australia - the minimum is 60c per item at the moment unless its over a couple of hundred items.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next