Not a single artist sent me an invitation to the Golden Fine Arts Festival here in Colorado–a venue that is less than 2 miles from my house.
Imagine my surprise when I got there and found at least six artists I knew–artists who knew I live in Golden.
And I spent over $600 that day.
How's your mailing list?
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12 thoughts on “How’s your mailing list?”
I keep my mailing list up-to-date. Unfortunately, one or two of the customers mark my infrequent mailings as spam. Ouch! That hurts.
A lot of artists I know don’t do mailouts for their art fairs…I guess they figure that the show publicity is enough. I can’t afford to do snail mail for all my shows, so I have been sending out a card 2 or 3 times a year, with upcoming show information. I send email alerts to my email list for the other shows, but I find that many don’t get through or people have changed their email–so I lose more people from the email list.(No way to update like regular mail)
PS–Alyson, what did you buy?
I’m with Christine. I show at too many art festivals to do a postcard mailing for each. So I use email, cheap but not 100% reliable. Every time I email to my list I get a couple bounces on dead email addresses. And there’s no knowing how many people’s spam filters are deleting my messages.
I think they’re scared of you …or maybe afraid the fix they need on their booth to bring it up to ArtBizCoach specifications will be millions …or maybe you ate garlic last time just before you went to a show (not being serious) … all I want to say is that you are always welcome to any little show we have up here in Canada , & don’t stand on ceremony here, just show up & you are welcome, in fact, if you really like cold weather & mountains you are welcome to move up here for good, we’d love to keep you …(& I eat green onions at shows so don’t worry about breath issues)…
Christine and Barbara: I didn’t say anything about snail mail. I didn’t get emails either. Christine: 3 scarves and 2 spiders. Sari: Garlic is a possibility. Yes, I understand the intimidation thing. That’s a possibility for a few of them. A couple, however, have invited me to their shows in the past. Seems like they maybe just got a bit lazy this year.
hahha sounds like six busted artists to me… (says me with no mailing list)
I do worry about sending out too many emails, so I don’t send one for each show. In the busiest time of year that would be a message every week! I’ve been sending out email newsletters every 2 months. I list all my upcoming shows for the next 2 months. But maybe that’s too infrequent? Maybe once a month would be better.
and alyson, you have been posting here about how many emails and postcards you receive from artists and have even sounded like it was sort of a pain so to be fair, some people may just have thought not to bother you….glad you had fun, tho.
Barbara: As long as you’re sending out stuff of interest to your list, you’ll be fine. Mary: Ouch. I truly can’t recall ever complaining about receiving postcards from anyone. I guess what I do mind is the impersonal nature of the correspondence I get from artists I don’t know. They haven’t taken a class or bought anything from me, so their name is unfamiliar. They put me on their email list w/o my request and don’t introduce themselves. The people at the art festival were clients of mine so I knew them well. And even if they weren’t, I would always enjoy a personal note with a sincere invitation from them. Having said all that, I’ll put a check on my language from now on.
hi again, alyson–didn’t mean to be harsh there. just thinking that maybe people didn’t want to bother you since you’d mentioned those random mailings and emailings as annoying. i was very aware because i had included you in something i sent out and i took you off my list after that. and i agree, clients of yours should certainly have included you in their pre fair publicity notification because it would have been so relevant. this is an interesting point in many ways because we do and don’t include people on our lists for different reasons. i always review my lists with the thought of whether or not a particular goal is relevant to the receiver each time i send out info. and i’m sure there are times i err on the side of caution or maybe just being dumb about it.
Mary: Not a problem. I consider you a client as I know you from classes and from the blog. I think it’s totally cool if the other person knows your name!