 So one of the core themes that I love to talk about both on this channel and also in my Art Business Academy membership is of course building your artist mailing list. Now you may have seen other videos on this channel all around that topic but I even have a little playlist that I'll make short to link below this video. We know this is central to building a stable business so why is it then that so many artists go to great lengths to avoid doing it and making it really hard for them to sell their artwork. In this video I'm going to share a super simple but highly effective strategy to grow your artist mailing list. The one that's going to work really well if you are a physical art business so for example you sell through art fairs or markets or galleries or you have your own open studios or perhaps that you run workshops and classes from a physical venue or you have your own venue like a shop or gallery space. Now in case we haven't met my name is Sophie I'm an artist entrepreneur and art business coach helping you to build a profitable business from your creative passion. Now if you find my videos useful please do consider subscribing and hit that little bell below to get notified every time I post a new video. Let's talk about the number one way to grow your artist mailing list but especially aimed at those of you who have their physical face-to-face kind of art business. So here's something that I learned way back in the day at a London art fair that I was exhibiting at and it's a wonderful marketing strategy that I've both used myself and also taught multiple times as well. All right let me tell you a story when I was back in the UK when I first started my art business what feels like a really really long time ago and bearing in mind I've had an equally long gap in between but right back at the beginning one of the things I did on a regular basis were art fairs and I was very lucky that there were quite a lot to choose from and a lot of us would simply do the art fair circuit and each month we'd turn up to the different art fair and this was one I seem to remember in Teddington in London one of my favourites just my target market walking round and it was usually a pretty good weekend. So I turned up as you normally do unloaded my staff went to try and find a parking space for the weekend for the car always a bit tricky at that venue went back in to look at where I was and who I was next to because that kind of matters and realised I was next to somebody who painted quite brightly coloured pet portraits and I remember thinking oh that's going to be quite a jump as I'd got soft more muted seascapes of course so quite soon we ended up you know saying hello having a bit of a chat and as the art fair began I noticed that he was standing out in the corridor with a clipboard and he was talking to everybody and you know how most artists stand at an art fair quietly behind a book or magazine sometimes they might say hello or you stood out of the way and ended up chatting to another artist that's a real waste of money by the way but that's a story for another day he was out there building his business he was in that in that sort of pathway where people were walking and he was saying excuse me madam sir do you have a pet and quite a lot of people have pets right so the answer was yes would you like to enter your pet into this competition to win a pet portrait where I will paint your pet who's going to really say no to that so of course as the day went on and as the weekend went on he gathered an awful lot of emails now as I was a little bit curious to see what was going to happen I've entered my cat into the draw I didn't win unfortunately but what I did get was communication from him for quite a while I'll be at this venue I'll be at that venue and so when I talked to him I said have you been doing this a long time he said it's how I build my business that and he said I'm wandering in the parks where people walk their dogs chatting to them saying do you mind if I take a photograph I'd love to paint your dog and if you're interested you have the option to purchase it but it's not it's not necessary and I thought that's very interesting isn't it so for me that was a massive realization of the weekend of another way to actually use an art fair because quite often you would go you spend a bit of money on on your stand you'd hang your work and then you stand there kind of you know trying to chat to people as they walk past hoping you're gonna make sales but actually what a great proactive way to use that time to gather names to put on your mailing list so that you can actually stay in communication with them so it was a massive eye-opener he had his target market walking through the art fair looking at art looking at his art signing up on his mailing list all he had to do was paint the pet portrait which he loved to do anyway and he does all day long so really it was a small price to pay perhaps for gaining a rather large number of names onto his list I seem to remember now I have a question for you how could you adapt this strategy to your art business likely you're gonna say to me Sophie I don't paint pet portraits so how does this apply to me well let's think about that for a moment here are a few ideas you can simply offer the winner print right this is the easiest one for you to set up if you paint 2d work it's easy enough for you to create a print of one of your pieces especially perhaps one that's really popular and you can set that up and that you can encourage people to join the mailing list and win a print now here's the thing it's not as engaging as you going and having a conversation with everybody and offering them something very personal but it's still a good way to draw people in because let's face it everyone likes a bargain and we all like to win something and the only person who's going to put their name down is somebody who likes your work and would like to win it and that's where it really works I think you could offer winner commission perhaps the open studios so people come along walk through open studios perhaps if you offer commissions anyway you could say winner commission I mean that's again it's still a painting or piece of artwork that you have to create but imagine if it generates you hundreds of email addresses that you can now be in contact with I feel painting one painting in exchange for a large number of email addresses is really something that's going to work for you right you could perhaps a winner personalized product so maybe you make jewelry or pottery or sculpture or something that you could perhaps add a name to something that you create you can say okay I'm gonna put your name on it so people like to win personalized things so again that's just something a little bit different depends on what you make how about winning a personal studio tour now how many people would perhaps like to come and have a nose around your studio now obviously you're not going to do that open studios because they're there perhaps you don't ever do open studios your strategy is to keep it all quite private and you're at an art fair for example and you say win a tour of my studio with a glass of bubbles you know and perhaps yourself and three guests now let's think about that though number one it's pretty easy for you to do they show up to your studio you show them round you have some little bubbles or coffee or ice cream or whatever you want to offer them but you're saying and bring three other people those three other people might be interested in your work and you might end up with a purchase so all of this kind of folds in very nicely they get something that's you know interesting I mean who doesn't want a studio tour from somebody who doesn't normally open their studio that's kind of exclusive and a bit exciting right what about win a workshop place so of course if you are offering workshops classes then you can offer somebody a place the thing is that whatever you offer needs to be of some sort of value that somebody's going to leave their name and email address and I think that's what that's what's so nice about doing it face-to-face is you might get less names but they're going to likely be higher quality names than somebody who simply fills in a form online to get a free download that are you a free download I'll have that who's that email from unsubscribe whereas when you've had a little bit of a conversation with somebody they've actually seen what you have on offer and they've entered their name in I feel that slightly more qualified so I want you to think about your audience and what out of those suggestions or other ideas that you might come up with what do you think the audience would really value and like from you and then get creative about how you can offer this now of course if you are going to offer a high price point item like an original painting you want to make sure that you are somewhere with a high footfall otherwise you could end up with 50 names on your list and you painting I don't know a three thousand pound or dollar painting that doesn't really work but if you were to walk away from a trade fair with I don't know a thousand names then perhaps you don't mind painting that painting or even five six hundred names right but you don't want is 30 40 50 names half of which perhaps that are going to unsubscribe or the email doesn't work that you've got to think about that in terms of where are you and how many names could you get on your list now I hope you've loved this video don't forget to get your notebook and pen out and write down some ideas of what you could do if you're a physical business or perhaps part of what you offer is on a face-to-face basis now if you haven't already make sure to check out my kind of new and updated how to set up and grow your email list in 2023 this one here make sure to check it out because it takes you through the steps of all the things you need to know in order to get yourself set up and communicating with your audience correctly and as I said there'll be links below this video to the whole playlist all about building your artist email list thank you so much for watching this one and we'll see you on the next one bye bye