Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since the spring of 2000. Jane's site has consistently attracted high numbers of visitors each month. So we sat down with Jane for an in-depth discussion on her approach to her website, and her thoughts generally about promoting her art successfully. On websites and promotion by artists MyArtClub: You have a lot of visits to your website. Do you feel you benefit from having this regular traffic? In what ways? Jane: The regular traffic is a benefit not only to me but to other artists I figure. Having the site helps people know that I have been producing new work and am taking my art career seriously. Also anyone going to MyArtClub.Com may venture to find an artist they like and that's always a good thing. If you don't have your own unique work to start with than I guess you may be worried about other artists taking customers away. I don't worry about that too much as art has more to do than just one painting that sells well. It has much more to do with how you connect to people and who you connect to. I believe it's good to let past customers or people interested in your art be remembered at different times of the year like at Christmas Holidays, Summer, Spring Break and the like. There is something special about an artist's connection with the people that admire their work. It's more personal than providing a necessary piece of home improvement. After all much of the time people connect to the artist as much as the artwork. I want to keep that connection going. MyArtClub: What feedback do you get from your website visitors? What feedback do you get on the emails that you send out? Jane: Actually I do not get many reply emails (less than 5% respond back) from my outbound emails from MyArtClub.Com. People are aware it's a group send out and even though I encourage feedback, I do not expect it. However I do not take this to mean that "my fans" so to speak do not like the piece or my work, or me as a person. The few emails I do get are mostly encouraging and kind. That keeps me sending more out. So thank you to those of you that have responded because art can be lonely without input. The fact that you can get feedback at a click of the mouse is great. A little goes a long way. All you need is one person saying "Hey that's the best piece you've done yet!" and you have enough motivation to do another (whether it sells or not). Others point out spelling errors and offer words of advice and that is also helpful. I make sure I respond back to thank them. Misspelled words and other errors seems one of the surest ways to look unprofessional so I really try to avoid that now. I keep the site updated with new images perhaps once a month or so. I try to keep the emails short, polite and informative with a personal little update or hello. I try not to send more than one or two [email] per month. It gets boring having to click to delete email too often. On top of that there is always an option to unsubscribe, so I do not worry that my emails are intrusive. Just the fact that people actually haven't opted to be deleted off the list of fans says quite a bit. In Part 2 of the article, Jane discusses how she generates traffic to her site. About Jane Appleby Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since spring 2000. She is program coordinator and past president of the Burnaby Artist Guild, as well as active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, Artfully Yours and the Burnaby Arts Council. Our thanks to Jane Appleby for her valuable contribution with this article. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #9 read more ...

Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since the spring of 2000. Jane's site has consistently attracted high numbers of visitors each month. So we sat down with Jane for an in-depth discussion on her approach to her website, and her thoughts generally about promoting her art successfully. On websites and promotion by artists MyArtClub: Do you have to spend a lot of time working on your website to have these levels of visitors? Jane: No - Only to put new images on it and a few shows or classes that come up. Again, a little goes a long way! MyArtClub: What are the main benefits to you of having your site? Jane: An Internet gallery is the main benefit. I believe it adds a certain degree of professionalism and enables some feedback. A belief in taking what I do seriously while maintaining the Internet gallery is also a part of this: it makes me feel more business savvy. Whether that helps I don't know. However "if you believe in yourself then so will others" - that's the motto I go by. It helps with sales too. As a side note the site has been more useful as a gallery than a chat room and that's what I prefer it to be. Even though no sales have been ordered through the site by email I must say it helps people make decisions on their art purchases; whether they are mine or not. Further it helps not to only judge your worth by the amount of sales you do. And if I am contributing to influencing people's perspective on visual arts than that in itself is satisfying. MyArtClub: You show 30 artworks on MyArtClub.Com. You have included some links to other sites. You are often in the MyArtClub.Com "Calendar of Events". Are there some things you do that you find create interest in your art more than others? Jane: I would say having more than 10 art works adds to the site as it gives a fuller range of what I do. The links help show the validity of belonging to an organization such as the Federation of Canadian Artists or a certain Gallery and that helps people know you are for real and not just a Cyber Being of some sort. Whether the links from the other sites help bring viewers I am not sure but again even if its one that's better than none. The "Calendar of Events" is there for those that come across it so it should be up to date however I think it's the mostly the art that keeps people coming back. So I guess it helps to have new work and photos that represent the work properly. I take the digital photo straight on, and then I crop and edit colours so that the painting looks as good as possible. If the painting is good but the picture is poor I get a better picture. For example: "Angels Among Us" was taken on slide film and then transferred to a disc by London Drugs. Even though they did a good job, the image worked much better taking it digitally in the first place. So I did not include the image till I got a better digital image from my camera. "Get the picture?" In Part 4 of the article, Jane provides a summary of her tips for artists. About Jane Appleby Jane Appleby has been an artist on MyArtClub.Com since spring 2000. She is program coordinator and past president of the Burnaby Artist Guild, as well as active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, Artfully Yours and the Burnaby Arts Council. Our thanks to Jane Appleby for her valuable contribution with this article. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #9 read more ...

This blog entry is one of a series of tips provided by MyArtClub.Com to assist artists get the most from their Internet Marketing efforts. How is your artist's email list? Do you have one? If the answer is no, then you need to start one today. In this report we will discuss how to build, manage and use email lists to your best advantage, using email tools available on websites from MyArtClub.Com. How do you collect and build an email list? The first obvious source is from the people who contact you by email - add them to your email list. But where else? If you are showing your art at an exhibition, provide a column in your guest book for an email address. Put a sign behind the guest book inviting people to add their name and email address. Indicate that in return you will send them an email when you have new works available for them to see on your website. Segment your email list so you can send really effective targeted messages. Do this by create several email lists. For example, create one for your family and friends. Create one for your list of galleries you want to interest in your work. Create one for your customers and prospective customers. Create one for those who are interested in your blog entries. Create one for your press releases. Many members of your email list may reside in multiple lists, it is important to maintain and use the lists. How often should you send emailsto your email list? If you are generating new content on a regular basis (such as Robert Genn's biweekly letter from the Painter's Keys) then you can send out an email to your email list as often as you generate this new content. If you create new art and have moved it to your website, then you can create an email to inform your email list of your new content. Think about send one email announcing your several works of art rather than a separate email for each work of art that you add. If you are using a blog to create content on the internet, send an email to those who would be interested. When sending out your email, be sure to select the appropriate list to receive the message. A word on spam. You should be cautious about how often you send out an email to your list. If you send emails every day or every week, people may decide that you are generating too much traffic in their in-box. Email providers may decide that you are junk mail and your email may be consigned to the junk mail folder. The email you send out to people should offer an opt-out option. In other words, if they no longer wish to be part of your email list, they should have the option to unsubscribe from your list. MyArtClub.Com services auto-generate this opt out message, making you look very professional! Send the email to each person individually or send it to yourself and blind carbon copy (BCC) everyone else. Do this for two reasons. First, no one wants to feel that they are getting an email where they are 1 of 200 on a list. Getting an email where they are not in a huge list feels like it is more personal. Second, if you are sending your whole email list in the TO: or CC: line, then you are sharing your email list with everyone else on your list. You may find your list becomes someone else's list! You're giving away your gold! If you use MyArtClub.Com email tool to send your notes, this service automatically ensures that the Send To field contains only one name per email. If you have questions or comments, please contact us at [email protected] or click on the link to reply to this blog entry. read more ...

So how do you use your domain name to build your brand? First of all, add it to all your content, everywhere. Where can you add it? Print it on your stationary. Print it on your brochures. Print it on your business cards. I don't know how many times I have been to an art show and looked at the business card of the artist which are on offer only to see that they have not included their website address. Does it work? You bet. One of our artists was painting in a public location and had plenty of visitors passing by his easel. Folks would stop to chat and he would hand out his card and invite them to visit his site. When he would go home at night and look at his site statistics, his web page hits were through the roof. Where else should you add your domain name? Add it to your emails. Add it to your press releases. And when you send out your emails to let people know about your activities or your latest work or where you'll be exhibiting, don't just have your domain name at the bottom of your email under you name. Add it as part of your message. Make it an invitation to see more of your work on your site. Make it a clickable link in your email so people can easily come to see your work. When your customers or prospects go to your page, invite them to bookmark your site so they can return to it again without having to remember your domain name. So you've issued the invitation to have people come to your site. When they get there, what do they see? Naturally it is all about the content. In the next blog, we'll discuss ways to make your site inviting so they stick around. read more ...

There are lots of easy ways to increase your traffic and build your customer base. Your own traffic building efforts will guarantee a huge difference to your site visits. Here are 6 top ways: Add more artwork. Most artists with more hits have more art on line. If you have unused art space on your website, fill it up, and enjoy more traffic. If you are not sure what to do, especially newer artists please don't hesitate to email the [email protected] for assistance. You can add more art at any time, and even add more art spaces as needed. Keep your art work current. Active artists change some of their images and information at least every couple months. It does not take long to keep your content up to date and the payoff is great. Visitors will return often to your site for more when they find it is changing! Invite your fans to see your work on line This is one of the key ways to increase your traffic, especially to easily keep in touch with your customers. After you load or reload an art work, use our "Notify Fans" feature to send an email with your personal comments and a direct link to the art image just loaded. Got some news you want to share? Let your network know! Update your mailing list. Your customer and network list is gold for you. If you send out emails (the fastest and least cost way to keep in touch) you need to keep your email list current. Load up your email list to your website by logging in to your site then click on "Market your artist site", then click on "Maintain your mailing list information." You can load up your email addresses either one at a time or in bulk. Contact us if you need any help. Use your web address. Three ideas for showing your website address (shown on your webpage, i.e. www.MyArtClub.Com/Joe.Smith): 1) at the bottom of all correspondence and email, 2) on all pamphlets or business cards and 3) on any listing of you as an artist, or art group. List your web page with search engines and directories. Listing your website and art work can increase your traffic especially for new customers. MyArtClub.Com has links on line to several free search engines and directories sources. Click on our "Links" page which is found from the main MyArtClub.Com page, on the right hand column under "Resources". This article first appeared in the My Art News Letter #12 read more ...

Whether your art marketing focus is to Show, Connect or Sell art to your fine art website visitors, the central point of an artist website must be your art images. Here are the basics to show your art in the best possible light, from a customer point of view. Show your art well: 1. Use a good photo of your art. Photograph the art directly, never through glass. Use natural indirect daylight (on a cloudy day is best) and use a tripod when shooting 2. Crop your images - do not show any portion of a frame, and if you over-crop, meaning cut off some of the original work, that is far better than leaving a distracting portion of background 3. Don't fret too much about adjusting image colours on the photo. Showing art online is like standing on the TV showroom floor - every screen has different settings- so even if it looks good on your screen, you have no control over how it looks elsewhere. Instead you invite customers to come to see the work in person. 4. Present a selection of images as smaller images, called "thumbnails" on your site and provide a way to expand each thumbnail to a full page view 5. Load internet sized, clear images. Customers will not wait for your image to load, so use an image around 100 kilobits (Kb) plus/minus 20Kb in file size to ensure reasonable loading times, and yet maintain high image clarity. Too small a file size and the image appears pixelated or fuzzy looking. 6. Let your art be the focus of the page. Don't distract with conflicting background colours, patterns or animations such as scrolling text 7. Minimize the clicks -  Make it easy for customers to navigation from one full page image to the next, or to see text on your art page 8. Change up your images regularly, keep your site current. Email your customers to let them know when new content is added. Connect to your customer 9. Tell the story - every artwork has a story - please tell it! Customers want to know more about the piece and about you the artist. 10. Give a story that helps the viewer relate to themselves. Imagine what your visitor would say if they showed this image to their friends and family. 11. Be sure your purpose comes through in your brief narrative to tell customers why you created this work, and how it connects to your central purpose in making art. 12. Use key words to describe your art, or your story that are preferred words for Google to pick up on. Search your topic on Google and see what words are going to best resonate with your audience. 13. Add links to relevant sites, blogs, that add more context to your narrative. 14. Insert a YouTube clip of you in your studio to add emotion and your personality to your art work comments. 15. Let your visitors make comments on your website and respond to them when they do. 16. Offer connections to social media, so customers can easily share the work with their contacts. 17. Let visitors sign up to follow your artistic progress Sell to your customer 18. Show prices online. Customers want this on your website. They want to know if they can afford the work, and they don't like to ask in person. Price your works with potential galleries in mind. 19. Give customers a "call to action". How about a discount if you order by Friday? 20. Provide copies for lower price ranges. Customers have been found to buy just about as many copies as originals. Offering say a limited edition at lower prices enables a wider range of buyers to sample your work, and start to get to know your work better. 21. Connect the art for sale to your ordering system. Your site should provide a clear and simple means for ordering online. 22. Make it clear how to contact you, and that you stand behind your sales. Offer a guarantee to limit the customer's perceived risk to buy. Outline your purchasing and delivery policies. 23. Provide options for gift sales - what if a gift receiver wanted to return it, or exchange it? Our fine art market customer survey report shows that customers purchase art to give to others almost as much as they buy for themselves. Your artist website should assist your art marketing efforts by enabling easy ways to accomplish most of the above. Much of this list can be quickly addressed for each additional artwork. Remember that you don't have to do this entire list - see our article about deciding what your website purpose is as a guide to what you may want to do. Typically start at the top of the list and work your way down. Do you your customers say "wow!" about your art? Do you agree these suggestions would help? Let us know how you wow your customers! read more ...

Artists do art marketing on Facebook and Twitter because customers are there. Facebook statistics shows today 800 million active users of which over 50% active on any given day. As of June 2011, users on Twitter are now averaging 200 million tweets per day. Click here to see wonderful detail on 2010 Facebook and Twitter user statistics and demographics. Your customers can easily interact with your posts on Facebook and twitter so you are more likely to get a reaction, to engage with them. Clients often post encouraging comments, and better still these comments can be seen by others. Even more powerful is sharing on Facebook and re-tweeting on Twitter. What happens is the person on your list is so engaged by your post that they share or re-tweet your post to let their own list of people see your post, usually with their own introductory remarks. Do a little calculation: since the average person has 130 contacts on Facebook, your message can go quite far with just a few of your friends sharing your posting. If say 5% were to share your posting, you could be seen by almost 1,000 people! As with any form of advertising, you do need repetition - not by sending the same thing over and over - but by sending out new content again and again. You must not raise this to the level of annoyance. For best results, try to not always focus on yourself, or sound to sound too overtly commercial. Think of posts to Facebook like having a conversation at a party. You would be left alone if all you talked about was yourself and your business. Share what you enjoy and what you think others would enjoy I have found some great tips are available for how to increase your engagement factor for your posts. The more you are shared, the more you can be seen. Here are a couple excellent examples: First, consider these great Twitter tips and Blog, Facebook and Twitter sharing ideas to improve your chances of more exposure when you write. This list is invaluable, providing insights into what works and what does not for your posts to be shared by others Second, think about our content. Artists have an advantage when it comes to creating content, as you have lots of original images, which is always a plus in any posting. And your readers want to know all about your creative genius! The MyArtClub.Com art marketing customer survey Canadian Fine Art Market Report found that 48% of fine art customers buy from artists they know, and that 58% want to buy directly to get to know the about you as an artist, and your art. Content is marketing, and marketing is all about stories. If you are stuck what to write about, this link to 6 Ways to Tell a Story With Your Content to help get you going. To save time for artists and keep all this promotional effort from being repetitive work, MyArtClub.Com has just launched a novel approach on MyArtClub.Com artists websites. Artists can now post art work to their website, and at the same time with very little added work promote the art by email, Facebook, and or Twitter as they choose. Click here for more Facebook or Twitter details. Would you please share this post with others? read more ...