The value of email as a marketing channel, how many times a day do you check your email, how much email do the big boys send, and some steps you can take today to get rolling with email marketing.
This is not the post I want to write right now.
Nope.
I would prefer to write about how you are going to grow your email list, how you are going to optimize for the email conversion, how you are going to measure email conversions with confirmation pages, how to setup confirmation pages, how to add those as goals to Google Analytics, how to write a great sales email, how to leverage autoresponders, how often you should be emailing, why you need to add all of your previous customers to your email list, etc, etc.
All of which we are going to cover.
Why?
Because email marketing art can be, will be, and should be one of your most valuable marketing channels.
Yet most folks in the art community either aren’t doing it, don’t do it enough, or are doing so incorrectly.
Therefor, I feel before I can write those posts, I need to get your buy-in and agreement that your email list and email marketing are really that valuable.
So permit me to make the case – I’ll show you what the big boys are doing, and attempt to give you a nudge into taking action today on kicking your email marketing into gear.
I mean it’s not like the holidays are coming up or anything right?
“They say…”
“They” like to talk a lot don’t they?
Normally what “they” say is:
- Email Marketing is dead and or its death is eminent
- There is so much SPAM out there that nobody reads email anymore
- Why waste your time on email marketing, everybody knows SEO is the most profitable channel
- Yeah right, everybody uses social media right now, email is dead as dead
- Content is king and as a result, content marketing is all you need to be doing
They are…
Let’s look at the hard stats. Of course I am going to cherry pick a few of my favorites.
If you are skeptical and prefer to do your own research, then I recommend you Google “email marketing as a channel” or “email marketing is dead”.
The Stats
Econsultancy ran a 2014 report and found…
Revenue from email has increased proportionately by 28% in one year.
Email marketing was ranked as the best channel in terms of return on investment, with 68% of companies rating the channel as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
On average, companies are attributing 23% of their total sales to the email marketing channel, compared to 18% in 2013. This equates to a proportionate rise of 28% in just one year.
These guys and these guys found similar results.
As well as many others — spoiler alert… they pretty much ALL come to the same conclusions. One last quote for good measure…
If you’re wondering why marketers seem intent on e-mailing you more and more, there’s a simple explanation: it works. E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined (exhibit). That’s because 91 percent of all US consumers still use e-mail daily,
[I am still massively bullish on Facebook – when done right – but those are the stats for most]
Email is so effective because it is permission-based. They know you and are bought in. And, with the prevalence of smartphones and tablets, they’re always listening. In fact, email is the number-one activity for people on their phones.
What about you?
How many times have you checked your email today?
The average person checks email 15 times a day
Mashable
Don’t believe the fancy pants experts? Well let’s look at ASF and see what our stats look like.
We are neither experts nor are we wearing fancy pants.
Traffic to the ASF Blog over the month of September 2015.
Let’s assume the combination of the experts and our own stats have you warming up to the importance of email marketing and email as a channel.
Let’s build upon that with what the big boys are doing.
The Big Boys
Lets define them as Art.com, Saatchi Art, and UGallery for the sake of this post and also simplicity. Three outfits that are all selling a ton of art online.
So how much email do they send?
In the month the September here was the frequency.
Art.com — 20
Saatchi Art — 7
uGallery — 9
20 a month sounds crazy right?
Wonder why these guys send so much email?
Its working, that’s why.
So it begs the question…
Whats next and what can I get started on today?
Let’s start with the basics.
Open a MailChimp account (or pick a provider of your choice).
Gather up all of your contacts’ email addresses: previous customers, email correspondence out of your personal account, all those business cards from your art shows, any old invoices you might have in shoe boxes. If they have interacted with you about your art at any point, add them to your list.
Start small. If you have never sent an email then send one. If you have sent one then send two. So on and so fourth.
There are a world of other things I can’t wait to blog about here next on this topic, so look for those coming in rapid succession.
Hopefully this post has you motivated to get started, and with the holiday season fast approaching there is no time to waste.
