Artdomain Art Marketing Blog

This blog post is about self-promotion and how few artists do this simple step to self-promote.  Now I know artists don’t like to blow their own trumpet…too crude, but so many artists miss opportunities to remind people that they are artists, that they have a place where you can view their art, and what kind of art they do. 

What am I talking about?  Email signatures, or lack of.

I get loads of emails from artists but very few use this fantastic self-promotion technique.

Why is it so good?  Well how many emails do you send out a week?  All these emails are opportunities to give info at the bottom of your email message.  It can be as simple as your name (useful if you are one of the many who don’t sign your emails!) and website address where the viewer can see your artwork (remember to start your web address http://www. so that it is clickable from the email message).

More useful would be to also add your email address - I know people can double click on an email from you and find this out, but this whole exercise is about making it easy for the viewer to know your contact details, rather than making them work for it!

“But I send out emails to my friends and relatives and they don’t want my self-promotion in their face! ”

They are exactly the people who you want (or need?) to remind that you are a practising professional artist…they are the ones that can give you a glowing promotion when a discussion of artists / art work comes up, and if you have an email signature they can easily find your contact details and pass them on.  Anyway most people soon get used to seeing an email signature so it becomes no big deal.

Here’s Artdomain’s signature:

___________________________________________
Artdomain.co.uk      -    Home of Original Art
Tel. 07932 474 285    International. +44 7932 474 285
Email.  art@artdomain.co.uk
http://www.ArtDomain.co.uk
Come and Join us on Facebook
___________________________________________

We also add our ‘real world’ mailing address when emailing out via our mailing list, as this is required by anti-spam law.

Ideally though, as an artist, you should also add a short tag line on what kind of art you do i.e. Stunning Contemporary Art or Original Landscape Art etc.  This is helpful as the viewer can easily understand what kind of art you do and has the sound bite when letting others know about you.  You can also add a bit at the end of the signature with your latest info i.e. Exhibiting at Blah Blah Gallery 30th May etc.

Artist Business Coach Alyson B Stanfield, in her excellent article Brand your Emails,  discusses the importance of building your identity, or brand of your business (you and your Art).  The reason it is important is it makes you more memorable….and more memorable is good in business.

Inspired to get that email signature set up on your email program?  Here’s a link on About.com where you can find out how to insert email signatures into most email applications.

What do you think about email signatures or branding for artists?  Leave comments below.