Promoting your gallery on the Internet

Art Business News, July, 2004 by Murray Raphel

How do you communicate with your customers and potential customers? Perhaps you use newspaper, radio, TV or direct mail. Now, say "hello" to (and use) the fastest-growing marketing tool: the Internet.

Today more than 200 million people access the Internet (short for Interconnected Network). The Internet gives you two effective ways to do more business: e-mail and websites.

This month we'll discuss e-mail. Next month, we'll review websites.

Why E-Mail?

Seven out of 10 consumers request legitimate e-mail marketing messages, according to a survey by Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y.

Why is this advertising medium important for you? Sales from U.S. e-mail marketing is expected to reach $6.1 billion in 2008, up from $2.1 billion in 2003, according to Jupiter Research, Darien, Conn. Here are e-mail's three major advantages:

Less expensive. E-mail eliminates costs associated with postage, envelopes and paper.

Faster. E-mail messages are received immediately.

Effective. Special messages for specific customer groups are an important advantage of e-mail. For example, United Airlines knows that 7 percent of their customers make up 42 percent of their annual profit. It can identify them and give them special benefits. But how can it effectively communicate with the remaining 93 percent of its customers? E-mail, that's how. Using e-mail, United can offer special fares on its most traveled routes. It can cross-sell with other offers. And it can build these once-in-a-while customers to most-important customers inexpensively and efficiently with e-mail. E-mails are most effective when you remember that the customer is not just anyone, but that the customer is someone.

Examples of effective e-mails include invitations to attend a wine and cheese party to honor a visiting artist, or a special sale preview alert for regular customers, before newspaper ads appear.

Rules to Remember

Are there rules to follow that work well for e-mail? Absolutely.

1. Remember, people like e-mail. Nearly nine out of 10 business, say their e-mail is "one of their most successful marketing vehicles" according to BizRate.com.

2. Find ways to capture e-mail addresses. Ask for e-mail addresses on sign-ups, in your place of business, and in your regular mailings. "My goal: Collect 150 new e-mail names every month and send out a new e-mail message to this list every two weeks," says Donald Kelley, who operates three galleries in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

3. Don't forget to fill out the lines "subject" and "from." Many e-mail writers don't fill out the "subject" heading to say what they're writing about. If the reader sees nothing in this space they might easily assume that there is nothing to interest them. Think of the "subject" Dine as the all-important headline. The reader also wants to know "from whom" the e-mail is sent. If you don't tell them, they may quickly "delete" your message without reading further.

4. Include your name, phone and fax numbers, and web address. People like to know who is writing them and how they can contact you. This makes your e-mail more authentic. If your e-mail address or subject sound odd--or similar to a warning phrase about a computer virus--then your message could quickly disappear with the quick click of the "delete" button.

5. Write a headline at the start of your e-mail that promises a benefit or provokes curiosity. Your object is not only to stop the reader, but also to prompt him to keep reading. Remember that someone who reads the first 50 words of your message will probably read the next 200 words. Asking a question in the headline is a good attention-grabber, but you must answer it fast in the first paragraph, or you'll lose your reader.

6. Know what you want to say. This is like creating an effective headline in your direct mail or newspaper ad. Tell the audience up front what you're writing about. Make it interesting. Make it believable. And offer a benefit.

7. Begin the e-mail the same way you would begin other forms of advertising, including direct-mail letters, newspaper ads and radio commercials.

8. Write short, effective copy. The average person's attention span has decreased dramatically with the onslaught of messages received from all advertising media. Tim Sanders, Yahoo's chief solutions officer says, "The consumer encounters 3,000 marketing messages per day." Remember that when it comes to email, anything more than a single page is usually too much. The exception to this rule: a newsletter often requires two or more pages that customers will read, if they're interesting.

9. Check. And double check. Have someone else check your e-mail message for clarity. You will be surprised at how many times an objective reader will say to you, "What does this mean?" Or, "You spelled this wrong." Your search engine for "spelling" and "grammar" may not find all the words that you've written or used incorrectly.

10. Write in a "me-and-thee" manner. V There is a direct-marketing credo that says, "Writing effective copy is like writing a letter to your aunt Minnie." Your e-mail message should sound as though you're visiting your customer in their home and talking about something that interests them. Don't be afraid to use contractions because that's how people talk.