The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
342 - 5-Minute Mentoring: Why Artists Need an Email List
Remember a few months ago when Facebook and Instagram went down for a full day? Panic ensued!
While some users were upset they couldn’t share their Wordle results, others - especially business owners - suddenly realized that even though they may have a lot of followers on social media, their ability to communicate with those followers was out of their hands…and that made them feel really uncomfortable.
Social media is great, but the key to building a solid, reliable marketing strategy is to build your email list.
The truth is, email is king. When you have someone’s email address, you have the ability to develop a relationship with them. You control your ability to communicate with them - it’s not in the hands of Facebook or Instagram.
And to build your email list, you need to have an opt-in form on your website. Full stop.
In this episode of 5-Minute Mentoring, we’re talking about how to use an opt-in form to build your email list…and how I turned a $1600 investment in my email list into a $25,000+ launch of my new basketry course!
(Want to see the opt-in form in action? Click the first link below and sign up to receive my free guide, “The 5 Biggest Mistakes Artists Make When Pricing Their Art!”)
Could you use some guidance on how to build a business that helps you thrive spiritually, artistically, and financially? Here are 4 ways I can help:
1️⃣ Get my FREE Guide, “5 Biggest Mistakes Artists Make When Pricing Their Art”. Struggling to price your art in a way that feels authentic to you and your faith - but still makes you money? Make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes! Download here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/5-biggest-mistakes-when-pricing-art
2️⃣ Read the Book: Check out my book “How to Price Your Art: Pricing with Confidence for Sales & Profit” on Amazon ➡️ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XBP733
3️⃣ Create Art and Profit: Discover how to create the art you love while still providing for yourself financially in my “How to Price Your Art” workshop. Get more details here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/how-to-price-your-art-evergreen
4️⃣ Ready to truly thrive? Join the Created to Thrive Artist Mentoring Program to discover how to build your art business and live the abundant life Jesus promised you as an artist in His Kingdom! Click here for details and to enroll! ➡️ https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/artmentor.html
Connect with me online: https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/stay-connected
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Hey, my friend, have you ever wondered if it's worth it or not to have an opt-in form on your artist's website? Well, I'm going to tell you exactly why you should absolutely have one of those on there today here on 5-Minute Mentoring. Have you ever wanted to have someone in your life who you could ask real questions about your art, your business, and even your walk with the Lord? Well, that's exactly what we do every Friday here on Five Minute Mentoring, where I answer one question from one of my awesome podcast listeners in order to help you start really thriving as the artist you know God created you to be. Well, hey, my friends, so glad you're here with me today on 5-Minute Mentoring. You know when you go to a website and you see the little box come up or you see a form on there that says, hey, sign up for my free whatever it is, and you put your email in there and then you get an email back with a PDF download or a link to a resource online? That's called an opt-in form, and it means that you're giving someone the ability to opt-in or choose, rather, to trade their email address and their name and whatever other information of information, sometimes a cell phone number, for a piece of content or resource, a checklist or some sort of opportunity for them to learn something. It's a wonderful trade that we make in the online world in order to build our email lists. A lot of times artists are, you know, a little behind the eight ball when it comes to marketing. There's like, I just want to be in the studio and making my stuff. But I want to tell you that having an opt-in on your website is a huge way for you to begin to build connection with your clients, begin to build a relationship with them so that you can have them on your email list and continue to contact them over time. I don't know if you were around in the art marketing world not long ago when Facebook and Instagram shut down for a day and the whole world went, oh my gosh, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? Well, listen, all of us that had email lists were not freaking out, but all the artists out there who were just contacting people through Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest and all that, they were freaking out because they realized, hey, I might have a lot of followers, but I don't have people on my email list. Listen, email is king. When you have somebody's email address, you control your ability to be able to send them marketing messages, develop relationship with them, point them in the direction that you want them to go. Now, a lot of you may think, well, Matt, you're doing stuff on such a much larger level than I am. You know, I don't even know I could start something like that. Listen, you can totally do it. In fact, if you use MailChimp or something, you know, Constant Contact or ActiveCampaign or, you know, so many different ones that are out there, ConvertKit, so many of the email program platforms out there nowadays give you the ability to create a landing page completely separate from your website. or the ability to create an opt-in form right there for your website and have the ability to embed that onto your website so that you can easily give people a free PDF or an image download or a link to another resource or a workshop or webinar or whatever it is that you want them to do. That is a huge way, just kind of a no-brainer. for you to add that sitting out there on your website and begin to develop some traffic and some connection. Now, what do you put on it? Well, obviously, You want to give whoever you're asking to opt in something that they will find unique, something they'll find desirable, something that they will find informational, and really a game changer for them. So on Matt and Tommy Mentoring, we have all kinds of downloads for Christian artists. On my basketry website, I have one that's called Seven Tips for Making Baskets with Natural Materials. And it's about a 15-page PDF that I put together in Canva. Super easy. but it's something that my basket people want. It's something that they're looking for based on my experience of walking with that community over the years. And so it's a great, great opt-in. Now, here's where this becomes really magic. I have started kind of revamping what I'm doing in my basketry. You know, over the years I've done mostly commissioned work, gallery sales, you know, that sort of thing. But in this iteration and season of my life where I'm focused mostly on mentoring artists, I said, you know what? I don't want to let my baskets just go to the side. I'm still making, obviously, but not as much as I used to. I want to do a class. I want to begin to get my knowledge out there about basketry. So guess what I did? I developed that opt-in and I put it out there on my website. I put it out there on social media. Well, guess what? Within a few months, I had over 1,200 different opt-ins on that email list for interest in classes. Now, I was like, whoa, this is huge. So what did I do? I got myself together and I got a friend of mine to come over and we videoed a whole day class of me teaching a basketry course. And I put together some bonuses for it. Long story short, it cost me me$1,600 to put that course together with him coming out and filming and editing and all that kind of stuff. I took that$1,600 investment, put it in that course. I got all my emails together from my opt-in page. And guess what I did? I sent him an email and I said, hey, I got a new course that's coming out. If you'd be interested, I'm going to be putting it out in a couple of weeks. Just let me know. Well, guess what? Everybody was like, oh, yes, I want to know. I want to know. Yeah, this is so great, so great. And again, these are all people that have just opted in on my website. Well, right now, I'm actually in the middle of coming toward the end of launching that little course. No fancy ads. I'm not spending money on anything. Just a few Facebook posts organically, Instagram posts, and emails to the people who signed up on my opt-in list on my basket website. Y'all. Listen, yesterday we crossed 100 purchases for$197 a piece, all right? We're probably going to cross probably 12% to 15% conversion rate on this. We're talking in the neighborhood of over$25,000, all right? Now, I don't know about you, but in my world, that's a pretty good return. I spent$1,500, I put an opt-in on my page, and I gained$20,000. Are you kidding me? Come on. Now, listen, anybody can do this, but it's just about being intentional with the things that you're doing in your marketing, not just hoping people are going to buy your work, not just hoping people are going to contact you through social media, actually putting a way on your website for them to contact you so that you can build a relationship with them and you can continue to offer the things that you have to offer in the marketplace. Listen, I hope you'll try this. I hope you'll let me know if you do. We see artists who are in our mentoring program do this all the time and it has huge, huge results along with all the other great marketing things that we teach inside Created to Thrive in order to equip you to be the entrepreneur and the artist that God's called you to be. Hey, I love you, my friend. I hope you'll try that and I can't wait to see your results. I'll see you next time and remember you were created to thrive. Bye. Hey, my friend, it's Matt. Listen, real quick before you go, I want to tell you about something called Jumpstart that is coming up Friday, April 29th. It's a lot. It's a juggling act. And for a lot of people, it can be absolutely overwhelming. Well, you know, there's a wonderful opportunity that's coming up. It's a one day interactive workshop where I'm actually going to walk you through step by step exactly what to do to get started in your art business or to take your art business to the next level, regardless of where you currently are, whether you're just starting out in the middle or been doing it for years and years. I'm going to actually show you how to do that. show you a simple, clear pathway for the purpose that God's given you, actually clarify God's plan for your life and for your art. I'm going to begin to show you how to attract and convert prospects into clients so that you can begin to build that faithful income stream that we all want so that we can have the time, energy, and money to do the thing that God's called us to do. I'm going to be talking about websites. I'm going to be talking about marketing. I'm about developing a schedule that works for you so that you can get in the studio and actually doing the thing that God has called you to do as an artist. Listen, we're going to be doing all of that over six hours together. It's going to be an incredible time. It's just one day. Invest one day, six hours, and it's going to make a huge difference in your life and in your journey. And the best part is it's online. So no matter where you are in the world, you can participate. So click the link that's right here in the show notes. You can find all about Jumpstart. You can plan on joining us. Space is limited, so make sure that you register today so that you can join us on April 29th all day for Jumpstart. All right, hope to see you there. Bye.