Email Marketing Versus Blogging

Honestly, I don't see much difference between the two. A proper email marketing an artist's product to be effective is going to have to tell a story. At the end of the day, it will look a lot like a blog post. One advantage though of an email is that it pushes the content to the reader, whereas a blog post not so much. Also, people often forget that email is (I believe) still bigger than the internet.

Jeff,

I thin you have a distinct advantage about blogging, since your "knowledge" base is very specific and actually even more specifically "seasonal". Most artists here are more "generalists" and know stuff about cameras, lenses, DOF,etc., like a few million other bloggers. So my question to you, is this, how does an average artist create and build a blog, that attracts followers, if they don't have that "hook" you have?

Rich

Much prefer blogging over emails. I get people emails and rarely read them :-|

If you are going to have a blog one use of it should be to get people to sign up for an email list. Blogging is great if people find it and you can keep it updated often enough to keep people coming back. It’s not an either/or, they work well together.

Adam, I never said it's an either or... but I struggle with emails because I don't like selling so much. With my blog which for those who don't know, is about New England Fall Foliage. I talk to people about my passion which is the fall colors.

Rich this ties into your question which we've talked about but for each person it's different. With you I would assume your passion is vintage cars.
You could blog about all vintage cars and that while general is still a niche. The areas I see you writing about are past events you've attended, future ones and cars you have photographed. Is there a white whale that you have wanted to photograph? What makes a vintage car? How do you photograph a car? What do you do about reflections?

I could come up with more but that is more than 10-20 articles right there and more. One article does not need to answer all the questions. It talks to one specific question.
Are there a ton (like hundreds) of blogs on this subject? Then how can you make it different?

Then you begin writing...
God willing people who search for 68 mustang's will find you or a 29 Mercedes-Benz S Barker Toure...
They will find your article. You will have your images showing it off with links back to the car here on your AW.
Rich I hope that helps

MG. I know what you mean. I have about 2,100 subscribers and they trickle in each year. I have about 173 subscribers here on FAA but I rarely write to them because I dont know what they want to hear?? Do they want to hear about a sale? The fall colors, what I just had for breakfast?

I just don't know.

Does this help?

email marketing is spam. that's the only way i can put it. its forcing your message onto people. and while you might get clicks or sales from it. if you do it too often, your hated. like right now i get mail from companies, sale here or there, and its ok. i signed up for it. but, right now its like every day i get it, and its super annoying. plus you need to be a graphics person to make attractive.

blogging, shares info, its passive. you'll get a better ranking in google because of links and such, but i don't think you'll get a lot of sales. it depends on what the page is about and who it attracts. if i blogged it would be about my photos. it would probably end up attracting non paying photographers. i'm not sure how many do buy because you do have a blog. but you can become the authority on a subject, and that may lead to other things. but a blog, you have to keep up to date, at least once a week. people expect content, often hourly, which it then becomes a full time job.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

You have a better atvantage when you add a mailing list to your blogging, because then you push your blog message to your audience. WordPress.com has a built in subscribe wigit which sends an email to your blog subscribers if they choose. I think Blogger is doing this too now. Though I still have a separate list for customers who I send them a message separate from a blog post.

See what Barney Davey says https://artmarketingnews.com/small-mighty-list

Sorry, trigger finger, I have to make a new post for the link to be active.

Barney also says a blog helps to grow your list, though I've used my list to grow my blog as well.

https://artmarketingnews.com/why-artists-should-blog/

Jeff,

Thanks for the "recipe"! And a light bulb just went on in my dusty little braincase! I think I now know WHAT and HOW I'll do this blog thing! Does Wordpress have a "template" type blog choice? I have an old one and haven't really done anything with it, but don't remember how I got it going......

Thanks again for your help!

Rich

Interesting thoughts, Jeff, but let me play devil's advocate on one point.

To Rich you recommend blogging about how to photograph a car, what to do about reflections, etc. Those articles target other photographers and typically, that is not a market for sales. Where is the profit in that? How does one get to people who want to buy art to decorate a wall?

Dan,

Yepper, not really what I would want to do, give away the "family secrets"!!! Main reason I haven't started any blogs, needed a "hook" like Jeff and others have. But as mentioned, I think I just had a "moment"! and might have an idea, but will keep it secret until I can grab a domain name and get Wordpress locked in.

Do you have a blog? On Wordpress?

Rich

Rich and Dan it maybe photographers who you feel may come along and poach your ideas but I'm betting that many more "newbies" are looking for help, ideas, and venues to visit.

If you look at my blog (jeff-foliage.com) it has locations for beginners to photo pros. The pros do email me and I answer them just like the rank beginners. Of course many times I will tell the pros that ask for a location by state listing of all the best places... ;-) i will usually tell them I'm very busy and send them some links for them to sift through. Whether they do or not is on them.
But i do not limit what i offer.

Blogging needs to be helpful to the many and yes you may help some other photographers. Let's face it, if they are looking for help then they are not real competition.
But you can always leave it light on the tech details.
Like Mike has said. He feels only photographers come to his blog... that would be a real money maker... imagine if he would detail the history of the image and give a detail away or two BUT if you want the full package reveal then purchase my DVD set!!!
Sometime you can make a lot more money on instruction then actual prints... I mean how many will actually master those techniques?

Just IMHO

Rich, the idea of sharing your secrets about photography, can be compared to a chef sharing how they make a dish even though you often their restaurant. It shows that you have the skills and how you tweak it to your style. I also share on my blog the artists I admire most and that gets a lot of activity and shares. During the Christmas season I've shared through my mailing list my Favorites page and directed my subscribers to artwork they might like that is unlike mine, this resulted in my key collectors to click open my mails right away, and an uptick in new list subscribers as well .. you need to be a resource for them and not all about you.

You ask about Wordpress. WordPress, and the hosted version WordPress.com, have evolved from a blogging platform to a website platform. Many blogs get lost in the SEO from WP because of this. https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/hosting/cms/wordpress-the-cms-for-more-than-just-blogs/

An interesting thing, Automattic who owns WordPress just bought Tumblr. So I would say once they get things set up, how they are going to organize it, if you are just going to post a picture and caption to go the Tumblr route. Unlike Jeff who does full blown articles. Here is my Tumber that I'm testing (the themes can get tricky from one to the next whether you are posting a link or an image as you might see) https://frankjcasella.tumblr.com

When it comes to using a mailing list, here is a good article that I like to share from BenchmarkEmail.com (one of my favorite tools, though I use this only for my nonprofit now) https://blog.benchmarkemail.com/growing-list-blog

Everyone it seems is getting into the mailing list / blogging combo bandwagon, and LinkedIn is the latest: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/97500

On a personal note, if this is helpful, I have used many blog platforms from WordPress.com to Ipernity.com, and I've pretty much settled on the Blogs here with our premium sites, because it's all about getting people to see your message/stuff. Many of the artist coaches I have talked with all say the key is to own your distribution (list), so as long as I protect my subscribers then I can tell them were to find my stuff. I use the FAA email campaign tool mostly, and the people who want to go more personal subscribe to my Tinyletter list:
https://tinyletter.com/frankjcasella

Hope this provides you some ideas to sort out. Enjoy your day.

Frank

EDIT: I'm not on Instagram, nor Facebook. And I'm intentional about what I do with Twitter or (mostly) not. So my blog/mailing list is my bread and butter, as they say.

Jeff (and Rich)

@Jeff:
"Rich and Dan it maybe photographers who you feel may come along and poach your ideas but I'm betting that many more "newbies" are looking for help, ideas, and venues to visit."

Either you're missing my point Jeff, or I have missed the point altogether. I guess I don't know what Rich wants - to sell his pictures or distribute his knowledge.

I am not talking about poaching, secrets or anything else. My comment was strictly about market targets. You suggested he blog about technical things of interest to other photographers. The point I was trying to make was that if a person is here on FAA and the goal is to sell their art, you have less of a chance to sell if you target a demographic that typically buys less (other artists, other photographers) than you do if your marketing target is the person who want to buy art to decorate with.

Rich,

Sorry, did not see the question. Yes I have a blog. Self-hosted on Wordpress. But unfortunately, I do not maintain it. thefineartplace.com The theme I use is Twenty Seventeen

Jeff,

Yes, as you know, I DO enjoy sharing what I've learned over the years, have many posts here for that very concept. Not too concerned that somebody is going to learn how I shoot and then take over my "market", which right now is mostly mugs and tee shirts! LOL!

Creating images of cars isn't anything that can't be taught in a few lessons, since "seeing" is another thing altogether. Am working on a concept as we speak and will let you know when I'm ready with it and have a few loose ends tied up,

Frank,

Thanks for jumping in, good info and may try some of that, especially the FAA blog that you mentioned.

Dan,

Rich wants to SELL STUFF!!! LOL! I've helped/taught people for years, here and locally, mostly at the local Art House and the YMCA, teaching Hot To stuff and enjoy doing that, but it don't pay the bills! Had a couple of Seminars at the local Library with over 100+ people showing up, so that's always fun!

The bottom line though is to increase sales, where I feel it should be and that is the focus. I've had some political blogs, on and off, but not as consistent as should be,

Rich

They just shut down Antelope Canyon to photography tours due to over demand.

The problem these days is a spot gets exposed on social media and the sheep flock to it.

....

I blog about my work, sometimes give tips on selling artwork and updates on my pinball restoration projects. - https://www.dogfordstudios.com/

@Edward
"They just shut down Antelope Canyon to photography tours due to over demand"

Hate to say it, but being honest I must say good! I have said for years if I see one more pic of that shaft of light coming down thru the rocks I'm gonna' gag. I don't think there is even more pictures of flowers on the net than that shaft of light.

@Edward
"I blog about my ...pinball restoration projects"

Off topic, but OMG. Didn't know you did that. I used to be partner and operator of a pinball arcade in North Hollywood (Los Angeles - San Fernando Valley). I once won a city-wide championship on Fireball. Gonna' have to see what you got!

Well Ed, I dont know what to do with that.
I've never been to those caves so apparently I've missed out.

Blogging is for me, a means to Express my art by sharing what I've found and yes where I found it.

Either way blogging is a good way for people to connect with us and hopefully a few will take my art home with them.
If that happens then I'm successful.

Morning!

Here's what I did this morning and would like some advice. 99% of my car stuff is photographed at the local Longwood Car Show, here in Central Florida. Good show and 200-300 cars most shows. From clunkers to 6 figure cars and more. I used to take the images and then the following month, hand out for FREE, a 4x6" print of their car or truck, with my web site: Rich Franco Cars.Com on it. Got few purchases from that program, sold some image files, but not much more.

Now, inspired by Jeff and others here, will begin to blog and maybe get another web site up and running. Ideally, would like to use the new domains I just bought and point to my AW or more specifically to a single "collection" if I could, need to find out if I can do that.

Anywho, here's the 2 new domain names I purchased this morning:

1. longwoodcarshows.com
2. centralfloridacarshows.com

Here's my question, should I use the broader Central Florida Car Shows or the more specific Longwood car shows, since I'll continue to concentrate on the Longwood show in the future?

Thanks,

Rich

Yes you can point to a collection Rich, examples:

photos.frankjcasella.com
blog.frankjcasella.com
homewood1day.frankjcasella.com

Also, you mentioned in a previous post using the FAA blogs. Here is my thread on the subject:
https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=3875066

Frank,

So let me make sure I understand you about "pointing" to a separate collection. I'm already "pointing" richfrancocars.com to my AW, but that includes all my other stuff too, non-car stuff. Can I now ALSO point a new domain name, say Longwoodcarshows.com to my collection "Longwood Cars Shows" too and not create any confusion using 2 domains within the artist website?

This would be IDEAL if I could do this!

Rich

p.s. Where do you create a blog on FAA?

Yes, Rich, by pointing what I mean is forwarding. I don't connect the domain to the collection but use the domain sort of like a memorable short link for those intersted to find the page faster.

With regards to create a blog on FAA. You go to the BTS and under Public Profile you'll find the button for blogs. And under Marketing you find the button for the email campaign tool. Since the blogs on FAA are text only, and the blogs on our premium site use HTML, I prefer to set up the blog on our premium site and then, onece I publish the post, put the URL into the 'more information' button on the FAA side. In other words, once I hit publish on the premium blog, I copy the URL and then go back to the edit screen and put the URL into the website field provided. This will activate the "more information' button on the FAA side so that when clicked it will bring the reader to the hot links on the premium site. Much easier done than I'm saying it. You can find the HTML tools in the email campaign when you click on 'create a new email'.

Example of my faa blog with the button: https://fineartamerica.com/blogs/weekly-feature-l-evated-train-platform-chicago-illinois-by-frank-j-casella.html

Frank,

Yes does seem a bit complicated right now, but will look at this a bit later, need to finish a bunch of uploads before that. Again, WHAt is the advantage of using the AW Blog over Blogger or Wordpress.....just the cost? How about features....???

Rich

Rich, the advantage I find mostly using the AW blog is that when I bring my audience to read it, they often start clicking around my AW site. Also, my blogs are found on the first couple pages of search, mostly on Bing and DuckDuckGo. I also, by the way, copy one blog post to two or three different platforms (AW blog, LinkedIn, Tumblr) over the time frame of a week.

Yes, the cost, free, is mostly the AW blog and Tumblr. But if you're thinking of using Blogger not only for free, but for SEO, it (Google) doesn't work like it used to.

https://pixels.com/showmessages.php?messageid=3932920

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=3932920

I will admit frank has several points on his FAA blog but his blog has a serious failure. It only works as he says for those people he sends to it.

It is unsearchable. I wish it were not true but I have searched for the few articles that I wrote years ago and nothing.

I want my blog to work 24/7/365 for me. I cleared 150,000 views this year. I do leave bread crumbs here and there but people find me when they search for New England fall foliage, fall colors or whatever. If the only way that people find it is if I have to tell people where it is, then it is a business card and nothing more.

Sorry frank, I know your way works for you but I worked it from my direction. I built my social media up in conjunction with my blog and this is fairly useful to me.

Tomorrow I will try to post my thoughts on sending traffic from each of those blogs to a collection on Rich's AW...

Tired and must sleep

Yes, Jeff, you are correct. I don't care to play the social media game. My work I realize is not for everyone, so I'd rather have a lean list of people interested in what I have to say than chase after a wider audience .... when the people who subscribe share what I do with like minded others, and I see new subscribers all the time. This is the whole topic of your original post on this thread. Though I don't think we should say email marketing vs. blogging, but, rather email marketing AND blogging.

Which reminds me, I meant to ask you: I see your WP blog posts on LinkedIn. I get your FAA mails in my inbox. So why are you not sharing each of your WP blog posts through your faa mail tool? It could be as simple as a paragraph and a link, or just copy and paste the entire blog post into the email (most people who open mails on mobile don't like to click links and would rather just read the whole article) ... you can share up to four images on the side panel of the email, plus the link to your profile page auto posts at the bottom of the email. I think your loosing out on developing relationships and trust with the people who subscribe to see what you do and have to say.

Which reminds me also that I needed to change my address on your list. ...

Here is a nice article how to incorporate newsletters with your wp.com blog https://en.support.wordpress.com/subscriptions-and-newsletters/

EDIT: at the link it suggests two email service providers, I think a better option for artists at this time is Tinyletter.com (which is a mailchimp product).

I can live with the email Marketing (EM) and Blogging because as the article says they are both similar in nature and purpose.
I will look at the link you shared. I do like EM because it protects your email address from spamming. I would you the FAA EM newsletter but it is so clunky as to be too much work. I could copy and paste the text blocks from WP into the FAA EM newsletter but links get downsized and look funny. If Sean had a team of people to recode it, so it accepted pictures where I want them then I would be happier.

I could go and use mail chimp but they kept pushing real hard for me to buy a plan even though I was well below the 2500 email addresses. I think I have around 172 addresses. Versus the 2,150 subscribers for my blog.
After the holidays, I need to work this a bit more...

I'm with Mike on this one. Whenever I've signed up with some company for whatever reason all of a sudden my inbox is inundated with emails from them. I then cant unsubscribe fast enough, usually also adding them to a blocked list for good measure. I don't ever want to be THAT guy who's spamming everyone in hopes of making an occasional sale.

I am trying hard to get back into regular blogging as that's where the majority of my non-workshop related income has come from. Whether it's for the NH lottery, NH Tourism, as well as several books magazines and websites, 99%+ of them have found me via my Wordpress blog. I do have a subscription option on the blog, with only receiving an email when I write a new article, not 2-3 times a day.

" I would you the FAA EM newsletter but it is so clunky as to be too much work." I've concluded it is what it is, Jeff, and after using blogs and mailing list services by the dozens, have concluded what we have here is a part of the premium package and, because the price is right, figured out how to make it work (for me). Every platform has its issues, and we just have to decide what of them we'll tolerate. Whether its a blog, mailing list, or social media, we post and share with our followers. ... and if you think about it, email is the original social media, and it doesn't seem to be going away soon. https://www.fastcompany.com/1551727/email-original-social-media

Yes, I know about the nagging of MailChimp (which is most clunky of them all ) which I why I prefer TinyLetter. https://tinyletter.com/site/about/

And Frank et all, this is both the trick and the curse of both email Marketing (EM) and blogging.

I think I do a great job with blogging and like Jeff S. It brings me clients.

The problem with EM is that I always feel like I'm selling. And i know people dont want to be sold to. Everyone here gets anxious when you walk into a store and 1-3 sales people start walking your way.

Of course try finding a sales person when you need help but that is another issue..

The one thing I have looked for in vain is a method and formula that details step by step what to put in the email that will encourage people to open the message and encourage them to read it.

Anyone who has this answer wants to charge for it...

Blogging has similar issues. You can write wonderful content but have a weak title and opening line and again few will read it.
But with my blog people come to me with questions and I try to help them. I encourage questions and they hopefully tell others. Social media helps in this.

So I would love to hear some great stories of sales generating emails... :-)

Jeff - e-mail marketing / lists are about selling, yes, but more about telling stories and developing trust. No different than a blog, just a different medium. The is an old idea that email marketing is about spamming ... it has been improved, and now it is known as permission marketing. Where the subscriber gives you permission to talk to them, or they unsubscribe.

It too is all about the subject line / title .. but it better say what is inside or you wont find click opens in the future. What I usually do, and I know others do this as well, is follow some good mailing lists, and them copy / paste their content into my email and tweak it to my subscribers needs. I have even seen some here from FAA copy my blog posts and email them out with their name and links on it.

https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/e-mail/e-mail-marketing/successful-customer-retention-with-newsletter-marketing/

https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/e-mail/e-mail-marketing/creating-the-perfect-newsletter-subject-line/

https://artmarketingnews.com/build-email-list/

https://artmarketingnews.com/email-marketing/

By the way, this thread got me to thinking about one of my favorite blog posts by the co-founder of WordPress. Hope you find it as helpful as I have since it was posted.

https://ma.tt/2014/01/intrinsic-blogging/

in sum, whats the difference between setting up own website with wordpress or other and creating blog such as blogspot.
can both create galleries and generate sales through websites?

Yes, Robert, there are several of our colleagues who use Blogger, or Tumblr, and either their website or link to as a blog. Below are some examples, some of them even use a custom domain name.

https://thedailychalkboard.tumblr.com

https://nythroughthelens.com/


http://blog.juergenrothphotography.com

Personally, I prefer Tumblr over Blogger because I think it is a platform more for artists, and Google is creepy to me.

https://donttrack.us

I have used blogger but find it very limited. Also there is a respect if you have a website but if I see that you have a blogger then I usually say, isn't that cute...
Tumblr isn't really worth talking about.
The idea of your blog is to give confidence in your content. Your choice is the method.