A.S.K. 3:   Our Marketing Success Plan

If you’re ready to begin using the Artist Survival Kit, then a solid plan and follow-through are vital.

What you’ll find below is a process that has been gathered from our own customers over the years, seminars and training we’ve attended, and a lot of research and reading. It also includes ideas from our own experiences. This list is not necessarily a step-by-step manual, but rather more of a checklist. Many parts of the process can be accomplished simultaneously. When you’re ready to jump in, call us and ASK for more details, 800-999-8084.

Pick a product to sell in your promotion

• Contact us to discuss your product choice.
• Find out the pros and cons of the product.
• Figure out the appropriate size print for your market.
• Get the pricing for this product.
• Discuss how orders are submitted, file prep, testing, production, and shipping info.

Come up with a campaign theme

• It’s best if you have a “hook” to hang the promo on. 
• Something catchy is best, something that stands out and creates an emotional response.
• Your theme should be relevant, relatable, and timely.

Evaluate your email list

• Are they already collectors? Or are some just interested followers who haven’t made a purchase yet?
• If you have both on your list, you should probably treat them differently. Use two campaigns with different messaging. A proven collector will already know you and knows what to expect. The casually-interested follower usually requires more “romancing”.

Plan your email sequence

• If you don’t have an email service such as Mailchimp, you should look for one and get your contact list uploaded ASAP to the email service.
• An email campaign should be planned as a sequence of emails. Rarely do people purchase from the first email sent out unless there is already a strong familiarity with you. 
• This is an absolute must: Come up with a good subject line! It doesn’t matter how awesome your email copy is if they don’t open it and read it. Use the resources we have provided to get examples of good subject lines.
• A popular marketing phase is, “Stories Sell”, so use this concept in your emails. What is the story you are trying to tell with your campaign? Put yourself in your client’s shoes and ask yourself what needs they might have at this time that you can fulfill. Do they need new decor in a drab home office? Is there an upcoming gift season that they may not be able to get out and shop for? Or maybe they just have an urge to buy something beautiful? Touch on that need and build a story over several emails.
• It’s also important to keep the writing style conversational and personal. Write your emails like you are talking to them. No one likes “sales-speak”.
• Another concept in marketing is “Reciprocity”.  Generally, this means that if you give something to a person, they are more likely to give back to you; they feel obligated. For example, in your first email you could give them a low-res image to be used as a screen background — with no mention of the promo at all! The opportunity for them to make a purchase comes in a followup email (after they’ve been enjoying their free image,) or possibly as an up-sell when they download the image.

Run your campaign

• Plan on testing your promo. Send it out to a sampling to your group, preferably two different subject lines or email content. See what the open rates are. See if they follow your call to action.
• Send to your whole list (or your different groups.) Study the metrics of how many opens you generated, how many went to your site, etc. Make changes as necessary.
• Plan on running the campaign again at a later date. Reuse your campaigns. Switch out images or themes to keep them fresh.

 Place your orders!

• Collect the orders and submit them to us in bulk. Bulk ordering is one way we are able to keep our promo product prices affordable.
• If you have a long-running promo, keep a close watch on your promised delivery dates. For instance, if your promo runs for a couple of weeks, you might take the first week’s worth of orders and submit them to us for production and follow up with another order when the promo ends.
• If you provide us with your customers’ shipping info, we can package and drop-ship orders directly to them.