As the saying goes, 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" - and in a glass artists' business this translates to 'keep your existing customers informed and interested because they already like your work and have bought from you before - and are more likely to do so again'.
One of the ways you can keep your customers informed is by adding an automated newsletter feature to your website. This will allow you to generate a customer list of interested people. Start with something simple like a weekly photo of you at work, the latest piece you are working on, or a small piece of news about you and your business.
As for the actual technology, AWeber is excellent for email marketing and its quite a simple system to use - it starts from $19 per month for <500 subscribers. There are four really big benefits to using this system:
- You get access to lots of email newsletter templates you can use without any special knowledge of programming;
- It automatically manages subscription and unsubscription. This saves you time and saves your customers potential frustration in the case they want to subscribe.
- There are comprehensive step by step instructions on how to setup your new newsletter service;
- You can create 'auto-responders' i.e. automatic emails that are generated when a certain 'action' occurs. For a basic example: when you receive a new subscriber, it automatically sends them an email. And you can setup a number of autoresponders that follow on from each other.
So why take the time to develop a weekly email newsletter? Taking this approach you will gather a list of people who want to hear about what you have to say. This will create trust and even if they aren't looking to buy your work right now they will know exactly who to go to when they need that next birthday present or focal piece.
Its also a great way to keep in close touch with your existing customers and remind them of special services you offer and special promotions you have during the year to encourage more business.
If you start a newsletter, make sure you promote it front and centre on your website. AWeber provides you with tools to copy and paste the newsletter code to your website - its probably best to get your web developer to do this for you (it shouldn't take them any more than 30 mins unless you want special customisations) rather than mess around with it yourself (which could take hours!).
