Email Lists -- How Do You Use Yours?

I use the format FAA provides. Sometimes I send out blog entries, with a promotion or two related to the blog.

Other times I use them to promote new work I have recently done. =)

Angela, Thanks for the info. I just thought it was an email list and didn't know they had a format -- nice. How often would you recommend sending? Once a month? Any particular time of the month? I don't want to drive people crazy, yet if they're interested enough to sign up, I want to give them some content.

Liora, I send out email campaigns every three to four weeks. I am happy to share them with other artists just send me an email address where you would like to receive it. It just needs to be an email other than on FAA, can't figure out how to send it to an FAA email.

The email campaign is one of the best tools on the site for marketing.

Thanks, Michael! Will do.

I try to do it monthly, but I don't always remember.

Ya, I don't want to drive anyone crazy either. ;)

Liora, really cool feature. My FAA list is just beginning to build up. I have a large e-mail list from my homepage..Anyhow, I thought of a way to wish everyone a Happy Holiday season, and posted a Discount Code for holiday gift giving. I try to avoid at all cost being a PITA (pain in the ass) and I ended my email with "I thank you for a moment of your time" ...as not to look like a spammer. Like Angelina said, ya definitely don't want to drive them nuts. I attached 3 recent uploaded images. One of my customers on the list already used the discount code and ordered a 40 x 26 print.

Nice, Thomas! I'd think monthly to every six weeks shouldn't make anyone crazy if they remember they opted in for the email and can opt out. Michael just sent me some samples of his previous emails, and they are great -- a friendly, conversational tone that doesn't feel spammy. That sounds like what you're doing, too.

You know, the only issue I have with going through FAA is that I sell on many sites. I like my domain (www.liorahess.com) to be my hub, so to speak. It keeps the look/brand unified. So if I create a link on my domain to "sign up for the email newsletter," it takes it to FAA, which is a completely different look.

I have the same issue with the blog here. I keep my own blog on my domain, and I like it that way. So if I have a shopper at FAA, I would like to be able to redirect that blog link at the top to my blog rather than have it simply showing "no blogs."

Any suggestions?

There are independent email campaign programs you can purchase or subscribe to.

I did a little Googling, and it looks like there are pros and cons to having FAA manage it and managing it yourself. There are some free programs, but there's the concern that research time would be needed to determine they're safe and won't be exporting customer addresses to some spam list. That would be a nightmare. For now, I think I'll stick with FAA or do it manually for a while.