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Introducing a better way to promote an art exhibit.

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I have a lot of experience promoting man pointing at a painting on a pop-up gallery, while other patrons look onart.
The trick is to get people to come to the gallery.
And usually that involves planning events and parties revolving around the art.
The problem is that people show up in droves for art openings, but once the opening reception is over it’s hard to get people to stop by and keep looking.
Phil Noll is a nature photographer who has an exhibit at the Karen Wray Gallery in Los Alamos, NM.
When people walk in they are stunned by his photos. And they have a million questions about how he managed to capture those images.
So we planned a walkthrough of the exhibit and Q&A session with the artist.
We wrote an article that was published in both of the local papers (one paper published it a few days before the event, the other one delivered it hours before the event). We sent the article out as an email blast. And we shared the email blast on the gallery Facebook page.
Plus Phil shared it several times on his personal page.
We had no idea how many people to expect. I have to admit, I was a little nervous while I waited for 5:00 to arrive. (But I always get a little jittery before events… I want to know that my press releases brought in lots of people!)
We were all pleased when people started to arrive. The main room was packed full of people. There may have been more people at this event than there were at the opening reception.
(That gives me an important clue about the market we’re in. Los Alamos is full of well-educated… and well-off… scientific types. They want to LEARN stuff.)
Once the room was full Phil went from photo to photo and told the story of how he got that image. He gave tips on using the camera, told stories about getting stuck knee deep in snow or mud, revealed his secrets about how he achieved special effects, and he did his best to explain why the light looked so incredible in some of the photos.
My favorite part was how he told us how often there were 50-60 other photographers herding around a certain overlook. Often they would pack up and leave before he took his picture… or they would all be looking in one direction and he would find something incredible just by looking the other way.
It was informative. It was entertaining.
A lot of people in the marketing world call it “infotainment.” And I want you to use it in your business as much as possible because it is powerful.
People lingered after the presentation was over… asking questions. Phil (who totally rocked it, by the way) stuck around and let everyone look at his camera and his camera backpack.
Anyway, if you would like to try using infotainment to increase your sales, give me a call.

If you don’t do this you are losing sales

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Ben Settle

Ben Settle

Last week I talked to Ben Settle, one of the world’s leading email marketing specialists and editor of the Email Players Newsletter. 
 
Before I go into his advice, I urge you to look at his website and sign up for his newsletter where he gives daily tips for doubling your sales using email. 

Mandy: You send out an email every day, and recommend that others do that too. How do you keep your emails interesting?

Ben: The most popular movies are the ones with the most ominous villains. Nobody remembers the hero, but they remember the villain!
You can do this with your emails. List all the villains in your customers’ lives. List all of the problems they face in life, and then write about those problems one at a time.
That will give you a lot of material for your emails, but also guarantee that they won’t be boring. Because you’ll be speaking their language. You’ll be in their world.
My dad lives in the same town as me, and he has gophers in his yard. They’re always popping up. He could read an email every day about gophers, and never get sick of it. Because it is a problem that he’s trying to solve.
Mandy: What techniques do you use to get people to read your emails?
Ben: I try to stay away from techniques and gimmicks. Instead, I just focus on the problems that people are dealing with.
Mandy: What would you say to someone who has a company but has yet to sent out a single email?
First of all, you need an opt-in list.
You can’t just export an Outlook contact list and start emailing people. When people opt-in they are giving you permission to email them every day.
There are so many email services out there. There’s Mail Chimp, Infusion Soft, Constant Contact. Most of them have websites and 30-day trials. I recommend going to all of them, trying them out, seeing what the interface is like, and choosing the one that you feel the most comfortable with.
Then when you have your email service, set up a web page (or outsource it . . . it’s easier that way) where you collect names. Drive traffic to that page. When you get some names on your list, start emailing them.
Mandy: How else can you do to keep your readers engaged?
Ben: It’s what I call “Infotainment”.
Sending emails every day is like having your own talk show. People will listen to talk shows for hours because they get information, but also because they’re entertaining.
You can be like that, too. Think about what you’re like when you’re at a bar, hanging out with a good friend and talking. Be that person in your emails.
It’s all about building the relationship.
If you want to find out more about writing emails that sell from Ben Settle, go to his website www.bensettle.com. There you can sign up for his list. He will send you a PDF version of the first issue of Email Players for free (normally, the newsletter is a hard copy that comes in the mail). If you like it you can subscribe for $97.
If you want to find out more about email newsletter, click here to check out my interview with Heather Robson. The article is called, “How Small Businesses Can Increase Repeat Sales With Email Newsletters.”