Stop it. Some old school marketing strategies are easy and still helpful.
But first, this is the late Texas governor, Ann Richards. She was the last Democratic Governor in Texas as of this writing. She was such a character. I sold this painting at an accidentally low bidding price at auction. Confession: I sold this painting for the cost of shipping. I’m not sure how I screwed that up, but the thing is, the person that bought it was so damn happy with it, that I’m kind of okay with it. (No, I am not recommending this exact form of art marketing. Sigh.) I can always paint her again. If you have someone you’d like me to paint, get in touch at hello @ kelliesnider.com, but I might have to charge more than zero dollars. You can also check out some of my available works at www.kelliesnider.com. There are some things at super low starting bids.
A SIG file is a short block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information about them and their work. Placing an email signature tag at the end of your emails sounds like a hokey relic from the olden days of listservs, but it’s really valuable because it puts your message out there for everyone you exchange emails with to see. For business use, SIG files often include a mix of contact information and business promotion. This may include the sender’s name, job title, company name, phone #, fax #, email address, Web site address, tag line and brief benefits of your products or services.
What? You don’t do email? I don’t know what to say to you. The thing is, we own our email, nearly. They can shut you down if you don’t pay for some part of the service, such as your domain name, but you can get free email services, so that doesn’t need to happen. We do NOT own our own social media accounts in any way, so if we don’t have any contacts outside of social media, we’re putting our businesses at risk. It may seem to you that I say this in every blog post, but it’s so important that if I don’t say it in every post, I should. I lost my 14 year old Facebook account and my 2 year old Instagram account because Meta didn’t like my sense of humor, y’all! Don’t risk it. Use email. You don’t have to live in it, but you should use it and check it. See my TikTok about this on @kellieyellow.
Most businesses with more than a handful of employees require that everyone sport the same signature message. This ensures that everyone is on point with the company’s brand, messaging, and attitude. Or at least their projected attitude. (As you know, being inside a company can be very, very different from looking in from the outside.) Years ago individuals working in businesses used to have their own unique signatures, fonts, their favorite band, a quote, and fancy colors and backgrounds. Yeah. I was already alive and in the workplace by then. It looked sloppy. It projected as many different messages as there were employees. Not good. I worked in Animal Welfare, and a lot of animal welfare places are still pretty casual about sig lines. But they shouldn’t be.
Artists shouldn’t be lax about any opportunity to let people know who they are and how to reach them. If you’re a chic, stylish artist you should have a chic stylish sig. If you’re funky, make it funky. If you’re eccentric, make it eccentric. But make it intentional. If you’ve already branded yourself as a business, stick with your brand.
Here’s the one I use for general emails. This is way too long for use on discussion groups, but I don’t participate in any at the moment, so it’s not an issue. I might revisit their use at some point, but not just now. This is not the sig file for my mailing list. That list directs people to my blog and website when there is a new blog post, and when there is news of some sort.
It looks like a lot, but it has a few things that are helpful. Here are a few comments about it:
Do you like it? What do you like about it?
Do you hate it? What could I do to improve it?
I know that alla y’all are sophistacated folks, but I’m throwing this in anyway. Just in case you don’t know, you can set your signature file inside your email account or Outlook, whatever you use to receive your email. That way you never have to think about it. Update it only when something changes or when you update your brand. Or when Meta disables your accounts. Then don’t think about it the rest of the time.
What if people don’t want to read all that? They won’t. People figure things out really fast. They see, hey, all her contact stuff is in her sig file. Maybe they’ll follow a link, maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll eyeball it and close the email. That’s all fine. It gives them the knowledge that they can reach me in a variety of ways by checking the sig file of any personal email from me.
And there you are. A super easy way to promote yourself without using social media, and with minimal effort. Just one part of a nutritious art marketing strategy.
Onward and Upward,
Aunt Kellie
