Have you set up your Google Profile yet? Before you start groaning about keeping up with yet another online thing, relax. Setting up your Google profile is pretty easy, and once you set it up, there’s really not much daily upkeep to it. Google profiles are your public face on the Google website. With a profile you can add a brief bio about yourself, photos, and links to your website.

Big deal, you might say, I already have profile on Facebook and Myspace. What makes having a Google profile so great?

• It provides another link to your blog and/or website. Incoming links to your blog and/or website is good for search engine rankings…and because the link is coming from Google, you know that Google is going to rank a bit higher.
• If you’re using Google Buzz, it will make it easier for you to share your Buzzes
• Profiles are searchable. So this provides another way for people to find you and your website
• It’s simple to do and it’s free

To see how simple it is, check out the video tutorial I did on how to set up your Google profile. And of course check out my Google Profile when you’re done!

I was reading a report about a conference about email that was held in Miami a couple weeks ago (yes, they do have conferences on email) and found a statistic that jumped out to me:

Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes (a chain of restaurant/bakeries) acquires about half of their email address in their stores

So what does that mean? That means that if you’re only taking names and email addresses online, you’re missing out on a lot of potential sign ups for your mailing list.

If you’re doing craft shows, home shows, teaching classes, doing lectures, or holding open studios those are great opportunities to add more people to your mailing list. I’m sure that you probably already have a guest book or mailing list sign up. Make sure that you also have a space on your sign up page so that people can enter their email addresses as well.

From my experience, the perfect time to get folks to sign up is:

a) when they’ve just purchased something and they’re waiting for you to package their order. Signing up for your email list gives them something to do while they’re waiting.

b) after they’ve shown interest in your work but it’s clear that they’re not able to buy right now. Some folks feel guilty about not buying, so providing their email address is a way to give you something.

Here’s a few more tips to collect email addresses offline:

• Provide plenty of room for people to fill out their entire email address. Some email addresses run pretty long.

• In the report I read, Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes found that there was a 20% error rate on paper sign-up forms. Some may be due to handwriting issues, customer misspells then email address, etc. If you have a laptop, see if you can get your customers to type their information rather than write it. If that’s not an option, take a minute to confirm the spelling of the address with your customers before they leave.

• Provide an incentive to signing up for your email list. Maybe it’s for a contest, a giveaway, or a special gift. This will encourage more sign ups and it will also encourage people to give you an accurate email address that they actually check.

• If your business is mainly online, create ways to get more face to face time with customers. People that won’t give you their information to an impersonal website might be more than happy to do so after they’ve met you and saw that you’re a real person. If you’re on Etsy, join a street team, set up a home show or open studio, do a couple of local craft shows or art fairs. You’ll be able to get out of your studio every now and then and personally interact with your customers.

You can read the entire report at the Retail Email Blog.

If you want more tips on how to start and manage an email list, sign up for my FREE article series “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“.

One of my Facebook page fans wrote to me that they’ve been online for awhile and that they’re feeling burned out with marketing online. She voiced a sentiment that a lot of artists have when it comes to marketing their work. It’s hard enough just to make your artwork and run your business. Marketing, either online or offline is one of those continual tasks that don’t always seem to get the results that you want or at least don’t get them fast enough.

Recently, I was listening to a podcast about effective creativity from The Accidental Creative called “Seeds“. In the episode, creativity and an artist’s nurturing of creativity was likened to farming. In order for creativity to grow and thrive, a farmer can’t just plant a couple of seeds and then want to harvest a crop just a few weeks later. Rather, there’s a natural process to nurturing a crop that requires a farmer to plant seeds, nurture the crop, let the crop grow, and then harvest when the crop is ready. Any attempt to harvest before then will end up killing off the field.

While the podcast was talking about creativity, marketing follows the same principal. Marketing your website is a lot like the “sowing the seeds” example in the podcast. Every blog post you write, every tweet you send out, every new subscriber to your email list, every ad you put on a popular blog is like sowing a marketing seed for your artwork. You’ll see results from some of these seeds right away…some you might not see weeks, months, or even a year or two later. On the other hand, while things like blogging, writing, and building your reputation online are things that take time to yield results, they are also things that continue to bring results months and years later.

And just like a farmer doesn’t just plant one seed and expect it to grow into an entire crop, if you’re trying to marketing yourself, you shouldn’t just try one thing and expect to get huge results from it. The more things you try, the more you get yourself out there, not just online but also offline the more you’re likely to get results. And the more you’re likely to have at least one technique succeed in case another technique fails.

So what if you’ve been trying and trying to market online and you’re really burnt out because a) you have too much to do or b) you don’t seem to be getting results?

1. Try something different. If one technique doesn’t seem to be yielding results, try something different…or make a tweak to what you’re doing already. Sometimes just stepping back and making minor adjustments can make a world of difference.

2. Do one small thing every day. Large projects like building a website or setting up a blog or redesigning a website can get you a boost, but most of your results comes from small things that you can do every day…like emailing a customer that you haven’t heard from in a while…or better yet calling them up or visiting them. Or writing a quick blog post, or shooting a quick video, or making some comments on your favorite blog.

Earlier this week Alyson Stanfield wrote a blog post about committing 15 minutes a day to do something important…like marketing yourself or creating art. Commit 15 minutes a day to do some marketing task every day this year. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll end up getting done.

3. Get help. You don’t have to do everything yourself. This is something that my husband is always telling me and I know that it’s something that plagues a lot of other artists as well. Get help addressing and stamping those postcards you’re going to mail out. Ask for more help with the housework or cooking if that’s one of your responsibilities. Get a professional to design that blog header or ad instead of struggling to do it yourself.

4. Take a mini vacation. If you’re absolutely burned out, give yourself permission to take a mini vacation to recharge your batteries. Take some classes, join a Meetup group and network with other artists, visit some museums and galleries, read about something completely different that what you’ve been reading. Listen to some new podcasts (starting with the one by the Accidental Creative about sowing seeds) or instructional CDs. But just like a real vacation, make sure that you specify a date to return so that your vacation don’t stretch out into weeks or months.

So, are you burnt out with your marketing? Leave a comment and let me know how you’re coping!

If you are a Twitter user, you may have noticed that there is a new feature called “Lists” that has been added to the right hand side of your Twitter profile.

What are Twitter Lists? Basically this is a new feature that allows you to compile the people you follow into lists. If you’re a Tweetdeck user, this looks very similar to the “Groups” feature.

Say for example your a knitter and a whole bunch of the people that you follow are knitters. Instead of trying to use your main Twitter stream to sort the tweets from your knitter followers out from the rest the people you follow, you can use the Lists feature to separate those Twitters out into a list that you name “Knitters”. Just like the “Groups” feature in Tweetdeck, you can go to your “Knitters” list and just see the tweets from those you’ve added to your list.

Another cool thing about the Lists feature is that if you see a list that you find interesting, you can follow the list and keep up with the tweets from that list!

Want to know if you’re listed in any Lists? Simply check on the new “listed” link under your profile picture. There you can see how many lists you’ve been added to and you can click through to visit each individual list.

So what do you use Lists for? It’s a great way to organize the different Twitters you follow so you can follow certain topics easier. This is great if you follow a lot of people. Also, lists are a great way to find new people to follow as there are some Twitters than have curated some really great lists. A great way to find some good lists to follow is to visit the Twitter Lists directory Listorious. Whatever topic you’re interested in, you’re sure to find a list that covers it!

How often is too often when it comes to contacting the folks on your mailing list? That’s a question posed by reader Gail:

Is there a recommended limit to the number of times that you should contact people who have signed up to receive newsletters or other information from you? Do you know if there is a wide variation between customers on how often they like to be contacted? For example,I am on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to the number of e-mails I like to receive from any company, but am I in the minority?

- Gail

Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to how much email they’re willing to tolerate. So how do you balance that out? Here’s what I wrote to Gail:

Hi Gail,

There is no “recommended” limit that I know of when in comes to how often is “too” often. A lot of it depends on who you’re marketing to. Some folks are more tolerant of frequent emails than others and how much they’re willing to tolerate it depends on a variety of factors including age, gender, occupation, and the amount computer skills and experience a person has. In general, most email marketing experts recommend that you contact your list at least once a month so that your subscribers don’t forget who you are.

What’s more important is to decide at the beginning what you’re going to be using your mailing list for and then design your program around that goal. How frequently you’re going to email your subscribers will depend on what your goals are for your email list.

For example, if you do a lot of shows and you want to use your email list to notify your subscribers when you’re going to be appearing at a particular show, then that’s how often you’ll be contacting your list. If you have a show every week, then you’ll probably be emailing your list once a week. If you have a show once every couple of months, then your subscribers can expect to receive an email once every couple of months.

On the other hand, if you want to use your list to promote your Etsy store and decide that a monthly newsletter with occasional short email updates is the best way to accomplish this then that’s going to be your frequency.

Once you’ve decided how you are going to design your email marketing, you then allow your subscribers to decide whether they want to hear from you that often by providing information on how often you’re going to contact them, when, and what kind of information they’re going to receive. Provide this information both on the sign up page of your mailing list and in the welcome email they’ll receive after they sign up. This way, they know what they’re signing up for and it sets up the expectation in their minds.

Don’t fall into the trap of not emailing your list because you’re afraid that you’re “bothering” your subscribers. Some artists are so terrified that someone is going to unsubscribe from their mailing list that they don’t email them as often as they should. Don’t be! Remember that these folks signed themselves up because they’re interested in what you have to offer. As long as you tell them up front what you’re going to deliver and then actually give it to them, you’re not bothering them.

And also, don’t be scared of unsubscribes. People are going to unsubscribe from your list for a variety of different reasons that may or may not have anything to do with you. That’s the nature of running an email list. I get unsubscribes every so often and once in a blue moon I’ll get a complaint that I’m “marketing too much” from a subscriber. But marketing myself is why I built the list in the first place and if they don’t like the occasional promotional message, then it’s best for both of us if they unsubscribe from my list. As long as I don’t get a whole bunch of similar complaints and unsubscribes from my other subscribers I don’t worry about those complaints too much.

As long as your list is growing steadily and the majority of your subscribers are happy, don’t sweat the unsubscribes too much!

Do you have a burning question about websites or promoting yourself online? Click on the “Ask a Question” tab at the top of the page and send me your question. I’ll send you an answer to your question personally.

If you want more tips on how to start and manage an email list, sign up for my FREE article series “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“.