How this artist sells his art and packs out shows with MailerLite
Marketing often feels like a lot of work for artists. But even a simple strategy can generate big results. Remon de Jong proves this by regularly packing out shows and selling his work by simply emailing his carefully curated list when he has important news.
His time-efficient strategy takes just a few hours each month, leaving him plenty of time to focus on the other things that matter: his art, exhibitions, and young family.
This case study will explain all the details of Remon's email strategy. We love how it embraces our Lite philosophy of keeping things simple while still being effective, and we think you’ll love it, too.
Building a direct line of communication with his people
Like most artists, Remon de Jong doesn’t fit in a box. He’s a visual artist, animator, and Dutch old skool rapper who’s been making a living from his art since 1995.
His work aims to find out what abstract art would have looked like in the 17th century. He does this by digitally cutting out the brush strokes of 17th-century artwork and rearranging them into abstract compositions.
He also has another job title: dad. After taking a career break to look after his small children, Remon wanted to jump back into using email marketing to promote his artwork and boost attendance for his exhibitions.
While Remon uses social media to promote his work, he wanted to build a more direct line of communication with his community and take back control over how he communicates with them.
I wanted to avoid the algorithms of social media because you’re always depending on what they want to show to your followers. Email is a direct link to communicate with the people I’m involved with. When I send out a newsletter I’m 100% sure they’ve at least gotten it.
So Remon began his search for the perfect email marketing platform.
Why Remon chose MailerLite
In the past Remon used Mailchimp, but he wanted to explore other options. As a busy dad and working artist, Remon was looking for an intuitive email marketing software that would allow him to build newsletters quickly. This meant one of his top requirements for a new platform would be user-friendliness and a clean design.
“I asked around in some entrepreneur-based groups and MailerLite came up a lot. So I thought, ‘let’s try this’. That was about two years ago.” Since then, Remon has made MailerLite his tool of choice when communicating with his audience.
For Remon, the standout feature of MailerLite is our intuitive Drag & drop builder that allows him to visually build out newsletters fast. With tons of pre-designed blocks to choose from he can easily add event details for his exhibitions and a gallery of images to showcase his art.
As an artist, I appreciate how intuitive the drag & drop builder is. It’s very easy to design an email and check its performance.
Here are the main MailerLite features that Remon uses.
Remon creates professionally designed emails in minutes with 0 code.
Remon turns website visitors into subscribers with forms and pop-ups.
Remon looks at link activity to understand what art his subscribers are most interested in
Quality over quantity: Remon’s Lite email marketing strategy
Remon is able to sell his works, grow his subscriber list, and pack out his exhibitions with the help of email marketing, but his strategy for doing so is very straightforward.
Remon’s email marketing philosophy is quality over quantity, meaning he only sends out a newsletter about once a month and only when he has something of value to share
His emails focus on exhibition announcements, new artworks available, and exclusive content for subscribers.
Remon is proof that you don’t have to churn out content constantly in order to get clear results from your email marketing.
Growing his list
Remon has grown his list to over 4,500 subscribers through a mix of online and offline list building.
He’s able to passively collect subscribers through pop-ups and embedded forms on his website thanks to MailerLite's WordPress integration. This means he doesn’t have to manually insert code into his website, he simply uses our WordPress plugin to add his MailerLite forms to whichever page he wants them on.
Remon has also had massive success growing his list with the two simplest tools of all: pen and paper.
During his exhibitions, he’ll ask attendees if they’d like to stay in touch via his email list and he’s collected hundreds of emails this way.
At an exhibition, I always have a pen and paper where people can fill in their name and their email address, then I add them manually to the newsletter. That is one of my biggest contributions to growing my newsletter subscribers. It’s really an underrated tool.”
Packing out his exhibitions
There’s no greater fear than hosting an exhibition and worrying that nobody is going to turn up. While Remon leverages his social media following to promote his exhibitions, he uses MailerLite as the main driver for boosting attendance.
[Newsletters] result in people showing up at exhibitions. It’s one of my main online communication links with my group of collectors.
By using MailerLite to communicate directly with his collectors, he makes sure that the people who are most interested in his artwork can support him.
Selling his art through email marketing
Remon uses WordPress and WooCommerce to sell his art online, and he integrates his WooCommerce shop seamlessly with his email marketing strategy.
With MailerLite's WooCommerce integration, Remon is able to do things like insert product blocks in his emails to showcase his art and drive sales.
It results in direct sales on my website when people click on a certain order.
Seeing what resonates with link activity
Remon can get all the insights he needs into how his campaigns perform with our performance reports. Remon pays most attention to the Link activity report which shows him which links his subscribers clicked on.
This report gives him valuable insights into which works resonate the most with his audience.
I always check which works people click on the most in my newsletters. This helps me see which artworks are more popular, and I use that information to promote those pieces more on social media or in other communications. It’s a useful way to track what resonates with my audience based on clear data like clicks and opens, rather than relying on guesswork.
His plan for the future is to use this data to help him retarget the subscribers who clicked certain works of art.
This could be as simple as setting up an automation that sends out some follow-up emails to subscribers who clicked a specific piece of art reminding them that it’s still available for purchase.
Choose your moment—choose MailerLite
Perhaps the biggest benefit Remon has gotten from leveraging email marketing as an artist is that he gets to “choose his moment.”
When depending on social media to connect with potential collectors you’re bound by algorithms and staying active on a platform. Email marketing means you can bypass the algorithms and take back control when it comes to how you communicate with your audience.
I can choose my moment. I can choose my own way of communicating.
Choose your moment with MailerLite
Promote your art, boost attendance to your exhibitions and nurture a deeper connection with your community with email marketing.
