How I market is another blog post I have planned. I think I've maxed our PPC and it doesn't bring in that many customers but is self-sustaining (in that the revenue off PPC customers is higher than what we're paying in PPC expenses).
Some things I've done very effectively in the past are full-page magazine ads (in artist magazines) and old-school direct mail. I wrote a direct-mail letter and purchased a mailing list of artists and over time sent the promo pieces out with a special discount code to sign up online. Some artists are very non-techy (especially going back to early 2000s), I even toyed with the idea of having a mail-in form to setup the website.
Probably our best marketing has been our free daily art marketing newsletter and blog (http://faso.com/fineartviews/). Our daily email list is over 15,000 and growing and we regularly promote to those artists. I think this is a strategy FAR too many startups ignore. We don't spend most of our time writing articles for other startups, we write articles that are of interest to our CUSTOMERS. That keeps them coming back to our site day after day.
Also - PARTNER with other companies. The gist of my marketing advice is this: Ask yourself, "Who else reaches the same customers I do?" Now partner with those people. For example, we host an online art contest for an art supply company. They promote our service to their customers and visa-versa.
Sorry if this is rough, will clean up and expand these ideas in future blog posts.
How I market is another blog post I have planned. I think I've maxed our PPC and it doesn't bring in that many customers but is self-sustaining (in that the revenue off PPC customers is higher than what we're paying in PPC expenses).
Some things I've done very effectively in the past are full-page magazine ads (in artist magazines) and old-school direct mail. I wrote a direct-mail letter and purchased a mailing list of artists and over time sent the promo pieces out with a special discount code to sign up online. Some artists are very non-techy (especially going back to early 2000s), I even toyed with the idea of having a mail-in form to setup the website.
Probably our best marketing has been our free daily art marketing newsletter and blog (http://faso.com/fineartviews/). Our daily email list is over 15,000 and growing and we regularly promote to those artists. I think this is a strategy FAR too many startups ignore. We don't spend most of our time writing articles for other startups, we write articles that are of interest to our CUSTOMERS. That keeps them coming back to our site day after day.
Also - PARTNER with other companies. The gist of my marketing advice is this: Ask yourself, "Who else reaches the same customers I do?" Now partner with those people. For example, we host an online art contest for an art supply company. They promote our service to their customers and visa-versa.
Sorry if this is rough, will clean up and expand these ideas in future blog posts.