How to Market Art Online With Gmail

There are just so many places to market art online!

There are online gallery websites, bookmarking services, social networking, artist forums, art blogging, just to name a few.

With most of these websites though, the marketing process requires continually logging in to promote your art.

This can be a time consuming and arduous task!

But, did you know that your simple Google Gmail account can be used as an art promotion tool? I will discuss here in this tutorial how you can effectively use Gmail (and similar online email accounts) for that purpose.

 

Online Art Marketing with Gmail

 

• Having a good profile picture

  
  A profile photo will help others to easily recognize you. You may use images of your artworks for this, or a good photo of yourself.
  
  But, it is highly recommended to use the same photograph that you use on other websites online.
  
  To set your profile picture, click on the little settings icon in the top-right corner, then click “Settings”. Scroll down to “My Picture” to set the image you want displayed. You may use a Picasa web album picture, an image from another website, or upload one from your computer.
  

• Setting up an email signature

  
  An email sig line is often seen at the bottom of emails that you send to others. It is recommended to place your artist website here, along with links for various social networking websites, such as Twitter.
  
  Here is how to set up an email signature for gmail.
  
  Go to “Settings” and scroll down to the signature section.
  
  
  Use the “WYSIWYG” editor to add text, links, and even photos. You may even enter small images of your artwork here.
  
  If you are using your regular profile photo, like I did (see below), simply right-click on the one above on that page, and choose “Copy Image URL”
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Main profile url in the online friends box

  
  On the left of your page, under the “Chat”
  heading, there is a place to enter a clickable website address as your status. As you can see in the image, I entered my art blog link there.
  
  All your contacts see this, and may easily visit your site through the url you place there.
  
  
  
  
  

• Online video and voice chat with artist contacts

  
  Google Gmail has a handy voice and video chat feature where one can easily chat with artist friends, family members, and other contacts. As you can see above, the green icon beside each shows that they are online.
  
  Simply click on a name to initiate a conversation. A “group conference” can be held by adding others to the conversation.

 

These are some useful methods to use Gmail as an art marketing tool. Some of these (especially signature lines), can also be found in other online email clients such as Yahoo and Hotmail. 

Art marketing doesn’t have to be a task.

As you can see from this tutorial, doing simple “set it and forget it” things in your email account will increase your art exposure, along with making you appear much more professional.