Why Every Creative Business Needs an Email Newsletter
A newsletter is one of the best ways to share your work and keep in touch with people who actually care. Unlike social media, you own your email list, so your reach won’t disappear overnight. It’s a more personal space where you can show new work, talk about updates, and send people straight to your shop or portfolio.
For illustrators, artists, designers and other creatives, it’s a stable way to share your work, sell more and grow your audience over time.
This article contains some affiliate links
The Algorithm Controls Your Reach
Instagram and TikTok are great for sharing your work, but it’s easy to get buried in the noise. Algorithms changes, your posts won’t always reach all your followers, and engagement can drop fast without you knowing why.
A newsletter is different. It goes straight to the inbox of people who chose to follow you, giving you a much better chance of actually reaching them.
Illustration by Linn Warme
Tattly newsletter
The benefits of a Newsletter
You Own Your Audience
Unlike social media, where your reach can drop overnight or your account can get banned, a newsletter lets you own your audience. Your email list is yours.
A More Personal Connection
With a newsletter you can connect with your audience in different ways, be personal, creative and have fun with your emails.
Drive Traffic to Your Shop & Site
Platforms like Instagram heavily restrict and lessen reach of content that lead readers off their platform, with a newsletter there’s no such limitations, making it perfect if you’re trying to sell something or want to readers to check out your portfolio for example.
More Sales and Repeat Customers
Newsletters are fantastic if you have a shop and want to remind your audience of what you offer or when you have new drops. It can also help people who are on the fence, and bring past customers back again.
Picking a Newsletter Service
There’s a few key factors you need to consider when choosing a service to use
- Are you willing to pay a monthly fee? Or want a free option?
- How many newsletter followers do you have (or how many do you think you can get)?
- How many emails you want to send out every month?
These kinds of services work like this that the more emails you send and the bigger your list of followers are the pricier it gets. For most people the free plans are a great start. But even if you go with a free plan it’s a good idea to see what it would cost to updgrade if you would want to do that in the future.
It’s easy to change newsletter service if you like, you can simpily export your email list and add it to another service, so don’t stress choosing the right service too much.
My choice, Brevo
Brevo is the email newsletter service I use and recommend. It makes it easy to send newsletters, grow your list, and set up simple automated emails like welcome messages and launch reminders
- Great free plan that lets you send up to 300 emails per day, which is plenty when you’re starting out
- Fair pricing plans that are based on how many emails you send
- Easy setup
- GDPR-compliant
(affiliate link above)
Other alternatives would be Mailchimp, Kit, MailerLite, Beehiiv
Inspiration
Get inspired by great newsletter from other creatives
Really Good Emails has a big library of 100s of email examples from other art, design and craft businesses. You can filter by email type like newsletters, welcome emails, or emails sent after a purchase. It’s a great source of inspiration when looking to design your first newsletter.
Really Good Emails
True Grit Texture Supply Newsletter
Example Use Cases for Creative Businesses
To get you started, here are a few newsletter types you can use in your business.
Illustrators
- Add past clients (ask first) to your newsletter and send them updates on new work to remind them you exist.
- A newsletter for sending out new work to art directors (always always ask first before adding anyone)
- Share advice and insight in a monthly newsletter with fellow illustrators
Artists
- A newsletter for art galleries about your new work.
- Updates on new shop drops.
- A newsletter for Wholesale and stockists’ clients.
Graphic Designers
- Newsletter for past clients, show new work, and signal that you’re available for work.
- Share new work from your Portfolio to ADs/brands/agencies
Pattern Designers
- Email your new pattern collection to past and potential brands for licensing your patterns.
Shops & Stores
- Send out discount codes and advertise sales to bring in more customers.
- Turn past buyers into repeat customers by having a newsletter signup at checkout.
- Have two lists, one for Wholesale buyers and another for regular customers.
Additional advice for starting out
- Be consistent with your emails. Even once a month is enough.
- But don’t send too often either. Set expectations and state how often you’ll send out newsletters where people sign up.
- Start simple, you don’t have to write an essay every newsletter.
- Incentivize sign ups with discount codes or free stuff (like creative assets, backgrounds or other downloadables).
- Make it easy to sign up for your list, add sign up boxes in relevant places on your website (or even a pop-up).
- Always include a unsubscribe button in your emails.
- It’s possible to have several different lists, and sometimes that makes sense to have, for example a list for your customers and followers and a different one for past and potential clients.
Design
- Keep the width of your emails to 600-700 pixels for a great reading experience on all devices.
- Consider readability on mobile. Short paragraphs, clear headings, and big buttons.
- Don’t over-complicated the design. A simple email with a few images is fine.
- Always make a email template that you can reuse, it’s a must and a big time saver.
