Graham Knuttel is an acclaimed Irish sculptor and painter whose highly stylised original works of figures and animals in urban landscapes are highly sought after, including a new line of gift ware featuring images of his most popular pieces. Knuttel wanted to drive online sales of this new product range. The company he worked with began by building a strong social media presence; and then launched a monthly email newsletter to drive sales.

Challenge:

Niall Newman’s company, (Social Media Zen) , built an interactive and e-commerce enabled Facebook page for Knuttel. Once the artist’s presence online was established and growing, Social Media Zen then targeted these social networks with a monthly email newsletter to generate sales. However, the challenge was how to get email addresses to connect with these online fans.

Solution:

Using subscriber capture-form code generated in his Newsweaver account, Niall created a sign up box on Facebook which automatically pulls new subscriber details from the form into the account. Niall says they attracted new subscribers by offering exclusive-to-the-newsletter competitions and discounts. “We find that 80% of the list growth is happening through Knuttel’s social media outlets”. Niall regularly posts on Knuttel’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages about the newsletter – which generates at least 30-40 new subscribers within an hour of his posts. Niall then worked with Newsweaver to build a newsletter template that showcases images of Knuttel’s work and helps drive sales at the artist’s website. To increase opens and clicks, Niall posts online that competition winners have just been announced in the newsletter. To further drive opens he creates urgency: winners need to claim their prize within 48 hours.

Results:

The email newsletter has proven to be central to increased sales for Knuttel. Using social media and email combined, the opens and clicks have been far above industry average. They are consistently in the 60-70% range for opens and 40% for clicks from opens. But even more significant: €10,000 in sales has been generated directly from each mailing. 

“Email and social media have proven to complement each other very well. Social networks are fantastic for building a fan base; but the money is definitely in our email mailing list”.  Niall Newman