The Seasonal Creative - Giving art away for free

to help grow your business

This week I gave away a linocut print for free through an Instagram post…sounds a bit daft but hear me out!

Now usually I am 100% in favour of getting paid for your work especially as we creatives tend to get lots of unpaid work offers for ‘the exposure’ (ugh, don’t get me started). Of course we should get paid industry rates for our work, that just makes sense. The romantic notion of the struggling artist is dead and buried as far as I’m concerned.

So why would I spend time creating a hand carved linocut print just to give it away for free? Well the truth is it’s not entirely for free, what I asked for in return was your email address.

Growing an email list is crucial if you are going to run a creative business. It’s something you hear again and again because it’s a cold, hard fact and one that I have learned the hard way.

I used to be pretty content doing most of my marketing on social media, I could make predictable monthly sales and earn more than I did in my previous career as a teacher so that was fine by me. What I hadn’t factored in was the impact that my maternity leave would have on my Instagram engagement.

I had total creative block after my baby was born and you know what, that’s acceptable! But this meant that I went from posting regularly once, twice three times a week to an engaged audience to posting sporadically here and there to crickets and tumbleweeds. Instagram does not like you to change your habits and I am still paying the price there for daring to take some time away from the platform.

I had a modest email list around this time but I really didn’t make the most of it. To tell the truth my newsletters are still pretty all over the place but I am working on it. It is worth working on because our email subscribers are the people who don’t scroll past, who genuinely like to engage with us and what we do and want to know when we have something new to share with them. Growing this group is top of my to-do-list in my business at the moment because I know that I can rely on them to be interested in what I have to offer without having to pour time and energy into jazzy reels that probably won’t even get noticed!

So if you’re also trying to grow an email list why not try rewarding your subscribers with something they’ll use and appreciate. You’ll see so many freebie options if you start diving into this subject but my advice is to make it pertinent to what you offer. I make prints so that’s most likely what my audience would like, I wouldn’t bother making a free recipe ebook if you’re a sculptor! Think of it as a heartfelt and genuine gift, a reward to this lovely, loyal, supportive new friend for joining you and letting you into their inbox.

If your offering feels kind of hard to give away and you feel like you probably should be charging money for it then chances are it’s going to be snapped up and reward you with a list of the right kind of people who align with your values.

In less that 24 hours my free linocut has added over 200 new subscribers to my email list and I am so thrilled to have them there.

If you’re interested in how to grow your list or fancy mulling over potential freebies that you could offer in your business, then leave a comment in the chat and we’ll see what we can come up with. Here is mine so you can have a look at how I set it up and feel free to sign up too!

Free Linocut

Until next week,