o New Year's Resolution � advancing your art career
o Using the MyArtClub.Com "Artist Blog"
o Advertising on the Internet
o Visit us at the North Vancouver 10th Annual Art Symposium

New Year's Resolution � Advancing your art career

Did you make a New Year's Resolution to advance your art career this year? So how is it going now that we are nearly a month into 2007? Resolutions are hard to keep, especially going it alone. MyArtClub.Com can help you with marketing your art more effectively on the Internet.

MyArtClub.Com has created our own blog page � entitled "Art Marketer" which will offer our observations and commentary on marketing your art on the Internet. Click on the MyArtClub.Com home page and then click on the link to the Art Marketer blog under the MyArtClub.Com bloggers section. See what you can do to rev up your Internet Marketing and take steps to advance your art career.

Using the MyArtClub.Com "Artist Blog"

Since we introduced the MyArtClub.Com Artist Blog back in June, a number of artists have made use of this marketing tool to enhance their Internet presence by creating Artist Blogs. A number of industry art marketing specialists recommend using such an online and interactive diary where you can post images, links and receive feedback from readers as a way to further your Internet presence and become more visible on the web.

MyArtClub.Com has made some recent enhancements to the Artist Blog feature to increase your capabilities in reaching your customers and prospects. Your email contact list has been added to your blog editing page so that you can create you blog comments and then email your contact list to alert them to your recent blog entry in the same way that you can contact them when you add a new art image. As with the art image, you can add your own comments to be included in the email or even append the blog entry itself.

A new premium enhancement to the email contact list allows you to segment your email list into different sections. So you can have a blog email list separate from your customer email list, or a different list of emails for your gallery contacts versus a family and friends email list.

If you have not started your own blog, log in to your member pages and use the right-hand box titled "Artist Options" and click on the word "Blog". On the next screen, titled Update Artist Page Options, set the second option to "1" and press the update button at the bottom of the page. Now on your main menu page a new option appears titled "Maintain your Artist Blog Pages." We look forward to seeing you online!

Advertising on the Internet

MyArtClub.Com has been marketing our services on the Internet for the last year. Many of you may have found us through our Internet ads. Internet advertising generally is the fastest growing form of advertising, poised to exceed all radio ad budgets in 2007! Marketers have discovered this exciting new medium is producing high value results!

MyArtClub.Com is delighted to announce this service is now available to our artist customers. The advertising program is currently available using Google Ads and is offered by MyArtClub.Com in two versions - Shared Advertising or Direct Advertising. As with all our services, we designed this program to be Easy, Effective and Economical and you can do it yourself!

How Internet Advertising Works

When someone searches on Google for something, the resulting pages show "Sponsored Links" in a column on the right side. This is where MyArtClub.Com wants you to be! The advantage is that even with millions of results, your link can be on page one, at the top! You pay not for the ad to be shown, but only when the ad is clicked on.

The cost of the Internet Ads is dependent on the popularity of the searched for "key words" that you choose to determine when your ad be displayed and how many visitors "clicks through" your ad to visit your page. Picking generalized and popular key words like "Landscapes" or "Oils" or "Fine Art" comes with a relatively expensive price tag in dollars per click through.

More specific searches such as "Victoria Fine Art" or "Vancouver Island Oils" or "British Columbia Landscapes" are much less expensive and give your ad higher visibility when presented by the search engine. As well they are much more targeted to your local marketplace. Google advertising programs are controlled by the cost per click, the daily budget for the program (i.e. number of clicks per day) and the overall budget.

Benefits of Internet Advertising

More Customers - the value of Internet advertising is to bring new prospective customers to your artist website.
Focused Interest - the Internet Ad is presented on a side panel at the top of pages where your prospective customers have entered key words corresponding to your ad.
Exposure is high - and not only in the Google search engine pages, but also in related content sites.

The Shared Advertising Program

o MyArtClub.Com will create an advertisement on Google Ads which, when clicked on, will be directed to a shared advertising page within the MyArtClub.Com site.
o Artists participating in the shared advertising program are featured on this advertising page rotating for top position based on the number of artists that are sharing in the page.
o MyArtClub.Com will show the cost per click for the shared advertising program that you are participating in as well as the number of exposures (number of times the ad is shown), the number of times the user clicked-through and the number of hits on the advertising page.
o You provide the content of your shared ad i.e. the content of your ad on the MyArtClub.Com ad page. You control the link to your MyArtClub.Com page when your customer clicks on your ad.
o You can change the content of your ad and your link at any time. MyArtClub.Com will design the ad page that appears on Google.
o You can add your advertisement to an existing ad page (currently by province where we have existing customers) or send us a list of key words of a shared ad that you wish to create.

Benefits of Shared Internet Advertising

The more artists that participate in the shared advertising program, the more times the ad is shown.
The more artists that participate, the lower the overall costs are of the advertising program.
Costs start at $15 per 3 month period per ad page.
Artists can advertise in more than one shared advertising program.
Your "ad" dollar is also enhanced by the free general search results

The Direct Advertising Program

o MyArtClub.Com will provide a direct advertising page that is advertised on Google Ads.
o You control the content of the ad that will be displayed on the Google Ads.
o You control the content of the ad page (within your site and linked from your artist page).
o Your Google ad comes directly to your own ad page or any other page you select within your website.
o You can change the content of your ad and your link at any time.
o MyArtClub.Com will show the cost per click for your direct advertising program as well as the number of exposures (number of times the ad is shown), the number of times the user clicked-through and the number of hits on your advertising page.
o You can select from existing keyword lists or create new keywords. MyArtClub.Com will inform you of the click through cost as well as advise you on alternate keywords that may be more cost effective.
o You can create the wording for your ad or MyArtClub.Com would be pleased to assist you in creating your ad content.
o You decide your daily budget for your ad. Costs start at $25 per 3 month period per ad page

Benefits of Direct Internet Advertising

Direct ads feature only your site.
Direct ads allow you complete control over your ad.
Your website gets all the advertising generated traffic.

Here is how you participate

Login to your MyArtClub.Com Main Member page and click on the link to Market your site. Under the heading "Market Your Site", click on the link to Internet Advertising Program. From the Internet Advertising Program, you can click to Sign up for the Shared Advertising Program or Sign up for the Direct Advertising Program or click on the link to Provide Costing for an Advertising Program.

North Vancouver 10th Annual Art Symposium

Please visit MyArtClub.Com at the North Vancouver 10th Annual Art Symposium in the Art Marketplace at the John Braithwaite Community Centre 145 West 1st Street, North Vancouver from 1 pm to 4 pm on Saturday February 3rd. MyArtClub.Com will be demonstrating some of the latest features that have been added to the site, as well as answering questions and taking suggestions for improvements or enhancements to the system from our customers.

So if you missed us when we visited at Opus, this is your opportunity to drop by and ask questions, get help on taking and downloading your art images to your computer, loading your art work to your website, customizing your art site, or taking advantage of the marketing tools on MyArtClub.Com.

Kick start your New Year's resolution to advance your art career this year. Drop by for a chat and some tips or help from MyArtClub.Com. We look forward to seeing you there!

Well that is it for the January 2007 update.
Thanks for reading � hope you enjoyed it, look forward to seeing your latest art and comments on the Internet!

Peter Newell and Cam Anderson,
MyArtClub.Com

Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions?
Please write to us at: Webmaster @MyArtClub.Com

P.S. Previous issues of this newsletter are available on the MyArtClub.Com under the Member's Help Section.

P.P.S. please pass this newsletter along to others. Any artist who doesn't have a site with MyArtClub.Com is welcome to post up to 3 of their images in the MyArtClub.Com Showcase Gallery at no charge, and will receive newsletters too!