Michelle and I are dedicated to the idea of being as transparent as possible on the blog about our processes, we love sharing what we learned and to share both our failures and successes in the hopes that it gives you a shortcut to the latter. We are learning as we go along on our new venture and thought we would address the mailing list for anyone that has one now or is considering one for their business. We created ours with the idea of happy + useful mail in mind, we didn’t want spam email or used car salesman-esque emails urging you to buy, buy, buy, we wanted our list recipients to get an email from us and be excited, it’s something on the forefront of our minds when we send out our free Photoshop action for the month. Yes, we decided to create and giveaway a free premium action each month with no strings attached. Of course this is all new to us, we have only been doing this for a couple months but so far we feel it’s been a very good way to build not only a rapport with our potential clients but thank our existing ones that are on our list. When I do Besotted Brand emails I never send out an email with a sale unless it’s a good one and by good I mean 50% or more off. I know how annoyed I get with constant emails from brands that I often just immediately delete or unsubscribe. What if a brand actually has something that was worthwhile (and free shipping qualifies especially if you have overseas customers) well then, that’s different, right? When I do my sales it’s worth more to me in the time period I get sales then spamming my customers daily or weekly with meager percentages off. Time is money, always try to reach out to your customers in a way that would make you excited and move you if you were the one on the receiving end of the email. Do the other ways work, the pummel the email subscriber until they either submit or unsubscribe? I think it is a model that can work, but it is truly awful. I am no mailing list expert but I do know what I like. Also, in full confession here I do subscribe to some lists because I love to see what they’ll come up with next design/photography wise even though I am not a consumer (like Bhldn and Terrain).

So back to the our freebie for May! Both Michelle and I have been daydreaming about sun drenched locales lately (that will happen coming out of a Seattle winter). This image was taken in Los Angeles when I lived there and when I pulled it up the other night I felt like it didn’t convey the feeling of when I shot it, there was a vibrance and ‘joie de vivre’ missing that I wanted to convey, where was the magic of that moment? It needed a little technicolor and therein began the creation of this Photoshop action ‘aqua skies’ where you can paint on the blue in your image and transform it to a beautiful aqua in a swift click. We made it for skies, but it would work beautifully on bodies of water, eyes (use a subtle hand), clothes, etc. You’ll need to sign-up for the mailing list here to get it for May, but don’t worry if you want to unsubscribe immediately after that’s your prerogative (of course we would miss you dearly).

So tell us, do you have a mailing list now?  Do you have any tips + tricks that work for you that you are willing to share? If you have signed up for mailing lists what keeps you subscribed?