Artful Use of Email Gives American Ceramic Society Triple-Digit Sales Spike

The 110-year-old American Ceramic Society (ACS) has been publishing magazines since 1953, but it only committed itself to digital communications, including email and e-commerce, in 2007.  Since then, though, the non-for-profit organization has expanded it reach to more than 60,000 subscribers in 100-plus countries. What’s more, sales of its books, magazines, and DVDS have soared by more than 200%, to “well over $5 million,” according to Charlie Spahr, CEO/president of the Ceramic Publications Co., the ACS’s wholly owned division responsible for the organization’s print and digital products. That growth, he adds, is all down to the company’s email marketing.

ACS’s Ceramic Arts Daily e-newsletter mails six days a week. The newsletter supports the CeramicArtsDaily.org Website by spotlighting one feature from the site each day.  About 18 months ago, Spahr says, the newsletter began including a link to a 5- to 10-minute instructional video every Friday, which increased both email subscriptions and traffic to the site.

The videos “seem to have really taken off,” Spahr says. “It’s easy to see why. For our audience the how-to aspect is important. You can describe it, you can have photos—but it’s another level when you have another person demoing it live, especially when it’s an expert.” The videos have become so popular, ACS just acquired a second server dedicated to them.

Many of the videos are excerpts from...