As an Artist or Photographer, you may find yourself frequently attending trade shows or exhibitions. While there, several people choose to create mailing lists for their websites, but end up using a piece of paper and a pen. Then they must enter all those e-mail addresses by hand. However, Art Storefronts offers its artists the ability to create a form specifically for this purpose at trade shows or exhibitions.
Please Note: If you don’t have a Segment, we strongly suggest you create one before proceeding with this tutorial. You can learn more about this by reading the article, How To: Create a Segment.
If you’d like to learn how to create a sign-up form for use at these trade shows and exhibitions, please follow the directions below.
Log in to your Art Storefronts Site Manager and find the button labeled Add Page and then click on it. This button is going to give us the option to create a new form page for our website.
A new window will pop up and the first section you will see is labeled Name. This is going to be the name of the page, so enter something clear and concise here and remember that people at the trade show will see this name. We recommend using something like Trade Show Newsletter.
Next, you need to find the section labeled Type of Page and select the option labeled Form. Form pages allow you to obtain customer information and add it to e-mail lists within MailChimp.
After each necessary field has been filled out fully and correctly, and you are happy with the information provided, click on the Create This is going to create the basic form page.
You’re going to be taken to a completely new page. Here, you need to make sure you are on the tab labeled Fields. This tab will allow us to add or even delete fields from our form.
Once you are sure you’re on the right tab, scroll down the page until you find a section labeled Message and click on the button labeled Delete.
A new window is going to pop-up and ask if you are sure you want to delete the Message You need to go ahead and click OK. You don’t need the message field since you’re just trying to obtain e-mail addresses.
From here, scroll back to the top of the page and find and click on the tab labeled Info. This tab is going to allow you to edit the basic information of the Form page and tailor it to exactly what you need.
First, find the box labeled Appears In Navigation Menu and set this to Off. This does not mean that the page is not on the Internet. It means that this will not appear in your navigation bar. This is not a page you want available always. This should be, specifically, reserved for trade shows or exhibitions.
Next, scroll down the page until you find the section labeled Is This a Landing Page and make sure you have it set to Yes. The reason we want this to be a landing page is because we are not looking to make the trade show subscribe list into a pop-up. We simply want it to be a page that you can have open at the show where people can input their information.
Below that, there is a section labeled Submissions Should Be Emailed To and here you need to enter in the e-mail address that you want all the confirmation e-mails of someone signing up sent to. If you don’t enter something here, you won’t get a confirmation when someone signs up.
Lead Content is next. In the Lead Content section, you can provide a brief blurb about you and your Art. This may make your information and booth stick in the customer’s mind a little better and will help you to explain a little about yourself without answering the same question over and over.
After that, you will need to scroll quite far down the page until you encounter a section labeled Apply Contacts to Segments. Here, you should choose your preferred Segment. Put an x next to the Newsletter Segment.
When all the appropriate sections on the page have been filled out, go ahead and click on the button labeled Save. DO NOT CLICK THE BACK BUTTON. If you click the back button, all the information your just entered will be lost and none of your changes will save. You will have to completely restart this process and reenter all the information over again.
Tip: When you are ready to use this page at a Trade Show or Exhibition, simply navigate to the page on the back end of the website and click on the button labeled Preview Live Site. This will navigate to the page for you and any interested parties can sign up with their e-mail address.