Your weekly newsletter for Web3(-curious) creators! Looking to further your creative practice as a creator in Web3? You’re in the right place! Here’s a weekly rundown of information curated for creators, by creators.

Supercharging your Collector Relationship through a Rewards and Loyalty Program

As an artist, building a loyal following of collectors is crucial to your long-term success - in fact, it’s a sure way of getting yourself to 1000 true fans (read our past issue here)!

Today, we will unpack the different types of loyalty strategies you can use to incentivize engagement, how Web3 is supercharging these initiatives, and include a few case studies to help inspire your own practice.

Let’s dive in.

How Web3 is transforming loyalty programs

Starbucks Stars, frequent flyer miles… loyalty programs are not a new concept in everyday consumer businesses. Seeing them in the art world however has been more limited… until now.

In Web3, NFT ownership serve as a way to verify the identity and even loyalty of a collector. With the transparency of the blockchain, you can tell how many pieces of your work a collector owns, how long they’ve been holding it for, and even whether they have chosen to honor royalties when selling your work.

Unsurprisingly, artists have gone forth to provide a variety of perks to their collectors, including:

• Access to exclusive events and experiences

• Access to a token-gated Discord

• Free art drops

• Discounted merchandise

and more.

Likewise, from a collector’s standpoint, participating in your favorite artists’ loyalty programs not only gives you cool benefits, it also offers a way to build more long-lasting personal relationships with them.

3 strategies to build and reward collector loyalty

#1: Art Drops

Collectors purchase your work because they like your art. While you should always take into consideration the amount of time that goes into developing your body of work, rewarding your collectors with complimentary airdrops or claims is something that will undoubtedly resonate with while surprising and delighting fans of your work.

Mari Hyun, deliberately set aside time to create regular monthly airdrops for the collectors of her Pika Pixelz collection. More on her thought process in our Creator Spotlight below.

Others who have done something similar include Iranian American artist Sabet, who took it a step further by creating an entirely new collection for holders.

Another good example of rewarding loyalty is through bidders’ editions. A number of artists have opted to airdrop a complementary artwork to bidders of a particular auction, but did not end up with the winning bid.

#2: Collector Tokens

If you are looking to expand your artistic practice beyond digital art, you could also experiment with issuing Collector Tokens. These collector tokens can then be used to redeem other benefits, such as discounted merchandise.

One such example is jprittee’s recent merchandise launch, where he also introduced different tiers within his Fragile Family to recognize different levels of collector involvement.

Using collector tokens in this way is also a good way to increase the average order value (AOV) of your collector, since they encourage collectors to purchase additional items from the artist to further establish themselves as “true fans”.

Want to take things further? If you want your collector tokens to serve as a permanent “badge of honor”, you can also experiment with soul-bound tokens (SBTs), a form of NFT which cannot be sold or transferred.

#3: Points Economy

Another effective tool of building a loyalty program is utilizing a points system to reward collectors through their actions.

OnChainMonkey have created their own banana economy (token economy) off-chain as a way to reward positive actions and spread good karma by rewarding users who engage with the brand via Twitter and Discord. This has allowed their users to purchase merchandise, trade art, and attend IRL events for the exchange of bananas.

Similarly, at HUG, we reward HUG points to users who help to curate artists on our platform, which have then been exchanged for art, advising calls, and more.

Collaborative loyalty.. the new meta?

The interoperability of Web3 helps us to dream up a world where loyalty can be exchangeable between different groups of collectors. In other words, it is possible for Artist A’s collectors to be rewarded by Artist B, and vice versa. Similar principles can also be applied to businesses at a larger scale, where consumers could theoretically redeem rewards across different brands.

It is no surprise that the Web3 version of loyalty can thereby help to foster more collaboration among creators, and ultimately lead to more innovation and better customer and collector experiences.

Closing Thoughts

Rewarding collector loyalty is a great way to bring artists and collectors closer together, made even more powerful by the technology Web3 has to offer. All of these strategies can help you build a dedicated fan base, while offering collectors the chance to build a valuable art collection over time.

Want to learn more about how to reward your collectors?

After the success of our last Artist Marketing Webinar, we are bringing another live session on video with three incredible guests on April 6 at 1:30PM ET.

• Mari Hyun, 1/1 pixel and anime artist, who will talk about growing your collector base thoughtfully and organically.

• Amanda Terry, Co-founder and COO of OnChainMonkey, who will explore the topic of building a token economy to nurture and reward your community.

• Sabet, Artist and Founder of Sabet Brands and Tokyo Punks, who will share experiences in creating innovative collections that reward collectors.

In the News

Industry News

• Tax experts weigh in on how the IRS will tax NFTs as digital collectibles. Read up on their views here.

• Generative art platform Art Blocks is launching an official secondary marketplace, which will be creator-friendly, offering zero marketplace fees and honoring full creator royalties.

• The growing popularity of AI is resulting in a number of legal disputes arising from artists in the past few months. Read up on the latest here.

• Escher, an NFT marketplace for editions went live last week, alongside Escher Exclusives, a collection of limited editions by a hand-picked set of incredible digital artists, including artists like POSTWOOK.

Tools and Resources

• ZenAcademy has published a free e-book for artists on IP laws and copyright, so that they can better protect their digital art. Learn more and download here.

Notable Creators

• Ryuichi Sakamoto, trailblazing musician and film composer, dies at 71. Read more about his incredible life as an innovator here.

• Illustrator Penguitt joins several other artists in the NFT space as being one of the creators in Reddit’s 3rd generation of collectible avatars, which drop April 10th.

• Some of Andy Warhol’s artworks will be offered as tokenized investments on the Ethereum blockchain. Learn more here.

• Digital illustrator Tiffatronn has curated “digital paint / analog heart” on SuperRare as a way to explore the seamless integration of digital and traditional aesthetics. View the curated collection here.

• PROOF announced their first exhibition in the new curatorial program “PROOF Curated: Evolving Pixels”, co-presented with Venus Over Manhattan and curated by generative artist Emily Xie.

Artist Grants and Opportunities

• HUG is introducing a new Innovation Laboratory for artists in partnership with no-code creator tool HeyMint!

  Take part in a 2-week bootcamp where you get to collaborate with fellow artists on your next art drop, receive complimentary minting support, and get your work showcased at our NYC gallery. HUG, Meta Angels, and Curious Addys holders can get a discounted price of $89 (originally $179).

• Creators looking for support to launch a full-fledged business can also apply for other HUG Studios programs — learn more and apply here.

• Get featured in the Daily Ralpha, a Web3 newsletter with a daily circulation of 75K. All you have to do is apply for your own HUG artist profile, and submit your interest here.

• Win up to 6 ETH in prizes by taking part in renowned AI artist Claire Silver’s AI contest. The theme is Collaborative, where you can make an innovative piece using any combination of tools, as long as AI is a central part. Learn more and enter here.

• Applications are open for Meta Angels x Adobe’s artist-in-residence program, which gives you a $1,000 grant, access to Adobe Creative Cloud, mentorship, and more. May’s artist-in-residence will be shortlisted by April 15th. Learn more and apply here.

• Bethany Arts Community offers residencies to emerging and established artists for the development of both new works and works-in-progress. BAC welcomes artists working across any discipline and medium, including visual artists, sculptors, writers, playwrights, choreographers, musicians, composers, performance artists, filmmakers, and more to our Fall Multidisciplinary Residency. Any and all artistic mediums are encouraged to apply by April 26th.

• Post your best work to Creatively every week, let the community vote, and stand a chance to win a $5,000 cash grant each month.

This Week’s Art Drops

• Booth by Nathan Bauman (Limited Edition, 100/100, 0.025 ETH): Part of a series of photographs that comprise the American Reminiscence, which explores the exploration of a past life, while serving as a beacon to future generations. Minters of 2 editions are entered into a raffle for a physical print.

• Jakarta - Indonesia by Zenavi (1/1, 1.5 ETH): The first piece of Zenavi’s Weather Jars collection, this is a dynamic NFT where the artwork and music changes according to the weather and time of Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. The cultural nuances from Indonesian music also highlight the intensity of how the weather can impact moods and emotions.

• Art will save us or burn it all by Cherika (1/1, 0.095 ETH): Part of Cherika’s new collection, Red Boots House, which expresses thoughts on life, art, and other random ideas.

• Fill Me Up by Jaime Derringer (1/1): Jaime’s SuperRare Genesis is part of the collection Chromesthesia, which is an ongoing body of work that explores the relationship between color, sound, and movement. The project’s foundation is a set of original drawings, paintings, and fractal creations manipulated and distorted through a combination of software, apps, and AI.

• A Springtime Affair by EVO (Timed Open Edition, 9 tez): An ode to the eternal themes of love, rebirth, and the cyclical nature of life.

• High Voltage by Meowgress (1/1, 0.77 ETH): An electrifying piece from Meowgress’ Neon Vibes collection.

• Ukiyo-e 浮世絵 by Hannya (1/1, 0.12 ETH): Through this piece, Hannya celebrates ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world"), a genre of woodcut and painting that thrived in Japan between the 17th and 19th centuries.

• Mysteries of the Desert Night by Alexis Olin (Limited Edition, 100/100, 0.0088 ETH): An animated piece that is inspired by the mysteries and secrets lying beneath the darkness of the desert night. The largest colletor of this edition will also receive a physical copy of the painting (acrylic on canvas / 80 x 60 cm).

Creator Spotlight: Mari Hyun

Mari is a Finnish-American artist married into a Korean family and living in Korea. She is currently a full time freelance artist with a background in classical ballet, education, and teaching children’s literature and writing.

Mari works both traditionally and digitally, creating pieces of illustrated ethereal beauty and super cute anime characters by hand. She also spends a lot of time world-building and developing detailed stories and rich backgrounds for her characters.

Learn more about Mari in her HUG Artist Profile, or follow her directly on Twitter.

We asked Mari, how do you reward your collectors, and why?