Preparing a great art exhibition involves so much planning, but often the maximum emphasis is placed on the art itself - all the finishing touches after the work is created, like photography, writing, pricing, framing, and shipping. Then there's curating and installing.
Usually, by the time all this is done the show is about to open, and the marketing is left to a press release, a few social media posts, and an invitation sent to your mailing list/s.
Sales usually start on opening day or a day or two before, and sales-marketing stops soon after the show, focused on following up on interest shown during the exhibition.
These days, this just isn't enough. If you want to grow your art business, read these 7 marketing steps you can apply ahead of time to maximise the success of your exhibition.
1. Define Your Objectives
Sounds obvious right? Writing them down helps you to make sure you pay attention to each of them. Examples of objectives may be:
Sell art
Attract new buyers
Create great images and video content of the work in an exhibition setting
Launch into a new geography/community
Create an impression amongst specific artworld players (e.g. museum curators, fair directors, art advisors, corporate buyers, etc.) to begin a conversation and be included in their consideration set for future opportunities (this implies follow-up planning)
Grow your contact database/fan following
Get leads who may be interested in commissions
2. Create An Exhibition Hook & Content Evolution
This is all about what you are going to show and say to attract maximum interest from your current audience and new prospects, on your website and social media, and how to unpack it to generate sales interest.
Your audience is being bombarded daily by so many marketing messages and so much content that you need to find a way to stand out amongst the noise and maintain their interest once you have gained it. Creating a hook and content evolution will help you do this.
Hook them initially with an extraordinary title, stunning image, a shocking statistic, etc. - something that grabs attention. And you don’t want to reveal too much to crowd out the magic of the hook. Once they’ve clicked through, then plan to reveal information, elements of the story, some images, and videos in stages to keep them interacting with you and revisiting your website and social pages as you lead up to the exhibition.
It typically takes eight interactions before someone is ready to buy from you, this approach of unveiling more, taking users on a journey of discovery, enables those multiple interactions.
If you have an Artfundi website, which is built into your inventory system, it makes this super-easy as you can preload content and switch it on or publish it to the website in stages, and because you can do it all in-house, you don’t have to worry about designer fees.
3. Create A Story For The Press
The media is under more pressure than ever before, with jobs cut and content pressure at an all-time high, journalists are more likely to select options that require little reworking, so you need to do more than the old-fashioned press release. To increase your chances of good coverage in the press, do your research, target specific publications, study their style and their typical word length, think about what angle would interest their audience, and provide them a story.
Supply a link for them to access high-resolution images that support the story, and provide any image credits you require if they use it (usually who took the photograph and that it it published with your permission).
Offer exclusives to increase their appetite - you can create different angles for different publications, such as a story for one and an interview for another.
Know their lead times, and make sure to provide the PR ahead of time. Make their job easy and then follow up. If you get published load up the snippet on your website and archive it with the exhibition in your database.
4. Create A Potential Buyers List & Early-Sales Offer
Usually ahead of an exhibition most of the emphasis is placed on the show itself, checking and finishing the works, framing, delivery, pricing, installation, lighting, wall cards, etc.
The sales-marketing is often done under pressure and ends up being an info page on the website, a mailing out of an invitation, a few social media posts, and a standard announcement-style press release, starting a couple of weeks before the exhibition opening and ending when it closes.
This will work to make your existing audience aware of the event, but it won’t do much to grow your audience or compel new visitors to buy.
You should start sales marketing well ahead of the show. First, go back through past buyers and create a list of anyone who you think may be interested, add to this anyone you want to target for a new acquisition. Then create a pre-exhibition sales offer with a time limit ending ahead of the opening of the exhibition. You will need to incentivise them to move early, and provide great images and/or videos of the works together with a story to entice them. The easiest and smartest way to do this is with a Private Viewing (online but private web-like experience - much better than a PDF) which allows you to set up the offer with all its content, and mail it with VIP password access to your client list. The system personalises each mail. Then plan at least 5 personalised follow-ups. Did you know that 80% of sales are made in the 5th to 12th contact?
Your timing for this should ideally be 6 weeks ahead of the show to give them enough consideration time, and enough days for follow-ups and closing the deals. If you can pre-sell works this way, then it takes away the stress of the opening event and makes it instead of a celebration of success, also signaling to everyone that this artist/gallery is in demand, which builds a waiting list for the future.
5. Market on Social Media
Over and above just posting once or twice on your social channels, think about a social media campaign that focuses on getting your audience to interact with you - every engagement is a lead.
You also want to grow your audience, so you need to think about how to target the right kind of people, find them and get them interested enough to engage with you as well, thus growing your e-mail list.
The point about getting them onto your e-mail list is that from there you can nurture their interest over time. 80% of the people who would buy from you, will typically do so after 90 days - long after these social posts moved down your feed and newer posts are getting the attention. If your system is smart, it allows you to move on to new posts as you should, but still keep the interaction going on the relevant topic of interest to the audience you gained on an earlier post. So think about integrating your social media with your e-mail and lead generation activity. This will lead to long-term growth. Sales increases of 50% have been achieved using this approach.
6. Launch an Email Campaign
You have an e-mail list, but most people underutilise this great asset. Usually, that’s because they don’t want to bother people, and this is indeed very important. No one wants to be seen as a nuisance, and that would lose you sales. But there are a few tips for how to email people successfully:
Only mail to those who have opted in
Check that the domain you’re e-mailing from has a clean record and isn’t blacklisted for bad emailing behaviour. You can ask your system administrator this question.
Only e-mail your list information that is relevant to them, the type of information they have shown an interest in and signed up to receive
Segment your list so that you can profile people well in order to ensure only the appropriate messages get sent to them
Then if you can, set up a nurture automation system that will respond to their actions (like opening or not opening your mail, clicking on a link, downloading your catalogue, completing an RSVP, etc.)
Personalise your e-mail - address them by name (you can set up your system up to do this for you provided you have their names in your database)
Don’t give up too quickly - it will feel like too many emails, but if they're on-point, it's not!
7. Create a Leads Generation Plan
A key part of growing your art business is getting new leads. A lead is anyone that is interested in what you’re doing. This doesn’t mean they will buy from you right away, but if you can get their names and e-mail addresses when they first show interest, you can develop a relationship with them over time and nurture them from cold to warm to hot leads, who are ready and excited to become your next paying client.
This entire process can be automated. First, you create a free offer that people browsing your website and social channels are likely to want to get, they say yes, and you send it to them, collecting their names and e-mail address in the process. Thereafter with their permission, you can continue to send them information, invitations, and offers related to their specific interest. They can opt-out, but seldom do if the content is on point. Along the journey you create for them, they get to know you, and the likelihood of doing business with them increases.
Contact Artfundi if your art business needs help to grow. Book a free 30-minute consultation HERE
