Insider Tips to Quadruple Your Art Show Sales

At a recent art show, I could not help but notice that not everyones day was going as well as mine! As I experienced a constant stream of people flooding into my booth and buying my artwork, my neighbors were sitting idle and waiting. Not only did I have people buzzing in and around my booth, but after they purchased my artwork, they told their friends to come to my booth and buy from me!

First, get rid of your directors chair. Artists that avoid perspective customers always amaze me. Youve spent so much time creating your art to sell. Youve spent the time and money to exhibit at the show. Why hide? If you want to sell your work, you must interact with the public.

Put yourself out there! Its very simple - you create additional value to your artwork when you interact with a perspective customer. Explain to them what makes your art work unique. Tell them how you came about conceiving and producing your artwork. Tell them the story, people are interested, and when they buy the piece they now own additional information about the piece to share with their friends.

Its important to give a reason for someone to stop at your booth. Utilize a main focus piece on an easel or pedestal in order to draw interest from the crowd.

Using signage is an easy way to give someone a reason to stop at your booth. With signage, you can give suggestions for alternative uses of the artwork. For example, many of my sushi dishes sold as candle displays, soap holders, bread plates, etc.

Run a show special and use signage to promote the details. Its important to give an added incentive to purchase something from you that day. Take one of your lower end products and create an easy way for people to purchase more of them buy 2, get 1 free for example.

Invite people to sign up for a free drawing to win a piece of your artwork. This last step allows you to capture their name and email for future marketing purposes.

Finally, take a good look at your booth. The success of your next art show will increase when you create the successful booth. View your booth from the customers vantage point. Is it inviting? Does it create the I gotta have that piece! mindset? Attend an art show yourself. Go from booth to booth and see what draws you in to look further. See which booths the people flow to. What about those booths caused you to walk in? Keep notes, assemble that information, and apply it to your booth when you set up for your shows.

Keep your booth fresh throughout the entire show. Remember every time someone walks into your booth they are a customer meeting you for the first time and you always want to make a great first impression.

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Increase Art Sales, Innovative Options!

Any artist will tell you that one of the most difficult challenges they have to face is making a living. The conventional way to attain financial happiness is through long term gallery representations, but many artists don’t have that and of those who do, few have it on a consistent basis. Artists are innovative people, though, and have come up with a variety of methods to bulk up their bottom lines.

One of the easiest ways to make more money is to increase your name recognition. The best known artists sell plenty of art because they make it visible and accessible to collectors. They know that the more people who see their art, the better their chances of selling it. They also know that people don’t buy art they can’t see, and they don’t buy art if they don’t know the artist is.

Your art is your business card, your promotional brochure, your best form of advertising. Get it out of your studio where it’s not doing anyone any good and display it wherever possible, particularly in places frequented by people who like art and have the means to buy it. Restaurants, hotels, retail shops, waiting rooms, decorating firms, and better home furnishings stores are all good possibilities. Be sure to put contact information alongside each piece.

Hold a fundraiser for yourself. Perhaps you need a new kiln or are financing an advanced course of study. In your invitation, state your specific goal, offer donation options, and tell donors what they’ll receive in return. For example, donations can be redeemable for art, framing, or art instruction. Donors can have first choice of new work according to the amounts that they donate. Donations can be worth face value plus a certain percentage — perhaps every hundred dollars can be exchanged for $125 worth of art. An additional enticement might be to raffle off one or two works of art at the fund raiser itself with each $10 donation equaling one chance to win.

Those of you who enjoy travel and are good with people can organize and conduct art trips. Enterprising artists use this method to finance everything from ocean cruises to African safaris and some even end up with extra cash for living expenses when all’s said and done. Artist trips work because people who love art also welcome opportunities to see, learn, and experience life through artists’ eyes.

If you know how to teach, hold art classes in beautiful or exotic locations. If you know the great art and the great museums, offer trips that include tours of these institutions. If you know unique destinations from an art standpoint, offer to share that knowledge with others. Other possibilities include organizing visits to small or obscure museums, exploring local or regional art scenes in other states or countries, and visiting interesting artists or personalities who your fellow travelers could never meet otherwise. The price of a trip might even include a piece of your art specially created to commemorate the event.

First time tour guides should start small, not wander too far from home, and decide whether they’re comfortable leading others. Testing the waters with good friends or your best collectors is advisable. Above all, know your territory, be organized, and provide interesting experiences and observations.

A good way to introduce new collectors to your art and keep current with old ones is to hold invitation-only salons or shows at homes or offices of your best clients. They enjoy holding events like this for a variety of reasons including philanthropy, support for the arts, ego gratification, and wanting to be around artists. They also love having their environments transformed by art, sometimes even to the point where their furnishings are totally rearranged. Presenting each host with a complimentary work of art in exchange for the time and space is always a good idea.

Have each host invite friends and associates from his or her mailing list. Add select guests from your own circle of friends and collectors as well. Don’t invite too many personal friends and other non-buyers, though, because that may change the tone from a salon into a party. Use engraved invitations without graphics in order to portray the event as a special gathering rather than just another art opening.

During the salon, be accessible to the crowd, receive introductions, chat people up, and even seat yourself in a quiet room for a portion of the evening so that guests can ask whatever questions they wish. Show primarily new work as opposed to older pieces that have already been seen. You want your best collectors to be impressed to the point where they’ll excite new buyers. Keep refreshments or entertainment basic so that the focus stays on your art.

Salons and private shows might not be advisable if you’re just starting out or are not that well-known. Your nucleus of supporters should be strong enough to animate and educate the newcomers.

A surprising number of artists either augment or make the majority of their livings by playing to niche markets. They advertise in trade publications or exhibit at trade shows that are not necessarily art related. For example, a watercolorist who specializes in painting railroad subjects advertises in publications for train enthusiasts and exhibits at train memorabilia shows.

Artists successfully market their work to sports collectors, science fiction buffs, pet owners, animal breeders, restaurant owners, hunters, fishermen, lawyers, doctors, and car collectors, just to name a few. You can find trade shows and trade publications for almost everything under the sun, so if your art appeals to a certain segment of the population, seek them out in groups. If your work is traditional or conservative but varied in subject, focus more on designers, decorators, architects, antique dealers and collectors, and retailers of home furnishings and decorations.

The two great advantages to targeting specialized non-art markets by doing advertising and shows are that you have little competition from other artists and that thousands of potential buyers see your work all at once. Chances are good that you can make significant sales if you identify and select your market wisely.

If you’re swimming in excess art, have a studio sale. Cut prices in half and invite everyone you can possibly get your hands on. Hold back your best pieces, but at the same time provide a reasonably good quality selection. Leading candidates for the price ax should be pieces you’ve been unable to sell for quite some time, ones you have multiples or near look-alikes of, and those that no longer fit into how you see yourself progressing as an artist. Don’t slash prices too many times because you’ll saturate your market and encourage your best customers to wait for sales rather than pay full price.

And always remember barter. Whenever you can trade art for something that you would otherwise pay for, do so. Be less inclined to barter if someone wants to trade you something you don’t really need in the first place, but then again, consider the opportunity before nixing it because accepting it means one more piece of your art will hang in one more collection.

Food, shelter, and clothing are always high on the survival list so consider barter with coffee shops, bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants, bed and breakfasts, hotels, your landlord, and retail or vintage clothing stores. Staying healthy, solvent, and out of trouble are always nice too, so don’t forget doctors, dentists, accountants, and attorneys — all people who’ve been known to barter their services for art. If you’re relatively well-known or your art has a broad range of appeal, consider signing on with a barter club. That way, you can trade art for just about anything.

9 Marketing Tips from a Six-Year Old’s Lemonade Stand

The other day my daughter, Sophia, announced that she wanted to set up a lemonade stand.

Seeing as how I didn’t really want to spend the better part of my weekend selling lemonade, I tried to talk her out of it by showing her how much she’d need to spend to buy the lemonade mix, get the cups, that sort of thing.

Regardless of my best efforts, there was no changing her mind. She wanted to go into business and there wasn’t anything I was going to do to stop her.

So as I succumbed to my role as venture capitalist in her first business startup. I decided that at the very least, this would be a great chance to teach my daughter about counting money, basic business principals, that sort of thing.
Find Out How Serious…

We sat down with a pad of paper and started writing the business plan.

It didn’t take long before Sophia, becoming completely exasperated with my efforts to teach her about price structure and ROI, looked up at me and said:

“But Daddy, I just want to give it away. Our neighbors are so nice, I just want to give them the lemonade.”

Wow! What do you say to that? She hit me with a complete game changer that I didn’t expect.

Suddenly, the lemonade stand had taken on an entirely different meaning.

So we put away the business plan, she drew up a sign and my wife helped her mix a pitcher of lemonade.

Just as we were about to open for business, Sophia came in from the back porch with a sprig of mint she had cut from a pot.

“Can we put mint in the lemonade?” she asked. “I want to make it extra special.”

And with that, on a Sunday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood, she was open for business.

Within a few minutes, one of our neighbors who had heard about the project came over with 50 cents to buy a glass of lemonade. Twice the price my daughter was originally planning to charge.

“But it’s free” Sophia told her.

“That’s OK. I want to pay you for the lemonade”, she replied.

Not knowing what to do with the money, Sophia put it in a cup and set the cup on the table (where everyone could see it).

Before long, more neighbors came by, each one giving her at least 50 cents. When a car would pass, she would jump up and down and scream, “Free lemonade” hoping they would stop.

For the most part they didn’t. However, at one point, one did and the driver handed her three dollars for his glass of lemonade – 1,100 percent more then if she’d gone with her father’s suggestion of 25 cents per cup.

By the end of the day, Sophia had made a whopping eight dollars at her “free” lemonade stand.

When it was all said and done, I realized that although my original business lessons didn’t stick with my daughter, I learned a lot about marketing.

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Here are nine lemonade stand tips that you can use to market your services:

1. Give people something for free and they will feel obligated to return the favor

When you help someone, it creates a natural desire to return the favor. As a web designer, provide helpful tips on your blog, participate in forums offering advice and helping non-designers, share ideas on Twitter. In doing so, you’ll not only build trust, but also develop relationships with potential clients.

2. Give potential customers a taste of your offerings

Offer free themes or templates with an easy upgrade to “pro” versions. Provide free stock graphics that hint at potential identity or branding packages while demonstrating your creativity. Just be sure to make it good. When users are excited about the base product, they are much more likely to upgrade.

3. Make it “Extra Special”

Don’t just offer lemonade. Put in that extra sprig of mint. Make everything you do something “extra special” and clients will take notice. Not only will they come back for more, they’ll tell their friends.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Tell Your “Neighbors” (Network!)

One of the first things my daughter did when she opened her stand was run next door and tell the neighbor. After getting his lemonade, he called two other neighbors to tell them about the lemonade stand – both of whom came right over with “donations”. Don’t be afraid to tell friends and colleagues about your services. You never know, they may talk to your next big client later that day.

5. Do What You Need to Do to Be Seen

It wasn’t enough to just put up a sign. My daughter’s advertising consisted of jumping up and down screaming “free lemonade” at passing cars. While it might seem extreme, it worked. How are you “screaming” about your business?

6. Be Persistent

Even though most of the cars passed by, my daughter didn’t give up. Finally, after many failed attempts, one of them did stop—doubling her income for the day.

7. Build Anticipation

My daughter’s first customer knew about her project and was there as soon as it opened. Don’t just launch your new web site, let people know it’s coming. Drop hints, show them screen shots, make them look forward to the big day.

8. Find Good Partners

My daughter’s little brother kept drinking the lemonade – not the best partner. However, her friend from down the street was out there with her jumping up and down screaming, doubling their advertising efforts.

9. Advertise Your Popularity

Once my daughter’s cup started filling with coins, people were more likely to “donate”. Don’t be afraid to advertise your popularity. Place download counters, comment counts and subscriber numbers in prominent places. Just make sure the stats are high enough to warrant a little bragging.

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