The Importance of Personal Outreach with Your Collectors (Ginny Butcher)

Hi There,

Buying a piece of art is personal. That's why it is so important to consistently engage with your customer base through personal outreach. While it's gotten significantly harder over the last year to really connect with people in a face-to-face setting, there are so many other options that continue to prove to be valuable and meaningful with customers.

One of our artists, Ginny Butcher, truly made the most of the situation when she decided to host a Zoom event for her best collectors. In the article below, she'll detail exactly how she put on the event and how you can put on one of your own for your collectors.

Don't forget to send us your questions about art marketing! We've already received a great response from our readers and are looking forward to hearing from more of you! Reply back now to have your question answered in an upcoming newsletter.

By the way, for my latest thoughts on art marketing, posted daily, please follow me on Twitter.

Enjoy,

Clint Watson

When FASO began the AMP (Art Marketing Playbook), I decided to do as much of it as I could manage. Following the AMP marketing has been a game changer. Personal outreach to collectors seemed to be key.

Last year had begun well, but with all the shutdowns, it had taken a bleak turn. I started by watching a webinar with Donna Nyzio.

I was so pumped from that, I decided to put together an online version of a pop up show for my best collectors.

I named it Art For Dessert, chose a date, and made a plan. I wanted food and fun to be involved.

I traded goods with a friend who makes beautiful cookie kits to be painted (with food coloring) by my collectors. Each kit had two frosted cookies nestled in confetti, a mini paint palette with food coloring and a brush.

Then I personally emailed each collector to tell them I was sending them a surprise (the cookie kits below) and needed to make sure I had their address right. This served two purposes. It eliminated the collectors who didn't respond and gave those who replied a heads up and created some anticipation.

I wrapped the boxes in plain newsprint, put a business card on it and a note about no peeking till show time, and sent them out.

Then I made an invite that looked like a paper invite and sent that via email. It had the date, time, and brief description. I also included a timeline of mini events leading up to Art For Dessert.

I made a video studio tour and sent that out the day before the show/sale.

Next I curated a private collection consisting of paintings with these collectors in mind. I created a discount code. I sent the email with the link to the private collection and the discount code just before show time.

I was really enjoying myself at this point and mostly focused on people having fun.

I only invited a few people, despite having many newsletter recipients. Only a handful made purchases, but sales were much more than they had ever been in the past. I learned that it is well worth cultivating those loyal collectors. It turned out to be the best "studio sale" I've had, more than doubling the income from my previous best sale.

Soon after Art For Dessert I followed the AMP advice of emailing a collector the image of a painting I had just finished. I felt awkward, but did it anyway. To my delight, she bought it!

Per AMP, I've been telling stories in my emails, (it's hard) and getting a great response, including a commission!

I also sold the painting on my easel because a collector saw it in the studio tour video!

Regards,

Ginny Butcher

Guest Contributing Author, FineArtViews

PS - This is Clint again. I hope you enjoyed Ginny's take on personal outreach. If you've read past issues, you know that I believe your mailing list is your #1 marketing asset. Click here to register now and learn How to Grow a High Quality Email Marketing Listduring the webinar on Wednesday, May 19th at 12:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM CT / 10:00 AM MT / 9:00 AM PT.