Ways to Promote an Environmental Campaign with Your Art Products With an art gallery, you have the perfect excuse to promote or voice out any topic or issue. Fighting for a cause such as environmental campaign can be one way to show concern for your community that can very well be promoted through art and print pieces. By planning a full environmental campaign, you can create green concepts with art. Also, by fully furnishing your gallery, you can gain supporters for your cause that can be beneficial for your business. 1. Green Concepts: You can have a display of art pieces on green concepts for your campaign. One way is to create art pieces that revolve around nature like landscape or mountain concepts. This can help set the ambiance for an environmental campaign. 2. Green Tips and Advice in Canvas: With your art pieces, you can relay environmental messages to your visitors such as recycling, global warming issues, and non-biodegradable concerns. With printing options found online, you can print photos on canvas with printers like UPrinting. 3. Eco-Friendly Print Materials: You can create an art piece by building a collage from green printing products. Through this concept, you get to promote eco-friendliness by using recycled materials. 4. Main Display: To fully promote your campaign, you can use window clings for the main campaign caption. You can use this concept as a come-on by having graphics that promote green living or an art piece that resembles such movement. This can attract and inform passersby about what the whole concept of your campaign is. Hosting a party that is fully-themed for an environmental campaign gives a stronger impact to your guests. Also, for your business, this concept can be a good pr stint and can gain you a new set of clientele as well.
Posts Tagged ‘Clientele’
How to Sell Your Jewelry Through Art Galleries
December 16th, 2009One way to sell your higher-priced, one-of-a-kind jewelry is through art galleries.
Customers who shop at galleries expect to pay higher prices, and they’re looking for unusual handcrafted pieces that can’t be found anywhere else. Gallery owners and staff are experienced at selling art to this type of clientele, and they are always in search of new, high-quality handcrafts.
The Best Galleries for Your Jewelry
Many galleries specialize in a particular art niche. If you find one that specializes in a theme, material, or era that characterizes your jewelry, it could be the beginning of a successful business relationship for you.
For example, if you make dichroic glass bead jewelry, seek out some galleries that focus on glass art.
And be sure to get a good idea of the gallery’s personality – a conservative, traditional atmosphere would be a good bet for Victorian-theme jewelry, but not such a good fit for trendy polymer clay bracelets.
Here are some ways to locate galleries that are likely to be interested in your work:
1) Check your phone book’s yellow pages for galleries in your town and in other towns near you. If they’re close enough, visit likely prospects to scope them out before making any appointments to show them your work.
2) Look in the classified ads of art magazines for gallery advertisements. Some art magazines also publish annual listings of galleries.
3) When your friends and family travel, ask them to be on the lookout for galleries that seem compatible with your style of jewelry. Your loved ones are usually happy to step into a likely gallery and pick up a business card for you to follow up on.
4) Do some Internet searches for galleries that pertain to your style of jewelry. For more accurate search results, try using quotes in your search terms – for example,
“gallery” + “glass art” .
Study these galleries’ online presence and see whether they feel like places that are right for your work. Bookmark at least a dozen, and see if their sites state their preferred procedure for artists to submit their work.
5) To show your work to galleries within driving distance, call first and set an appointment with the person in charge of accepting new work. If they say they’re not accepting anything new at this time, thank them politely and move on to the next likely prospect.
6) For galleries farther afield, you can send a brief email to the gallery owner, introducing yourself and stating why you think your jewelry fits well with their gallery. Include a link to your website so they can peruse your work at their convenience. If you don’t hear back from them in two weeks, call the owner to follow up.
Find Out More About Your Top Gallery Choices
Investigate your top gallery choices a little deeper. You want to make sure they have a good marketing plan, and that the pieces in their shop do sell at a reasonable speed. When talking to a gallery owner about carrying your jewelry, here are some things to find out:
1) What what kind of advertising do they do? What special events do they host, and what promotional mailings do they send to their customers?
2) Will they give you the names of a few of their other artists you can call or email to find out their experiences with this gallery?
3) Does the gallery buy artists’ work on a wholesale basis, or accept it on consignment? And if it’s on consignment, what percentage of the retail sale price does the gallery pay the artist?
4) How often does the gallery send out payments to the artists?
5) Will they have special promotions or exhibitions of your work?
6) Is the gallery staff well educated in the art of the artists represented there? It’s the salespeople’s job to sell both the artist and the art to customers.
How to Maintain a Good Relationship with a Gallery
Once a gallery is carrying your work, you’ll need to do your best to build and maintain a good relationship with the owner and staff. Here are some things to consider:
1) Promote the gallery as much as you can. Post their name and contact info on your website as a location where your jewelry can be purchased. When you do shows, have flyers available listing all the shops and galleries that carry your work.
2) Never undercut the gallery’s prices on your work. If they’re selling one of your bracelets for $150, that’s what you should be charging for the same piece. When a gallery finds out you’re underselling them, they usually stop carrying your work.
3) Always make an appointment before showing up at a gallery. Whether you’re visiting for the first time to show your work, or coming to discuss ongoing business, be sure to demonstrate respect for the time of the gallery owner and staff.
4) Don’t plan to clean out your inventory from a gallery when you do a show, and then return the unsold pieces back to the gallery. That creates headaches, extra paperwork, and empty shelf space for the gallery owner.
5) Make yourself available to participate in any of the gallery’s promotional events you can attend. Be supportive of all their advertising and publicity efforts, and help out wherever you can.
Establishing a good relationship with a gallery that fits with your jewelry is a great step for your business. Good luck, and enjoy selling your jewelry through art galleries!
The Art Gallery and Gift Shop Business
December 12th, 2009A business that includes a picture framing business, an art gallery and a gift shop is a business that has an excellent chance of succeeding. If the location is high traffic this will get potential customers to stop and go through the gallery. If your shop is located in a tourist area you may get an entirely different group to visit your store depending on the time of year.
The gift and framing business should give the store a constant cash flow and the gallery will help the bottom line each quarter. Pictures and art works are an individual like or dislike. What one person would find a must have item another could pass on without a second thought. This means in the gallery you will need to have some variety of art and pictures.
Two attributes are needed to be a successful gallery owner. You must be passionate about art and you must be a good businessman with really good people skills. Negotiating the sale of an expensive piece of art is not a take it or leave it type of sale. It takes some skill and a willingness to deal to make the sale happen.
Start a store, Buy a store, Buy into a Franchise
These are three of the ways to get started in this business. Starting from scratch is the least expensive in start up cost, but also the most difficult to make successful. Buying an existing store is wise for some people as there is already some cash flow and a customer base. Buying into a franchise may offer some advantages, but the buyer should really study the franchise offer and make sure they can live with any restrictions that are part of buying into the franchise.
All of these options have merits and a plus and minus check off system will let you understand better the difference between the ideas. The amount of money you have available for the startup or purchase will also be a determining factor on which way you go. Buying a successful shop that has a clientele is not a bad way to go and may offer the greatest chance of success. Also the current owner may be willing to finance part of the sale price.
A business broker could be of help in finding businesses that are for sale. They would probably be of help in locating potential properties that are up for purchase. They also may be able to give you some solid advice on how much to pay.
Where to find items to sell
Estate sales, eBay and the Internet offer items that could be purchased by a knowledgeable buyer. If you know what the market is looking for or are good at seeing a fad develop, you could find some bargains in these venues. There are many Internet companies that will offer you smaller items for the gift shop and for impulse type purchases. Unusual and visual are two of the prerequisites for items for your shop. People are attracted to the unusual and the more visual the item is the more likely the sale.
Another way to find items for sale is to build up a list of artists that are willing to let you represent their work. Meeting local art teachers and art groups may also let you find an artist before they become famous. Art and craft fairs and shows are another way to find items that could be sold in your shop.
Join any mailing list you can find for people in this business. The more information you have, the better you are able to stay up with what is happening.
Location is important
Location is always important in any retail business. If you wish to sell at the higher end of the art world you better plan on having a prestigious address. Tourist type shops can be on a retail street or in a shopping strip. Good traffic is the key to being successful. You need the walk-by traffic to get people in your shop. The casual shoppers can turn into a customer that spends some real money if your items catch their fancy. You never know who will pull out a credit card and buy the most expensive item in the shop.
Advertising the business
This unusual business lends itself to mail campaigns and e-mail notices. Local radio and TV may work, but you will need to try it on a small level first to see what kind of a response you get from your ads.
A current Internet site is a great way to push the new items in your store. You must have the capability to change your web pages yourself, as you need to make the changes. A stale website is never a good idea. It must be kept fresh. You may want to see what other shops do to gain business if you have some contacts in the business.
Conclusions
This business is different and can be a very interesting way to make money. Inventory turnover will keep people coming back to see what you are currently displaying. One-man shows and special types of art can also bring in the old and new customers. Finding a constant source of new items is the art of running a successful business. New ideas, art pieces and gift items are necessary to stay current in the business. This is the only way to get old customers to stop in and see you again. If your items are stale, the old customers will grow bored with seeing the same thing each time they stop.
New artist and new art pieces will always be a new experience for customers. If you are lucky enough to find an up and coming artist, your shop could become very busy if you are representing the artist. Unknowns can be valuable too, as customers always want to be the first to recognize a new talent.
The range of possibilities in this business is only contained by your imagination. This is the great part of this kind of a business. It is always changing and keeping your interest in what is going on in the creative world.
