Reaching Out to New Potential Clients

"A Frequent Flyer"
8" x 16" oil painting.
​Purchase here. 

I am not sure why as artists we don't aggressively seek out new clients. Instead, we post our paintings on social media and hope for a sale. Or we send our paintings to new galleries and keep our fingers crossed. 

Having grown up in the world of sales and marketing I know that my sales results will be a lot better if I work hard at making sure a lot of people see my art. That's why I have started a very aggressive campaign introducing my abstract paintings to interior designers.

Managing an email campaign and following up on responses and leads can be a nightmare. But there are some great email tools that integrate with standard email programs that help you do this. I am in the process of switching from Outlook to Gmail so I can use an amazing CRM program. I know, you probably have never heard of CRM. I hadn't either. It stands for Customer Relationship Management and it does exactly that. It's an App that integrates into your email system, shows who has opened your emails, and allows you to respond using great templates you have created via email. It makes the whole process of reaching out to potential clients a lot easier than we have done in the past.

For example, let's say you send out an email featuring three of your paintings. When one of the email recipients opens the email you are notified. When they click a link to one of your paintings you are also notified. That's when you can send an email (that is already created in a template) featuring the painting they linked plus other similar paintings. And it all happens with one click. Imagine how great this could be if you sent out hundreds of emails.

I will be writing a lot more about this in the future but I just wanted to get you thinking. Who are your potential clients? How do you find a list with email addresses for all of them? What kind of emails might get them to click on a link to your website? 

​I will answer these questions and more in the future. I promise. Does this sound interesting to you?