This week’s Saturday Entrepreneur continues the series about marketing advice for artists. Last week we discussed the importance of having a good business card. I was going to move on this week and discuss ways to make it easy for people to find you online even if you don’t have your own website. However, after my experience at last week’s Tempe Festival of the Arts, I realize that many of you are losing a TON of business simply because you don’t leave business cards out for people to take.
I was really pleased by the number of artists at the Tempe Fair who possessed business cards. It was far higher than the number who had cards at the Fountain Hills Fair in November. However, very few of you had your cards on display. In most cases, I had to ask the artist or booth attendant for a card. In some cases, I had to wait while the artist or attendant helped another customer. In some cases, the cards were stashed away somewhere out of reach, and the artist or attendant had to search for them.
How you lose sales when your cards are hidden away:
Customers leave your booth, intending to return, but they don’t remember your location, and without your name, they can’t find you on the festival map.
Customers leave your booth, intending to get your contact information the next week by calling the organization that sponsored the festival. Unfortunately, for the reasons I outlined last week, it’s usually very difficult to track down an artist after a fair is over.
True Story!
I saw these glass platters and bowls somewhere along Mill Avenue during the Tempe Fair, and I really liked them. However, having just commissioned an entire set of ceramic dishes last month, I wasn’t planning to buy any new household items in December, so I wasn’t going to make a purchase on the spot. It was possible that I would come back to the booth later in the day, after I had reconsidered my budget, and even more possible that I would look this artist up at a future fair, or online.
There were no business cards on display in the booth, and the artist was ringing up a sale, so I sent my family on ahead while I waited to ask for a card. When I was able to ask, the artist said his cards were trapped by the artwork he had just begun to carefully package, and that it would be a while before he could get to them. I couldn’t wait any longer; it was more important for me to enjoy the fair with my elderly mother-in-law than to wait for information from a possible source of servingware. I never got the chance to return to the booth, so I’ll probably never know who that artist is, where he’ll be showing next, if he sells his wares online, or if his work is available through a gallery.
Displaying cards is easy!
As artists who sell their wares in close proximity to other artists, you have the most opportunity of anyone to find fabulous business card holders. Buy several, and put them where they’re easily visible and reachable. Remember: You want people to take your cards. If you set out five hundred cards and after two days they’re all gone, that’s fabulous!
Okay, next week we really will cover ways to make it easy for people to find you online, even if you don’t have a website.
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