How To Build Positive Customer Relationships With An Art Business
The Importance of Customer Relationships: Building Loyalty and Repeat Business
Art is an elaborate composition of connections. Artists connect with a given medium and a source of personal inspiration in order to create something new. In turn, art collectors and enthusiasts connect with these creations thereby increasing their value and admiration.
It’s an intricate circle of creation and acquisition that not only supplies the world with masterpieces but also provides for artists’ talent today. As all artists know, breaking into this circle of creating and selling art can be an elusive objective. One way artists can pioneer sales
within their industry is to embrace building customer relationships.
Why Positive Customer Relationships Are Important
Positive customer relationships are key to a profitable and lasting business. Inherently, people desire to have positive purchasing experiences, so when they find a business or brand that fulfils this desire they are motivated to return. Maintaining existing customer relationships is also less expensive for businesses than reaching out to acquire new ones, and more profitable.
Buying art is different to your usual weekly grocery shop. In a lot of cases, the buying of art carries a lot more emotion; fuelled by the customers connection to the piece or their affiliation to the artist. Establishing positive customer relationships is crucial in the art world. Artists can essentially build a following through their sales, increasing with popularity every time.
In this way, going above and beyond to connect with your aesthetes is a great way to establish a loyal patronage of repeat buyers as an artist. Together we’ll examine several practical steps artists can utilise to build lasting customer relationships.
How To Build Positive Customer Relationships
Know Your Customer
The first step of any customer-centric strategy is to simply know who your customers are. As an artist, it can be tempting to create your work and then see what interested parties come forward.However, taking the time to understand who your art appeals to—your target market— will eliminate the time and resources wasted waiting for this connection.
Target markets for artists can be broken down into several different types of art buyers:
– Trophy Hunters
– Investors
– Gallery Collectors
– Home Collectors
– Interior Designers
Home collectors or interior designers are generally the best option for loyal or repeat purchases. These type of buyers love art for art’s sake, so if they connect with your work they’re generally eager to showcase multiple pieces. Similarly, interior designers are looking to fill their client’s spaces with quality art, so if they connect with your work they’re likely to utilise your craftsmanship for large orders or on multiple occasions.
That being said, depending on the style of your art and how established you are as an artist, any one of these different buyers could be a viable target market to pursue more directly.
Establish Your Brand or Style
As much as you need to understand your customers and buyers, they also need to know who you are as an artist. In the business world, this means establishing a well-defined brand that details your offerings, what makes you unique from competitors, and conveys your general values or personality. As an artist, the process is largely the same. You will need to establish your medium, artistic style, as well as your personality or expressed values.
For artists just starting, defining your medium and art style can be challenging. It’s important to take the time to learn from other artists and experiment with different techniques. In this process, you’ll most likely discover a process or methodology that stands out to you and that separates you from other artists. As you create, your values will be seamlessly communicated within your work because they are inherently core to your being. With this, you will have invented a noteworthy style or brand for your artwork.
Once your style is set, it’s crucial to then articulate who you are and what your work represents with your target market. That being said, explaining your art to people can be challenging for more introverted creatives. Try refining your presentation to others by focusing on feeling words, the story or intention behind your work, and the formal artistic elements used. This enables your audience to understand your work and connect to it personally, which in turn sets the foundation for a strong customer relationship.
Generate Interest in Your Work
It isn’t enough to simply exist as an artist with your practice and pieces. In this digital age; artists are required to take up the role of a marketing team in order to get their work seen. It’s down to you to take the initiative, getting your work seen and out into the world, in front of your target market. This action of marketing or exposing your work generates interest in your work which ultimately leads to sales and customers.
To generate interest in your art, consider creating a product launch plan for each new piece or collection that you release. This type of plan breaks down the ambiguity of marketing by forcing you to detail a go-to-market strategy that includes a positioning statement, where you will showcase your work, how you will promote it, and what resources you will create for customers to learn more about you and your pieces. Having these actions planned before you release your artwork will maximise your efforts and result in more customer connections.
The next step is to simply be persistent and consistent with your marketing. Showcase your work on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, regularly to build a following. Ensure that your Profiles are fully fleshed out, with all necessary bio links and information. Participate in trends to push your engagement even further, and offer buying incentives to turn interest into sales.
Practice Good Business
The final and most crucial step to building strong customer relationships as an artist is to continually foster positive purchasing experiences for your buyers. At the core of your business, it’s these positive experiences that will keep your customers coming back to you as an artist.
This means focusing on the elements that make up a good business and consistently striving to prioritise quality service for your buyers and patrons. It can be easy to get caught up in the whirl of new technologies available to small business owners or to get lost in the nuance of the art industry. Don’t overlook traditional business lessons such as running a business grounded in honesty and transparency, taking time to build personal connections with your customers, focusing on quality work, staying involved in business decisions, and maintaining a long-term perspective. These tactics have stood the test of time and are foundational to building lasting customer relationships.
And always strive to deliver excellent customer service to your clients and buyers. Customer service is crucial for small business success with 97% of buyers saying customer service interactions are key to their brand loyalty and 81% of customers being prompted to make a
repeat purchase due to a positive experience. As an artist, this looks like answering questions and inquiries promptly, communicating clearly about purchasing and delivery, and whenever possible, trying to exceed expectations. It’s these little positive interactions that develop a lasting impression on your customers.
Conclusion
In summary, artisans can pioneer sales within their creative industry by building positive customer relationships and loyalty. Positive customer interactions are highly profitable for small businesses and result in repeat purchases, inherent promotion, and fewer marketing expenses. They are also a great way to establish your career as an artist.
To foster loyal customer relationships, start by knowing your buyers or target market, establish your creative style or brand, generate interest by marketing your work, and finally prioritise positive purchasing experiences for your customers through practicing good business
operations. These steps will ensure the art that you create and connect with as an artist will be shared with the world to make more connections.
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