Cultivating Exclusivity Through Personal Outreach
Art Marketing Circle V - Your True Fans
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What did you work on this week?
What art did you create?
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OK, on to the article…..
We’re continuing our members-only series outlining our Circles of Art Marketing framework. If you’re a new member, or missed what we covered previously, I recommend you catch up on the series at the following links:
Art Marketing Circle I - The Sovereign Artist
Art Marketing Circle II - Your Art
Art Marketing Circle III - Turn Your Art Into a Product
Art Marketing Circle IV - Sales
Alright, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at Art Marketing Circle V - Cultivating Exclusivity…
Here’s an example of how you can cultivate exclusivity wit your top 20 fans. While not from the art world (I already explained how I used the True Fans concept in my gallery days), it can be adapted for the art world.
Here in San Antonio, my favorite restaurant is Pam's Patio Kitchen.
The food is unique and amazing. Plus, David, the owner, has great taste in wine and has a knack for finding wines that you don't see anywhere else. Over the years, the owners, Pam and David have become great friends of ours. We’ve become part of their “True Fans.”
Every so often, they host a "private" wine dinner on an evening when the restaurant isn't normally open. Often, they invite a winemaker, and they pair the winemaker's wines with various courses of dishes that David dreams up. It's great food, great fun, and we learn (and purchase) many new wines this way.
In fact, it was at one of their wine dinners that we learned about our favorite Pinot Noir, Foxen.
Now, these dinners, initially aren't posted on Facebook, they're not on Instagram, and they're not advertised on their website. They don't even send a slick email newsletter about them. In fact, one of the charms about these wine dinners is that they are almost like a speak-easy. You kind of just have to know about them. (This is an idea artists could benefit from).
If they're so "secret", why are they always packed?
I have a theory about that. One that visual artists can learn from.
Learn The Art of Personal Outreach
Whenever David meets someone in the restaurant who he thinks would be interested, he must make a mental note (or written) of that fact. He takes the time to really get to know people and he has an idea about their likes and dislikes. It's one of the great things about Pam's: at any given moment, David will leave the kitchen and just come out to talk with his guests. It's not uncommon to see him sitting at a table in the dining room, sharing one of his favorite wines with restaurant patrons.
Then, as the wine dinner approaches, he must think through who would be interested and he reaches out to those people, personally.
I usually learn of these dinners in one of three ways:
1. In person - David tells me about one while I'm in the restaurant dining
2. Personal email - I receive a personal email from Dave alerting me to an upcoming dinner. A personal email, not a newsletter.
3. Personal text - this is one of the most effective ways - I receive a text message from David, often with a photo of one of the wines and a short invitation to attend or save the date.
Here's an example of the last one I received.
What can artist's learn from this?
You can probably make some educated guesses, but we’ll delve deeper into it in next week’s article.
Creatively,
Clint Watson
BoldBrush/FASO Founder
Art Fanatic
Apostle of Creativity
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