Michael Marchetta

If you want to show customers service that surpasses their arts-related wants and needs, you need to go beyond just the standard “bricks and mortar” museum or store and create an established online presence.

Today, this means not only having an interactive website but also utilizing social media - Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and more - to their fullest potential. Tech-savvy customers can easily search and find artwork and supplies that interest them, complete with product reviews. The more venues you provide for them to discover your offerings, the better your chances for a sale or inquiry about your collection. Additionally, your online accessibility will help interested customers learn more about all of your artwork and related products and services, and it will encourage them to retain your business for future transactions.

With a good interactive website and strong social media presence, you can interact instantly with your followers to understand what artwork they want and how to assist them. Marketing online with tools like Google Analytics provides the data you need to create personalized service strategies that help you deliver relevant artwork and cultivate a high level of engagement with clients who know you understand and respect their desires. You can use the data you collect to design customized recommendations and other content for your followers, and to develop a long-term strategy for including artwork in your collection that meets your customers’ needs.

Given the global reach of the Internet, you can establish devoted partnerships from customers around the world and create a reliable base year-round, regardless of the conditions around your home base. A strong, integrated online presence is an invaluable advantage to have over your competition.

At Jerry’s Artarama, we have a very integrated approach to how we work with and support those in our online community. We focus on marketing them first!  Not only is promoting their work in line with our goals of promoting the arts and artists, it's also a great way to market our products. For example, in our blog The Splatter, we have a feature called the “Artist Spotlight Program”. This program features is a biography and story about the artists along with an art project showcasing their skills and techniques.

So how does our Artist Spotlight program gain visibility? Glad you asked! After post a new Artist Spotlight the magic and extensive work begins. The artist is heavily promoted at Jerry’s Artarama in social media, press releases, our website, emails, advertisements and content marketing on a consistent basis. We include the artist every step of the way and ask them to help spread the word about the project, making them an ambassador of their own as well as Jerry's Artarama. This word-of-mouth promotion - today often taking the form of shares comments on social media - brings added value, increased visibility, and drives traffic back to the site. I can tell you from experience that it truly makes people happy to see their work promoted on our website, emails, social media platforms, and catalogs - and that makes me happy!

If you own an arts store or online business in the arts industry, you can try this as well. Feature local artists and their work in your emails and on social media, tell customers about them in the store, drop a flyer in their bags. Ask them to get involved. Engaging with the community in this way is a form of "goodwill marketing," and gets your customers working for you as they help to market your programs and products by sharing with friends and family. Online marketing has opened the door for new and innovative ways to expand your customer base in ways that would have been unimaginable as recently as 10 years ago. Take full advantage of these opportunities as you manage and bolster your online presence!