One of the excuses in my book – excuses that keep artists from promoting their art effectively – is “I don’t want to bother people.” You know what it feels like to be bothered and you don’t want to do that to anyone else.
But don’t err to the other extreme. People need to see multiple marketing messages (in a variety of locations) before they act. You need to cover all of your bases. No single person will see the same message across all of the platforms you use.
So, where do we draw the line when promoting our events? (By events, I mean exhibits, sales, openings, open studios, trunk shows, gallery talks, classes, and workshops.)
I propose the following breakdown.
Annoying – Horsefly Buzzing Around Your Head
- Multiple email “reminders” for the same event
- Corrections to those email reminders because you left something out of the first one
- 49 tweets in a row promoting your art
- 15 Facebook updates that tell us how excited you are about something coming up
- Promoting your event on someone else’s Facebook page
Informative – Covering All of Your Bases
- Announcement in your newsletter or email
- Postcard sent in the mail
- Feature on your blog sidebar or website events page
- Sprinkling of mentions in blog posts that relate to the event
- Blog post devoted solely to the event
- Special email announcement focused on the event only (no other news included)
- Email reminder the day of or the day before the event
- Facebook event
- A few tweets a day that are varied (varied message, varied time of post)
What have I missed?
5 thoughts on “Is Your Message Annoying or Informative?”
I had to take someone off my Twitter feed because I was getting so tired of reading her constant updates on Twitter that said the same thing: “check out my art! Look at my link”. It was the same thing over and over again and she at least ten of these tweets within a span of 15 minutes and this was every single day. I was beginning to wonder when she had time to create her art if she was tweeting so much.
I would argue that thanking people for coming to your show on their facebook page would be a subtle way to promote your show on other peoples pages. I wouldn’t do more promotion than that on other people’s (well business) pages.
But I do have friends who I would share (goes both ways) art with and that is the beauty of a facebook wall.
I agree. Just because we are enthused with our art doesn’t mean that everyone will be. We can’t be shy but we need to be sensitive to the people that we are talking to.
Wow great timing! Today I received an email from one of the galleries that stocks my art, they wanted to know if I would be interested in having an exhibition (my first). This post and the next [https://aaartbizold.wpengine.com/2011/04/drive-traffic-to-your-gallery.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=43035&utm_campaign=Eight-hourly_%272011-04-22+08%3a15%3a00%27] had information that I found really helpful when thinking about this upcoming event. Thanks!
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