People who buy from you once are more likely to buy from you again than people who have never bought from you.
And … It’s less effort to nurture relationships with people who already know, like, and trust you than to find new people to share your art with. Acquiring customers, in marketing terms, is a long and costly process.
Therefore, it makes sense to take care of the people who have purchased from you. Show them you appreciate them now instead of contacting them later only when you want something from them.
One of the biggest mistakes artist-entrepreneurs make is not following up with people who have given them money.
If you’ve been lax in this area, you might be leaving money on the table.
If you sell art from your studio, rather than through a gallery, you have no excuses for not following up appropriately. You have the name and contact information of your collectors.
Here’s a plan to awe your collectors–not just once, but over the course of your relationship.
Within 1 Week of Sale: Express Gratitude
Send a thank-you note in the mail. Use notecards with images of your art on them for all of your handwritten notes.
This is yet another opportunity to put your art in front of people who appreciate it. The cards, of course, have your contact info or website on the back.
Don’t exploit this as an opportunity to ask for anything else. Thank-you notes are for expressing gratitude only, not for additional sales or requests.
Two Weeks Later: Ask to Connect
In this email, suggest to your collector that
