Gallery Marketing

What Ever Happened to Response?

A funny thing happened in my life. The Internet. I have become spoiled rotten by the Internet and as a result my behavior has changed. If I hear about something, I make a note and go to the web site or I try to remember the name and I do a Google search. When I go to a site I look through their product line and if there is nothing there for me...I move on. I may return another time to search for something new... or not. I do comparative shopping on line too. Oh, and if the website does not answer my questions and have a solution to anything I can think of that I want to know... I am annoyed. AND I am really irritated if the site MAKES me have a human interaction like "call for price." Guess what. I won't. I want to see the price, I want to make a purchase decision at that moment, and if I cannot click to buy it I will try to find somewhere else that does have a price and purchase engine.

Of course in the gallery world you have UNIQUE pieces of art (unless you're selling prints). Many gallery folks I know refuse to put the price on their site because they want to force someone to call... so they can up sell them or use their sales skill on the potential buyer. Makes sense, and maybe it works. But not for me. You see I do most of my shopping after the kids are in bed or on those nights when I cannot sleep and I'm on line. I want instant gratification. Having to phone does not offer this.

What does this have to do with response? Advertisers tell me that "response rates" for all of their advertising has gone down with all publications (not just mine thankfully!) The phone simply does not ring as much anymore. Why? People shop on line. Even people who have good relationships with your gallery. (And others of course). Your ads still get response. They PROMPT people to go on line to look at a show, a painting, an artist and if you're a net-savvy marketer, they can see your entire inventory. Of course you'll never know they were there looking through your inventory in the middle of the night... unless they found something they had to own. Then they clicked and bought it... or maybe if you're lucky they phoned. But only after they saw that you had what they want.

Advertising is valid, continues to create awareness and it sells artwork. But, the phone does not ring like it used to. Its a fact of life.

What do I recommend?

1. Make sure your ads point to your website.
2. Make sure your website relates to the ads you are running. (For instance a featured painting).
3. Make it easy to look at the inventory, know the price and buy.

I believe that if you "make people call" some will and a lot more won't.  If I were in your business I too would RATHER people call. But  the reality of all business has changed. Now you have a potential world audience 24 hours a day. You still need to advertise to make sure they stumble to your site. Just make sure your site can meet their needs and make it easy to buy.

Why Advertising Is Not Intutitive

Most people, including most business owners, do not spend their lives in advertising. So when faced with a need to increase business they often decide to try advertising. After a career in the advertising industry I've encountered these business owners numerous times. I'll get the call...

"Yes, Eric, I'd like to try some advertising. How much is an ad?"

When the conversation continues, it goes something like this...

"We would like to try your magazine, so we thought we would place an ad."

When I ask what their expectations are they typically say something like...

"Well, we're not sure, but I assume it will sell some paintings for us."

"How many paintings do you expect it to sell? What price point on the paintings?." I ask.

DEAD SILENCE. "We'll we're not sure."

When possible I try to direct an inquiry like this to a discussion about needs, objectives and goals. Most people have not thought about the outcome other than "selling some paintings" or boosting business. But different goals require different strategy.

I once ran an ad in a magazine. My goal was to build subscriptions. So, I placed an ad in a magazine, which reached people who were potential subscribers. I even inserted a subscription card. They had a circulation of 80,000. The result? We sold 12 subscriptions costing me $600+ to get each. Why did the ad fail? I did not follow my own advice. (Which we will get into in a minute.)

In another case I decided to run ads in a little inexpensive newspaper which reached potential advertisers. Since my goal was to create awareness and brand our name with potential advertisers I decided to take a long term approach. So I bought an ad to appear every issue for a year. One ad ran. No calls. But none we're expected. A second, third and forth ran. No calls. None were expected. At this point my marketing assistant was saying, "Eric, do you really want to continue since you're getting no results?" I told him, "Wait and see, we will see results."

After about eight months of impressions our phone started ringing from companies who said things like "we keep hearing about your magazine and want to explore some advertising." It was clear they were coming from these ads.

Intuition says... run and ad...get a call. Most ad experts will tell you intuition does not work. (Though sometimes you get lucky and it does work.) Frequency is the key to success in advertising. The repetition of message over and over again is what gets people to notice, build trust (yes, seeing you time and again builds trust if your ads look good) and eventually take action.

Even though I have spent my entire career in advertising I fell into the trap of being seduced to thinking I could sell something with a single ad. I was wrong. When I changed my strategy to consistent long term advertising I started seeing results. This will continue as we remain committed over the long haul. ... against my intuition.