The Artist's Guest Book - The Key to increasing Your Business!

The Artist's Guest Book - The Key to increasing Your Business!

One of the most foremost tools in the artist's firm tool kit is the Guest Book. Along with a briefcase of your work, firm cards and a receipt book, your guest book should be with you any time you are exhibiting your work.

What is a guest book? The Guest Book is your tool to derive contact information from time to come clients and collectors. As such, at art festivals and shows, it could well be thought about the most foremost reserved Supply tool in your display. It is a major source for your mailing list. Without a mailing list, your email newsletters would go nowhere. Announcements of upcoming shows and newly created artwork would be useless.

The primary point to remember is that the people who sign your guest book are interested adequate in your work and trust you adequate to give you their information. They have seen your work or whether talked to you or saw you talking with other people. They have given you permission to contact them again. The marketing truths are, despite handing out firm cards and even chatting with a prospect, it is very likely, in this age of too much information, that you and your art product will be swiftly lost in their minds (refer to my other narrative about firm cards!)

You can be forgotten unless you have the means to contact these people and jog their memories!

There are a few helpful rules I have with regard to the Guest Book and how to use it. Though I have called it a guest book in this narrative and refer to it as a guest book when sPeaking with time to come collectors and clients, it is not the usual puny book you see at weddings and such. Consider it a collection of information. My art Guest Book is a leather bound three ring binder with brass corners. The pages have ample space for my guests to fill in the already printed lines and ask for:

• full name
• complete mailing adDress along with zip code
• telephone (many give cell numbers)
• email adDress
• notes and comments

If you don't ask for and have a space for a phone number, or email or anyone else, no one will write it down. If they don't want to give it to you, they won't, so don't worry that you are invading their privacy. The notes and comments section is very important. Ask the prospect to make a note about what you have talked about, or make it yourself immediately after they leave. When you get home and look at thirty or so names, you won't have a clue who is who unless you jotted down something about your conversation. I also make sure that I can read what they are writing. Blame the Computer, but handwriting isn't what it used to be. A puny research can find the right road estimate or zip code, but when it comes to email adDresses you have no second chance.

My guest book also has abundance of space for people to write. There is room for information for two people per page as well as the same information on the reverse side of each sheet.

I let people know that we will be emailing periodic newsletters with updates about our work and schedules. I also undoubtedly do not share their information with anyone. Period. If I am having an exhibition at a gallery or at a show, I will transmit the Gallery's email announcements with my newsletters to the prospects (and I let the Gallery know that is what I am doing), but will not share a prospect's underground information with an additional one organization. It is common institution for a Gallery or club to ask for your enTire mailing list in order to promote "your" show. Although it seems a reasonable request, once your mailing list is in the hands of another, your occasion to fabricate an exclusive connection with those prospects is lost to you! When your show ends, so does the exclusive you had on those clients. The other Party will be adding your contacts to their comprehensive list. We have over 1000 people to whom we send out newsletters. No matter how many names are on your Newsletter list, each is a possible client! Your list is a gargantuan tool in the advancement of your art occupation and represents many hours of hard work that it took you to derive the names on that list. Do not randomly toss it away!

At the other end of the spectrum from the leather bound book with brass corners, my artist husband, Steve Filarsky carries a small moleskin notebook he keeps in his pocket for notes. He carries it all the time and it is especially handy when he is painting outdoors. If someone expresses interest in his work, he will ask for their contact information or have them note it down in his book. I have used legal Tablets to derive information at a show when the Guest Book was inadvertently left behind!. anyone is better than nothing.

What does it mean to your Art firm to derive a prospect's contact information? We have a friend who does gorgeous institution leather work. Her lowest priced items are 0 and most items are in the 0. - 0. Range. They are not an impulse item. But I can't impress upon her the need to get a guest book. I often wonder how much money and work she has lost over time because she does not think it is primary to remind people about her work. It is so easy for an artist to become complacent and think that they will be undoubtedly remembered! Opportunities lost become even more primary when the artist told me recently that she was entertaining out of state because of her husband's job. How are those past clients to know? undoubtedly her non clients won't know and she is now aware of this!

We see it all the time with artists. It is, unfortunately, far too easy to fall into the reasoning of "I've gotten this far without one." And when the cheaper takes a tumble and gentle reminders to your prospects are in order and even necessary, these artists have nowhere to turn!  I have met artsts who tell me that they have never had to market their art. They say that their clients all came to them through word of mouth only. Those same artists are not saying that now. For those artists who have always known the work that it takes to market their art, today's economic woes are just an additional one bump in the road!

We have learned that the symbolism represented with handing out your firm card and or request someone to sign your guest book can be thought about permission for them to leave! Obviously, we would prefer an immediate sale to just collecting information, so don't jump the gun with your guest book or firm card. I usually wait until they are ready to leave before I ask them to sign our guest book.

Always ask your prospect to sign your Guest Book. Most will. A few will not. They would rather just take your card. That is fine too. Never insist that they give you their contact information.

Your guest book is a great tool. It will enable you to renew connections with people who are interested in your work. When someone leaves a show after having talked to a dozen of more artists, loses your firm card and just gets absorbed back into day to day life, you can still put your art in front of them. Make every dollar that you invested in your art, in traveling, in show expenses and advertisements work for you by installing and maintaining a Guest Book in your Art firm today! All it takes is paper and pen and the willingness to ask interested prospects for their contact information!

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