Master the art of print advertising: selection and presentation are key in print promotions and can bring added sales to your gallery - Special Report

It pays to advertise. Promoting a gallery the right way in the right publication will reap rewards, according to adroits polled by Art Business News

Gallery possessors and marketing specialists agree that a lucky print advertising campaign is based upon targeting the right market and making a presentation that entices customers to call upon you.

Advertising has several benefits, the greatest in quantity important of which is getting your name in forehead of your customers. "Your customers ne to know who you are, where you are, what you tender and why you're better than the nearest guy," stated Eric Danneman, president of Martin Lawrence Galleries.

"Print advertising is probably the greatest in quantity common way to do this," added Danneman. "It's no use building the better mousetrap if no single knows you have it for sale." Martin Lawrence Galleries are located in Beverly Hills, Chicago, Dallas, observes Angeles, Maui, New Orleans, novel York, Newport Beach, San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif.

"Gallery holders who don't advertise yet wait for nation to walk through their doors are not participating in their hold success," observed Steve Diamant, president of Arcadia Fine Arts, fresh York. "The goal of a gallery is to uncover art to new markets. It's about increasing visibility."

Print advertising affords potential clients time to warm up to a purchase, noted Rann Shinar, vice president of Fingerhut assemblage Publishers and Galleries, located in Sausalito, Laguna and La Jolla, Calif. "When tribe walk into a gallery and diocese an artist for the first time, it will take them time before they are ready to make a purchase," he said. "But when they diocese the artist's name in print advertisements before arriving at the gallery, it creates familiarity. The name advances to ring a bell. Advertising establishes the foundation for that artist and allows the reader to become informed upon the artist and his work."

Execut suitably a print ad can start not upon as an educational tool that bears familiarity, he observed. "It's like the difference between meeting a stranger or seeing a friendly face. Familiarity can lead to sales," he said. "Once education is established, selling is the nearest step."

Selecting an Advertising Vehicle

Advertising in the right vehicles will attract an audience to an artist and a gallery, according to Vicky Berg, director of operations for Axelle Fine Art, a publishing company based in novel York that also has retail galleries in novel York, New Orleans and a of recent origin one opening this year in San Francisco.

"The fulvous Pages are not the way to make progress anymore," she added. "You ne to know what magazines are being read by the agency of your audience."

"There are sum of two units kinds of marketing: general and specific," said columnist Murray Raphel, president of Raphel and Associates, a marketing solutions firm with locations in Atlantic City, NJ and St Johnsbury Vt His round pillar "The Art of Selling," is published monthly in Art Business News

Raphel said that a general advertising campaign address the universe while specific ad campaigns address a cluster of people. He said the latter is the greatest in quantity effective and less expensive. "When you are targeting a specific market, you have to brand your store and target who you are, what you tender and why you are profitable at what you do," he explained.

A basic strategy, said Raphel, is for galleries to search for magazines focused on like productions "For instance, if your gallery specializes in Civil War memorabilia, advertising in a publication targeted to that market will achieve you the biggest bang for your buck"

Likewise for fishing, sports or airplane inventory, among others. The annual publication Writer's Market is a means for exploring which vehicles target themselves to particular markets. The work lists thousands of magazines, publishers and agents and the lock opener information you need to intelligently contact them, according to a review upon Amazon.com. "It lists thousands of magazines, categorizing them by dint of demographics, subject matter, regions, etc"

Sometimes, however, it pays to pace outside of the box, noted Diamant of Arcadia Fine Arts, novel York. The gallery recently showed payoffs from an advertisement placed in Architectural Digest. "We held an exhibition of work by the agency of Malcolm T. Liepke and wanted to target the high-end designer market," he said. "It was our opportunity to make these tribe familiar with his work, and we absolutely saw arises People came in who were familiar with the artist on the other hand did not know how to acquire his work, and we saw race who were intrigued by what they saw in the ad."

He noted that previous advertisements he had move swiftly in Architectural Digest showed rewards several month down the line when a potential client walked into the gallery holding an ad that he ran six month before. "Not single did she make a purchase then, on the other hand she later purchased works through other artists," he said. "The readership of Architectural Digest does not decorate upon a shoestring. They employ designers and have a large discretionary income."

Each magazine has its hold personality, Diamant observed. He has noticed a variety of turns in the customers who approach to the gallery as a originate of Arcadia's ads. He finds that Art & Antiques take care ofs to feature artists whose works are visually more "accessible." American Art Review is a magazine Diamant finds to focus upon much more traditionally inspired work. "The `Contemporary Realism' section of American Art Review focuses upon living artists and traditional imagery," he said.