If you don’t have a booth at an art fair this year, don’t worry! Not all collectors buy at fairs, many of them make purchase works online in the days and weeks following the fair. At Artsper, during the fair season, traffic on our website doubles and even triples.
Be ready on Artsper and online
First step: prepare yourself in advance, you can even contact your account manager two months in advance because we always produce more communication campaigns for FIAC and Art Paris.
Check all your artwork pages
Collectors always want information about the work they are interested in; photographs, showing different angles, anecdotes, the artist’s biography ... To ensure that your work can attract the attention of the collector and keep their interest, it’s key to give your work a "story" by making your artwork pages as detailed as possible.
Find more advice in our article "3 tips for perfect artwork pages".
Below is an example of a very good artwork page:
Promote your gallery page
If you want to sell works, your collectors must know where to buy them. On Artsper, your collectors can buy your artwork at any time and from anywhere in the world. Let your collectors know about Artsper on social media, newsletters etc.
For more tips read our article "How to promote your gallery profile page".
Here's an example of a gallery promoting its gallery profile page on its website:
Newsletters
Newsletter are a very practical way of communicating with your contacts and keeping them up to date. There are several tools that enable you to send beautiful newsletters very easily. There's Mailchimp, SendinBlue and Mailjet just to name a few.
Consolidate your network and expand it
The fairs bring together the most important people in the world of art in one place; collectors, artists, journalists and other gallery owners. This is the perfect time to organize appointments with existing contacts and as well as network and forge new relationships.
Social Media
To make your contacts and collectors more interested in you and your gallery, use social media to share your projects and activities. The fairs are gold mines for content and even if you don’t have a stand on the fair, nothing prevents you from going there. Once there, take pictures for Instagram and Facebook. You can share your favourite works, your favourite booths, and more with your collectors.
On Instagram don’t forget to use hashtags or tag your gallery, artists or the fair itself. Here are some ideas for hashtags: #fair #artfair #(name of the fair) #art #artist #(artist name) #(medium of the work) etc. For more ideas, read our article "The hashtags of contemporary art".
You can also test Facebook or Instagram "live" that allow you to communicate directly with your followers. For example, you can film live the fair you visit, so you can share your experience easily.
Here's an example of an Instagram post that uses tags, hashtags as well as a caption to contextualise the image:
Contact the press
There are two ways of contacting journalists. You can find the contact details yourself by looking through magazines and art publications to find the names of art journalists, as well as their contact details which are often found in the first few pages. The other, more expensive option is to go through a media relations agency.
Customize your approach
Personalize your approach depending on the person you’re meeting . For example, with a loyal collector, why not offer them a tour of the fair while sharing your expertise and advice?
