We spend a lot of time in the art marketing world focusing on relationships. Relationships sell – just ask any business. It doesn’t matter whether the business sells clothes-pegs or 747 aircraft – the fact is that a great number of sales deals close on a golf course or a yacht or in a bar or a restaurant over great food and some good humor and conversation.

People love to find excuses to interact with people – no question.

But the question arises – how do you find the people to build relationships and play golf with? How do you do that when you are a beginner in a new market or industry – just as some of you may be today?

The answer is called “Attraction Phase” art marketing. A regular business would call it something much less glamorous – finding sales leads.

As an interesting aside, if you would like to grasp the importance of leads in the marketing and selling process you have to see Glengarry Glen Ross – a fabulous movie with a stellar cast including Alec Baldwin, Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, and Kevin Spacey. If you think your life is hard, wait until you see what these guys go through. I worked in sales for several years and it was compulsory viewing as part of our training!

Attraction Phase art marketing is all about finding potential sales leads for your art. We like to dress it up a bit and call them “collectors” and “art-buyers” but they are leads that may one day grow into buyers and collectors. How we build a relationship with them is another phase of the art marketing cycle – right now we just want them to find us!

In online marketing terms, we are mainly trying to “attract” potential customers to our artist website or portfolio. If the website is great and your work is amazing and your story shines through there’s the potential to build relationships and make sales. But only if people can find it.

The single most important thing to take home today is this: If you don’t attract interested visitors to your website in the “Attraction Phase”, the rest of your online sales process is a waste of time. Bringing in a regular flow of interested visitors is critical to achieving success.

How do you do that? We’ll be sharing several powerful techniques in coming articles – stay tuned!

P.S. I don’t play golf but I would love to sell some art on a yacht!