What bugs you?

Does anything on this page hinder or even irritate you?

I would love to know. Nothing is unimportant, too small or too big.

If there is something I can fix, I will certainly do it.

Please let me know right away

How to grow and target the right audiences to your gallery

It's a challenge a lot of galleries struggle with: how to grow your audience? But above all, how to target and draw the right people to your gallery?

The answer came recently in a remarkable announcement from an established Brussels contemporary art gallery.

It not only cut short with habits and rules that mark and isolate the high-end art gallery world, but the gallery owners used one the most effective strategies, ever invented in marketing, and implemented it with a lot of verve, overruling conventions step-by-step.

 

No 'We are proud to present'-like intro

Instead of a lengthy press release written in an academic style and signed by a well-regarded curator or art critic, they opted for a simple, easy to understand text in plain English, banning all art speak.

Refreshingly unusual, but the more convincing for it. And the gallery owners pushed it way further.

 

Breaking established rules

Discreetness dictates that a gallery never reveals names about its clients' base to the outside world. Even hints that could enable people to link a fan or an art enthusiast to a gallery are always carefully avoided. Yet, the gallery owners disrespected this number one rule.

They approached friends and colleagues of the artist - obviously prospective clients - and asked them if they were willing to share their impressions about the artist's work.

They planned to insert their reactions anonymously.
Yet, the moment everybody agreed, they decided to turn these reactions into what is considered one of the most effective tools in marketing.

 

A premiere in the high-end segment

For the first time they introduced testimonials.

No, not the kind of sugary testimonials stuffed with adjectives and art speak endorsing the uniqueness, the quality or the value of the work on show.

They could easily have done so.

Instead they chose well-known creative people, widely recognized by a broad public and appreciated for the high standard quality work they deliver: a pop musician, film directors, a fashion designer, and yes ... two peers, colleague artists who are not even part of the gallery's roster.

They simply wrote down, and edited, the spontaneous quotes and remarks about the artist's work that they captured in a telephone conversation, to keep the reactions as natural and conversational as possible.

 

One extra particularity made the success

The gallery owners never planned it, but in their selection of endorsers there wasn't any real 'star' or 'VIP'. In everyday life each of these creatives has always deliberately opted to remain low profile, away from the hype and buzz of the media world.

As a result the testimonials were perceived as they were meant from the start: genuine, sincere, from professional to professional.

It made it much easier for anyone to identify with them.

Because of the endorsers' 'fame' among younger and older people alike, art professionals as well as film fans, pop fans, fashionistas ..., the testimonials reached out to a much wider audience than classic galleries goers, including art enthusiasts as well as creative people. An audience that is interested in art in general, but rarely visits a private gallery on a regular basis.

 

Five testimonials was all it took

And some audacity to break down established rules to attract a whole new audience to the gallery.

Is this a one-time event, a lucky shot?

Reactions from inside the art gallery world suggest that there is more at hand. This premiere in the high-end segment definitely hit a sensitive cord among colleagues.

No one judged it with a 'this is not done'.
True, some argued ”They're lucky they work in this particular niche of the market. We can't expect our collectors or visitors to endorse one of our artists so publicly.”

If they had been at the opening, they would have experienced what some genuine, honest testimonials can provoke.

The gallery owners surely didn't regret abandoning some beaten paths: their mailing list has grown with an impressive number of perfectly targeted art enthusiasts.

Oh... and the opening was a 'sold out' too if you still wonder.