6 Methods for Last Minute Christmas Art Sales

Some of my clients asked me this week if it was too late to get a few more paintings sold before Christmas (and those final Hanukkah gifts).

I typically see most people are done buying their more expensive gifts by December 15th. But there are those last-minute stragglers and people who are planning to give some of their gifts after the holiday when they visit other groups of family or friends.

So there’s an opportunity to potentially pick up a handful of sales still.

THE KEY IS TO RELAX ABOUT IT AND MAKE IT FUN.

If you’re expecting the sales to come or feeling desperate about them, any promotion you do at this point is going to feel stressful and unpreferable.

So keep that cheery, festive mindset and let any of these extra sales feel like a bonus!

Here are 6 things you can do to grab those shoppers for last-minute Christmas gifts.

EMAIL YOUR LIST

If you have an email list (and you should) take a minute to write an email letting them know you’re still happy to ship things for them if they are hunting for that perfect gift.

Consider offering to help them pick the right piece for that recipient. This usually isn’t the best time to give a discount because people are a bit tapped out from all the marketing they’ve been seeing. But offering to go the extra mile for them with your time and care can win them over and make that sale.

REACH OUT TO PAST CUSTOMERS

Whenever you need a rush of sales, this is your most likely source. It’s statistically far easier to sell art to someone who has already bought from you in the past than to sell art to someone who has never bought from you (whether they know you & your art or not).

Write a personal note to a customer and mention one or two pieces you think match their tastes. Don’t forget to add personal details so it feels really warm (ask how their children are doing by name, ask how their recent move went, or at least mention by name the piece they bought previously so they know you remember them personally).

ASK FAMILY

Your family and close friends may still be looking for gifts. Don’t push your expensive things on your friends and family (they know you’ve got huge originals for sale and will come to you when they want them) but let them know if you have gifty items like cards, tote bags, coasters, etc. Offer to gift wrap something for them if they’ve still got a few little presents to collect.

SOCIAL MEDIA

You’ve still got time to do some rush shipping for non-local customers. Do a few social media posts letting people know specific things(not just “prints” but feature a particular print and say ‘this print and others are still available’) you have available to ship immediately. Offer to gift wrap and ship the item directly to the recipient – bypassing the customer and saving loads of time in these crucial last few days before Christmas.

VIDEOS

On your social media networks, do some video. Live video works especially well. People connect with you when you’re on camera and they really connect with you when they can ask you a question and you respond in the middle of the video.

You can show them anything from the piece you’re working on to you packaging up orders… but don’t forget about just talking into the camera. It takes the least amount of prep to just sit down and talk – about your art practice, about the season, about buying presents, etc. And then make sure you tell them multiple times which things you have available to ship immediately so they arrive in time for Christmas.

FACEBOOK ADS

I don’t recommend using Facebook Ads as a main source of sales when you really need them. It can take a lot of experimenting to find an ad that works really well for you. (Once you do, it’s awesome! But you might not want to invest a couple hundred dollars to get there and you don’t have the time if you’re looking for Christmas sales.)

What you can do, though, is turn back on a previous ad that worked well for you. Or you can run an ad just to your email list, page likers, and/or website visitors so that the ad is only showing to people who already know about you and your art. That gives you a better chance of people responding to it.

Don’t forget to set a daily budget limit so you know FB won’t go crazy with your wallet. And don’t forget to check the ad frequently (after the first 36 hours, once it stabilizes) so you can turn it off it’s just not working.

Are you going to try any of these strategies today or tomorrow to pull together those last-minute sales?

Vessel I by Jules Tillman

I SAW AN AD ON TV THE OTHER DAY AND MY MOUTH DROPPED OPEN BY THE END.

Let me set the scene.

There’s a wifi router. Families throughout the years are sitting down to dinner. And then you get today’s family… all on their devices. The mom walks in the room with the last dish and sees her family’s faces buried in their cell phones. She announces “There, I paused it.” And literally “pauses” the wifi signal.

This isn’t new functionality.

This wifi company didn’t invent a new ability to turn off the wifi signal. They just presented it in a different way.

They made it clearer to their customers what functionality was possible and then made it extra-easy with a button you can press instead of either turning it off on each device (where the children could just turn it back on themselves) or unplugging the router from the wall.

I see a lot of art businesses afraid to promote their art because it’s not new, so they think it must not be good art. Someone’s painted a tree before, you’ve seen lots of abstracts in that color palette, you think outfitting animals with human clothes has been done done done.

But it’s not about your art being new.

It’s about presenting your art in a new way.

It’s likely you are actually what’s missing in your presentation.

Your personality cannot be duplicated. No one is you-er than you. (Isn’t that what Dr. Suess wrote?)

And that is so incredibly appealing to art customers.

People buy art because it makes them feel something. If they have an experience connecting to your personality, maybe even building a relationship with you, you allow even more possibility for the art to make them feel something because they’re already engaged.

Including videos of yourself, using colors/fonts/logos that feel true to you, writing on your website and social media channels just the way you would talk to friends…

DREAM UP WAYS TO REVEAL YOUR PERSONALITY TO YOUR FANS.

Once you’ve tackled that special something, take another cue from the wifi commercial and think about how you’re ‘asking’ for the sale on your website or online shops.

Could you include mockup images of what your artworks look like on a wall with furniture in the room?

That might help people imagine the art in their own space and really connect to how this age-old thing (art) can improve their own life.

Could you sell packages of 3 prints that go together all framed and ready to hang?

That might help make the art buying process more convenient and less stressful so it’s a total no-brainer to buy some artwork and finally get that wall looking finished.

Could you offer a framing consultation with every purchase of an original painting?

That might take the confusion out of the equation for your fans so they feel confident that the end-result really will look as good as all your pictures, despite their ineptitude for artistic choices.

What other things could help present your artwork in a new way so that it’s simpler, easier, less-stressful, higher-quality, or just more fun to buy your art?

Archives for December 2017