Marketing plays an enormous role in attracting new, qualified art buyers.  Increasing awareness of your artists’ work is done through many different channels.  Most of these channels require a part of your gallery’s marketing budget to maximize your reach to your ideal target audience.

You must look at marketing as an essential investment, but you also want to invest wisely.

How much should your art gallery be spending on marketing?  How do you decide where to spend that money?  That’s is what we are going to look at in this article.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, they recommend allocating 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue to marketing. This is a guideline for businesses selling $5 million a year and with a net profit margin is between 10 and 12 percent.  These numbers likely do not fit with your financials.

Instead, a useful guide for a gallery business is to reinvest five percent of your sales into marketing your gallery and artists.   This percentage is reasonable for the average year.

However, there will be times when you will need to bump that 5% up to accomplish specific goals.  Some reasons that may justify increased marketing might include:

• You’re a brand-new gallery that needs to develop a reputation
• You are moving to a new location or are expanding your empire to a new market
• You decide to do a complete overhaul of your foundational marketing elements, such as:

• • Brand
  • Value proposition
  • Gallery program

Suppose any of these scenarios apply to your gallery business. In that case, you will want to allocate anywhere from ten to twenty percent of your sales revenue to marketing until your goals are realized.

How to spend your art gallery’s marketing budget

As you embark on the task of strategically allocating your art gallery’s marketing budget, it’s crucial to create a comprehensive plan that aligns with your overarching business objectives. Begin by clearly defining your marketing goals for the upcoming year, ensuring they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Conduct a thorough review of the previous year’s marketing expenditure, meticulously analyzing the return on investment (ROI) for each channel. Identify successful strategies and areas for improvement, allowing these insights to shape your budget allocation for the current year.

Consider the seasonality of your gallery’s traffic and sales patterns. Recognize any historically slow periods and devise targeted marketing initiatives to counteract these lulls. For instance, during quieter times, channel more budget towards online platforms, capitalizing on digital channels to maintain engagement and drive sales.

Incorporate plans for launching new artists or exhibitions into your budget strategy. Allocate specific funds for tailored marketing campaigns that effectively communicate the unique merits of the artist or exhibition to your existing clients and potential prospects. This could involve a mix of digital marketing, social media campaigns, and traditional advertising, depending on your target audience and the nature of the artistic presentation.

Remember to diversify your marketing channels, balancing traditional methods with digital platforms to reach a broader audience. Monitor and adjust your budget allocation throughout the year based on real-time performance data, ensuring a dynamic and responsive approach to your marketing strategy.

By following this comprehensive approach, you’ll not only optimize your budget allocation based on past performance but also proactively position your gallery to achieve its business goals through targeted and effective marketing initiatives.

Audit your gallery’s marketing foundation

Without a solid marketing foundation, all your daily marketing activities will be less effective or a waste of your time and money.  Every 3-5 years, it is wise to do an audit of all your art gallery’s foundational marketing elements for the business. Such elements include:

• The size and quality of your customer database
• Your lead generation process, marketing, and sales workflows
• Your art gallery’s competitive advantages
• Brand awareness and positioning in your target markets
• The strength of all your gallery’s marketing assets (website, social profiles, SEO, brochures, sales tools)
• A comprehensive, written marketing plan

An audit may reveal that your marketing strategy is not aligned with your current business goals.  You may find it no longer reflects your brand or has significant gaps preventing you from pursuing specific growth opportunities.

Consider these 5 questions throughout your marketing audit.

1. Do your foundational marketing elements align with your strategy for business development?
2. What barriers exist in your prospects’ minds that prevent them from becoming gallery clients? Does your marketing message address those barriers?
3. Do you have a clear and consistent brand that distinguishes your art gallery from other competitive art sources?
4. How does your art gallery’s website provide the best information and usability for moving visitors through the sales process and for making a buying decision?
5. How could marketing tools and processes be improved to deliver your message and measure marketing investment results?

Your gallery’s marketing tools are the backbone of all your gallery’s sales efforts and may require an investment to get them working more effectively for your current needs and goals.

Allocate Your Art Gallery’s Annual Marketing Budget

Finally, it is time to allocate the 5% (or more) of your gallery’s annual sales revenue to your marketing budget.

According to Artsy’s Gallery Insights report, the average art gallery marketing budget breaks down as follows.  This data should be a helpful benchmark for you to compare you budget allocation.

You need to evaluate your most profitable sales channels and allocate marketing dollars that support those channels proportionately.  That may look different from the example above.

Start with any weaknesses you found in the foundational elements you identified during your marketing audit.

Keep your goals in mind.  If, for example, you are going after a younger audience, a healthy portion of your marketing budget should go towards digital marketing channels, such as SEO, e-commerce, and social media advertising.  If you want to establish a referral program for your existing client base, you may want to invest in creating new printed materials or incentives.  Such materials can be distributed through more traditional channels and face-to-face.

You will want to continue to invest in what already works best for your gallery.  Embrace the opportunity to innovate and look for ways to maximize whatever marketing channel brings in your art gallery business’s best sales leads.  If, for example, email marketing is a top marketing channel for your gallery, try investing in marketing automation to do more with this already powerful marketing tool.

Be specific with how you allocate your budget.  Use line items to help define exactly where your investment is going.  Please don’t lump all your marketing initiatives together because this makes it more challenging to evaluate ROI and adjust a future budget.

To the Point

Creating your art gallery’s marketing budget begins with goals and how you need your marketing efforts to support them.   Establishing a clearly defined marketing budget will help you accomplish your business goals and ensure your investment is spent wisely.

You know marketing is a continuing investment in your art gallery’s future.  Consider the needs of your current marketing foundation before experimenting with untested strategies.

Smart, consistent marketing will be a critical factor for increasing awareness of your artists’ work with new, qualified art collectors and essential for your art gallery’s future success.

 

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