How should I split my marketing effort between acquiring new customers and nurturing existing ones?

Most artists make the mistake of spending 100% of their effort chasing new strangers—new social media followers, new emails, new eyeballs. This is exhausting and has a very low conversion rate. A smart approach, especially as your business grows, is to spend 50% on acquisition and 50% on nurturing. This creates compounding growth rather than just sustainable growth. You still need to acquire new customers, but you also need to invest in converting those customers into collectors.

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Asked by general audience · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2026-01-17