Why is a collector list so important for an art business?

Your collector list is without question either the number one or number two most important metric for an art business. Think of it this way: artists and photographers are essentially commissioned salespeople—you have no guaranteed income when you get out of bed in the morning. But when you have a collector list, it transforms you from a pure commission salesperson into one with a base salary. It starts small, maybe $10,000 a year, but that’s still guaranteed income just for creating and getting out of bed. The way this works in practice is powerful. For example, one artist had 82 pieces for a show scheduled for Wednesday. On Sunday, she emailed her collector list offering them first look and first right of refusal before the public show. Result? 46% of her show sold to her collector list before the live event even happened. That’s the game you want to play—selling as much as possible to your collectors before you do anything public. All it takes is sending an email. This becomes especially critical during unexpected situations like lockdowns, when you need a direct channel to people who will buy your work.

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Asked by an artist asking about building a collector list from scratch · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2021-07-27