Small businesses will have trouble gaining any exposure in their very competitive markets without proper marketing. Art galleries and museums are in no different situation. Marketing your art gallery or museum is essential to raise awareness of your business and to attract your audience. Furthermore, people change the ways they view or even buy art. So if you run such an art gallery or a museum, you want to keep up with the evolving environment, right?
Now we are coming to the challenge. You are a trendy gallery with affordable art having an exhibition coming up. And exhibitions are made to be seen. It always helps if you can convince the media your exhibition is worthwhile. You will be getting the message out there for free. However, you are not always so lucky. That is why promotion plays such a vital role. You need a program that tells your story. But, how to promote your upcoming exhibition and attract visitors without a generous budget?
Go Social
Talk about your upcoming exhibition on your social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. Create a Facebook event and disclose interesting details, showcase images and videos. Identify and add relevant hashtags. And if your follower base is not large enough, you can invite friends and relevant bloggers, journalists, critics, and influencers.
Find Partners
Decide on who will act as your talking head and make sure this person is a part of all interactions with the media. Seek out a media partner who speaks to the audience you are hoping to attract. This will ensure coverage of the exhibition – typically for something in return. Maybe the use of your art gallery or museum space for a private event organized by your media partner. If you are in a tourist-heavy area, you might want to work also with a local tourist authority and online tourist guides. Many people love their hometown so approaching local bloggers is a great way to get exposure for your exhibition, too. Do not forget to approach neighboring businesses about joining your promotional efforts. Ask them to cross-promote with you.
Reward People
At some point, the highest priority becomes creating a great experience for those who attend your exhibition. The thing that makes great businesses stand out from the pack is the ability to retain customers and make them always want to come back. Even seemingly meaningless details like offering something free to the first people through the door go a long way.
Come Up With Something New
You will also have to find new and interesting ways to engage with people and cut through the noise. Instead of collecting emails from people, you might want to offer them signing up for an ultimate digital exhibition pass packed with appealing features. This digital exhibition pass will live in peoples’ mobile wallets such as Apple Wallet or Google Pay. The mobile wallet is a service that enables mobile payments. And that manages branded digital content such as boarding passes, coupons, loyalty cards, and many more. The mobile wallet also allows for communication without emails or text messages. It allows your messages to appear as push notifications on people’s lock screen.
Think outside the box. Serve people first-hand information complementing your websites, social media, and printed materials. Your digital exhibition pass can allow people to view useful real-time information on the exhibition and the highlights, to download the exhibition guide, as well as the visitor flyer, or to locate your place conveniently directly from their mobile phone. Before, during, and after your exhibition, you can utilize push notifications to keep people (that have your digital exhibition pass stored) up to date with important news, to collect feedback, or to cross-promote your partners – replacing email newsletters. Or throughout the whole year, you can send creative messages to those individual people that are at the right place.
I wish you a long line of people down the street on opening day.
Ladislav Poledna inspires interested readers to “Become Digital” by publishing materials about digital marketing in his Prague Monitor column and aptly named blog. He has built a career around successful relationships and innovation for the past two decades. At present, Ladislav manages the Power Solutions division of a Fortune 1000 company in Central and Eastern Europe and also oversees operations of the producer’s regional office in Prague. Recently, he co-founded a B-to-B software service company making mobile marketing affordable and easy to use. Ladislav’s philanthropic contribution consists of a long-term relationship with a charity focused on funding dreams for people with muscular dystrophy.
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Mobile phones are long becoming the main “screen” in peoples’ lives. Mobile marketing is no longer an innovation but a part of important decisions. Read articles on mobile marketing to get inspired on how to connect with people where they spend a lot of their time. Become Digital.
