I hope to make my first post card mailing next week from here in my new surroundings. So far I have been very pleased with the local mail order company. They have worked up a list from their internals that is very targeted. In the defined desirable areas I took 850 names (holding back 150 of the 1000) off the top of a list of 25,000 that met this so called high value home / condo list. The last one on the list sorted by descending value, number 850, had a value of $1,719,500. I can only imagine what the top dog would be.

They are charging me $50 for a one time use of the list and about another $100 to handle the mailing. I'm having the cards mailed directly to them where they will be processed and pre-bundled for the mail man.

The cost looks like it will be very close to $1.00 per card. A folded card that is 6" x 8.5" after folding (no small matter). Full color front and back and black and white inside. It has a total of six painting images and four photographs with just the essential amount of plagiarized text.

As for the paintings that I used -- I took one each from four of my favorite artists on the forum, one Bougeureau and one JSS. I figure that should do it. Just seeing if you were paying attention.

So - which one of my paintings did you use? ;)

This is yours , right?

I wish....! :D

Mike, your card sounds awesome! I want to see it.
I didn't get so elaborate, but my dinky little postcard has been received very well and I'm quite happy I did it. I hope you get a great response too.

I have a question -

I'd like to give this a try (the link Mary posted above with the sale is now at $49 for 1000). I would like to push more 'figurative' portraits though. It's what I enjoy most and think I am better at as well. Does anyone think this is a bad choice when it comes to marketing?

Kim,
Go for it! Your figurative portraits would look great on anyone's wall. They obviously say more than a typical portrait does and thus will have wider appeal. Direct mail is a very smart and relatively inexpensive way to self promote.
Some suggestions:
1- plan multiple mailings ( at least 1/month for 6 months. A full 12 month campaign would be better.)
2 - Use a standard post card size. Saves on postage
3 - Use a simple 2 sided postcard with enough caontact info to get buyers to you website, gallery and/or studio. 4 sided postcards add unnecessary expense for the return.
4 - Mail to the same list each time. Remember it is the image/message recall that you want to establish.
5 - Don't change a campaign unless it stops working or is an obvious bomb - i.e. response rate drops well below 1%, 2 to 3% is typical and more than 5% is a raving success.

Kim, go for it! For the price you really don't have much to lose, but if I remember correctly 49 dollars was for one side, it went up to around 89 to put something on both sides. I, according to the above statistics, had "raving success" - just completed my 7th portrait from that mailing and I only mailed out 100! I have had several more people comment they want one so there is no telling how many I will end up with out of that. Now to figure out who to mail these other 900 cards.

Mary,
Your conversion rate (making the sale) of 7% is astounding. In typical direct mail terms one would expect only 1 conversion to a sale for every 20 responses. For the typical 3% response rate the conversion rate would normally be about 0.15%. Congratulations. You are doing something special in your postcard that we would all like to see. Could you post it for all to see and imitate (with your permission of course)? Could you also tell us what demographic profile you used to develop you mail list? Nothing succeeds like success.

Richard, I can almost guarantee that I have several more coming in from that 100 alone.

My card is posted earlier in this thread. There are a couple of things working in my favor. I paint children, I have 3 between the ages of 2-6 so I started my list from their play school classes. I live in a small suburb of Charlotte where you will find most people have portraits done of their children. I then contacted a couple of previous clients, one showed up with a list of all of her old sorority sisters with young children. This list was great because it got me out of just my town. It is sort of a situation where they all have to have what the other one has ;) Her list was a little gold mine. The mother of the last portrait I did (Lydia in unveilings) is in Atlanta, she is so excited about hers she wants more, and she emailed me yesterday to tell me she had four other friends that were planning to call. The brother sister pair has also resulted in another contact not on my mailing list. This word of mouth thing is great!

I'm not exactly expensive, so that makes a sale easier I'm sure. I doubt I would have gotten this sort of response, if any, had I just mailed out postcards to people that had never heard of me.

My experience with direct mail has been somewhat different.

I'm mailing a 6x8" card to a purchased list of about 300 of Bill Gates' neighbors. I sent out the third monthly postcard mailing to this group a couple of days ago, and so far, not a single response. I'll probably send one or two more mailings to this same list and then stop if nothing happens.

Michele, I think though the difference here is the personal thing. Every person on my list either knew me, (which actually was a small percentage) or knew someone that had a portrait done by me. For the people that I didn't know such as the client who gave me all of her sorority sisters, I signed it with a personal note such as "Millie says Hi!"... She said for me to do that and I think it was a great idea because that prompted them to call her to catch up and in the meantime she gave an extra push on the portrait by telling them she was getting ready to have another one done of her daughter.

I honestly think if I had sent these out to the same type of potential clients that had never heard of me that the response would have been very different.

Michele,

I don't have any way to quantify, or prove this, but I have a feeling. I did my mailing to the ultra rich as well and right up to the point when I sent them out I had a sense that I was doing it wrong.

I believe that this group of people (maybe out of necessity) have developed systems to screen unwanted crap (perceived or real) from their lives. Even to the point of having their mail screened.

I had a strong feeling that I should have made my aim lower. I don't mean the middle class, I'm just saying that I have a bad feeling that the goods never get delivered to the very, very rich.

I mailed 850 cards and got 0 response. Well, that's not completely true, one old man called me twice and stood me up to discuss painting an eleven people portrait from his family photograph.

Of course this theory prevents me from considering the possibility that they all had a good close look at it and still decided that it was crap.

Mike,
Your thinking is correct....not that your work is crap, but that the super rich have staff to screen their mail. I know a few families in that category and they don't even see their mail unless it is a personal letter that has already been screened by staff. Bill Gates even has staff to select the paintings he collects.
My suggestion is to target the upper middle class buyers who have purchased a home within the last year valued between $750,000 and $3 million and who also have an interest in art. They are usually just beginning to collect art to decorate their homes and haven't yet approached the level of the art afficionado who only wants the very best art available.
As Mary's experience shows, using your own mailing list (customers who have purchased in the past or those who have shown interest in your work) or a list that is highly personallized will always show higher returns. Don't give up on direct mail. Make additional trial runs until you get the demographics right. Then keep mailing monthly and you will see responses and sales start to pick up.

Michele,
Don't waste any more time on your current campaign. A zero response in three tries says it is not working. I suspect your mail list demographics are off. See comments to Mike above. You might also want to compare your post card offer to the successful ones shown in this string on page 4. Maybe a little tweeking is needed.

Very interesting point. I do have one client in that "super rich" category and they have staff to do everything. I guess none of the right people ever saw my card. Time to get a new list!

Wow - this is great information. I have quite a few relatives where I am moving. A couple distant ones are doctors and know all the other doctors in the city and she swears the wives are always searching for ways to spend their money. I wasnt going to bother her with the names of her friends - I was just going to purchase a list, but now I know this may be worth it! I never would have thought the 'ultra rich' didnt see their mail, but that makes perfect sense!

By the way - the words 'figurative portrait' is a made-up term. My figuratives are on 'spec' and for sale. But - I love the idea that folks would hire me for those....interesting poses, more costume-like clothes, not always a direct and clear face. With different clothing and more 'action' poses I think I could tell a lot about the client. That's the hope anyway. My figuratives as they stand now dont tell a thing about the models because I dressed them up and posed them.

I would like to add a thanks to Richard for his input. Your experience in marketing is most helpful and priceless. Having been in advertising for almost 30 years has helped me gleen marketing infoormation but I am not nearly qualified as Richard.

A few points I would like to add are, advertising will not make the sale. The most advertising can do is to put your name on the shopping list. In some instances it can create a call for action but in the portrait business it seems impossible to "force" a potential customer to act now, i.e. "ON SALE NOW!" Our's is more of a passive campaign especially when considering direct mail.

My second point is to carefully consider your mailing list. The fewer your criteria the fewer the potential response. Find a provider who can help you fine tune your list. This is a very important step and is worth the price of a good professional.

Also, if you can, design your card to the specific client you are trying to attract. A good example would be a mailing to (age specified) parents in a single house residence with a specified worth, a household income of a specified amount or range plus children in the home of age specified. Then naturally you would mail them your card showing children portraits.

Children is the easiest example I can think of. Anyone have any other ideas? It would be interesting to see various suggestions.

Wish me luck folks - I threw my hat in this ring as well. I mailed out cards to my mailing list of maybe 200 collectors and others that have asked to be on my mailing list. And I bought a list of 600 names of folks who make over 150k/year and have shown an interest in art or antiques. I had to expand my area though - in Corpus Christi where I was moving there seemed to be only 250 names that fit that criteria - and that didnt meet the minimum. So - Im hitting Beaumont & Galveston as well. If this turns out to be worth it I may do San Antonio someday.

It's too soon to tell since I just mailed them 3 days ago - but I did get an email from a man in Galveston who says he spent a lot of time on my website, complimented me and says he wants to make a trip to Corpus to see my work in person. Guess I'll see. It did show me that the list is targeted since he told me a little about himself as well. I also recognized a name on the list I bought as someone my husband went to school with who won the lottery and starting collecting art years ago! I thought that was pretty funny that I'd recognize a name on there.

I am still going to try and get names from family and friends also - Mary's results were impressive!

Kim,

You might make note of this -- about 35 miles (+-) from Corpus, just beyond Port Aransas, lies Rockport. Rockport is about as artsy as it gets in that vicinity. There are a couple of galleries in the downtown and they have art festivals during the year. Also, as far as a mailing, there is a nice pocket of affluence there, it's called Key Allegro. It's an island reached by a very small bridge. Take a drive through with a note pad. Mark all the addresses where you see bikes, basketball hoops, tree houses, station wagons, and the usual destruction caused by kids.

There used to be a decent art gallery across the ferry at Port Aransas. I've seen some nice art in there. There used to be a serious landscape artist living nearby that placed his art there.

Also, you might consider Victoria, Texas. At one point Victoria had more millionaires per capita than any city in America. Victoria should be much closer than Beaumont/Galveston. You might do some searching in Kingsville also, there are some serious property owners over there, measured in multiples of miles not acres. I still think you need to paint a kid standing next to their prize bull, horse or lamb. Chickens are a start.

Here's my daughter in the Port Aransas bay.

Mike, you sweet man you! Thank you. I know about Rockport - I actually used to show there years ago in their Art Association Gallery. It is understandably geared towards seascapes though. I'd have to go look, but I think I added Rockport to my list. It was suprising how many towns I had to add to get the minimum number of names...Pleasanton, Kerrville, Port Aransas, North Padre Island, Portland, Gregory, etc... I know there are more wealthy people there - I am just assuming it took so many because I was specific about the art interest. I did not know about Victoria though! I can't remember ever going there and I thought that was a more lower income area, so I am glad to know that one! The reason I added Beaumont and Galveston is because we have family up there and visit occasionally. I left San Antonio out because there were so many names and thought if I do that one I should buy it all at once.

I forget what a wealth of knowledge you are about this state!

Your daughter is having a grand time fishing there - no sea sickness for her I see! Did she catch anything on that trip?

On another note - any tips about digital cameras and sand? I had some ideas about beach scenes, but I am pathologically afraid of taking my new camera anywhere near that sand!

Victoria is a pretty good sized town. Years ago it was covered up in oil money, who knows today.

That fish (28 inch trout) was caught by my daughter on the last shrimp in the bait well.

Here is the set up around here. This is, I assume, a pro photographer doing the scene of choice here abouts. White shirts, khaki pants or jeans. You take this shot in the evening maybe 30-45 minutes before sunset, then you take them out near the water and try to work in a manatee with the setting sun.

I don't worry as much about the sand as I do the salt spray. Go over it with your aerosol spray can when you get home. Then take it into the shower with you and give it a good rinse, it should be fine.

Mike, I did not give you permission to post that photo of me swimming. ;)

I'd get a cheap digital camera to take anywhere risky like the beach, on a boat or hiking, personally.

A beginner's experience
 

Man, there is so much wisdom and good information in every thread on this forum!

Reading this thread has made me glad I'm still inexperienced enough for hairdressers to afford me!
Seriously, my biggest source of commissions has been word of mouth from a hairdresser in an uppity salon here in Louisville. I made an appointment to have my hair done (just a cut was all I could afford there!) and casually mentioned that I do portraits (at that time I was just doing pencil.) He had four children so that was a good-sized job. I was lucky enough to happen upon someone who believed in local businesses helping and supporting each other. I brought by postcards to put out on the counter by the hostesses desk. I got several commissions from that because the postcards worked with the word of mouth.
Coffee houses in nice neighborhoods were also good fishing spots for sketch commissions.

Once I began doing color and charging more, things changed. The hair salons and coffee houses have not been so good. I've gotten some jobs for pastels but things have really slowed down a lot. Of course, this is because of two things. My skills with color are not as refined as my skills in drawing, and there is a financial cut-off point. I suppose very wealthy people, even if they did frequent coffee houses, would not necessarily trust the competence of someone who has to advertise via coffee houses! I did however try a transition from hairdressers to antique shops. I traded a pastel pet portrait for an antique book case. The dealer hung the pastel in her store and I got a commission from that. And then reality hit. I have so much to learn before I can make the leap to the next marketing level!

But I learned that the method of marketing should fit the target. And I learned that there is a transition period for us developing artists where we might be better laying low for a while until we can get good enough to justify more sophisticated marketing strategies.

How I long for the old days when a phone call for a $75 sketch would make my day!
;)

Ain't that the truth! When your work gets to a certain level of quality what you're selling and promoting is your reputation.