The debate may rage on whether e-mail has replaced snail mail as a way to stay in touch with your customers. I won't come down firmly on either side. Let's just say, yes, more and more people are getting comfortable (if not downright savvy) with computers/e-mail/attachments.
BUT...There's still nothing like the power of a postcard or business card to get your message across. Especially a business card with an image of your work on it.
Whenever anyone asks what I make, I start to explain it. But I can tell I'm not getting my message across. I whip out one of my full-color business cards with an image of a wall hanging on it, and the lights go on.
Same with a postcard. The minute someone sees an image of my work on my postcards, they exclaim, "Oh YEAH, I know who you are now!
If you are a visual artist, a picture really is worth a thousand words.
Your story will enrich your art, and being able to talk well about your work will build connections with your audience. But there's still nothing like the impact of SHOWING someone an image of your work. When people can actually see what you do, it's powerful.
I use images of my work on full-color postcards and business cards.
There are dozens of cheap on-line sources now available for full-color postcards and business cards. They are all so competetively priced and easy to access, there is NO EXCUSE for not having your work visually available at a second's notice.
Some of my favorite resources:
The Great American Printing Company www.gapco.com offers a thousand full-color business cards for around $60. I've been hearing good things about Vista Print (www.vistaprint.com) and they look good, too. At first Vista Print looks cheaper, but factor in the higher shipping costs and the two are actually close--very close!--in price.
You can use their templates to plug in your image and information, or whip up your own design easily. Submitting work digitally is fast and cheap, but all these places will still work with "old-fashioned" slides by snail-mail, too.
There are many other printing companies out there now, but Megacolor www.megacolor.com has been around for years. It's my favorite postcard company. My favorite sales rep at MegaColor is John Maasik. You can reach him at jmaasik@megacolor.com or call him at 1-888-339-2001. I've worked with John for years and he's a nice--and HONEST--guy. He enjoys working with artists and has always done right by me.
MegaColor also does inexpensive "sell sheets" (full-color full page sheets with your product.) These are usually used to introduce a new line of work at a trade show, but they can easily double as a catalog, too. Rates get REALLY cheap when you provide the artwork and copy by disk.
I've learned to print as little as possible on postcards--just my name and maybe my website (although Google will take care of the website issue easily), and the name of the artwork on the card. That way, I can use the postcards for my own use, and give them to galleries to help publicize my work. If I need to use them for a specific event, my local printshop will custom print the back for around $30/1,000. It's quick and cheap and I don't have to stand around and feed postcards into my printer (which doesn't do well on glossy cardstock anyway.)
Same with the sell sheets. I include my name, contact info and product number. I'm still using sell sheets I had printed six years ago with my initial jewelry line, and I'm so glad I didn't have prices printed! Those have gone up a little....
With business cards, make sure your name is prominent, and all contact info is present. I sometimes hear people say they are hesitant to print their address on their business cards because "someone might find them" or "someone might come to their home." If you are in business, people need to know how to contact you. A business card missing some crucial piece of contact information just doesn't look like you are serious about your business. And I hate to say it, but if someone really wants to find you, keeping your address off your business card is not going to stump them for long. If you still can't rest easy, rent a post office box and use that. (Although, with all the faux companies and scams out there nowadays, customers still want to feel reassured that you are a real business with a real location.)
And please, for the sake of us baby boomers everywhere, use the biggest font you can. Don't make the type super small to squish in extra stuff.
Speaking of squishing things in, if you have multiple occupations, it can be tempting to put them all on one business card. Trust me, it may save space and some money, but it looks ridiculous. I've seen business cards that read "Joe Smith, artist, house painter, actor, baseball cap designer and inspirational speaker" (I kid you not) and all I could think of as I stood there with his card in my hand was "Dude, FOCUS!" (He was wearing one of the baseball caps he'd designed, too.) (It was not impressive.)
A friend once said that with business cards, the horizontal layout is best because cards are usually stored in some sort of Rolladex and read best that way. I pooh-poohed her, because I think the vertical layout is so cool-looking. Well, guess what? The cards I gather from people are indeed stored in some sort of Rolladex and the ones with a horizontal format are indeed easier to read.
Last, some people have a hard time figuring out which image of their work to use. Some have multiple versions made, one featuring their jewelry, one featuring their painting, etc. One artist I know had six different images of her pottery on her cards. Fine, if you have the time and energy to do that. But what I'd suggest is, find the image that makes most people exclaim, "Oh, I know who you are!" and stick with that. It's your brand. Why dilute it?
E-mail is still a cheap, fast way to stay in touch with your more computer-savvy stores and retail customers. I'm kicking myself for not gathering e-mails more agressively when I first started out.
But when I look around my office space and see the beautiful postcards I've collected from artists whose work I love posted on my wall, I know postcards are still a powerful marketing tool for us.
