POLL: What's the best method of promoting art sales?

The Making A Mark Poll for September looks at the best way of promoting sales of your art.  It looks at the various ways in which you promote your art to get people to look at it - which then converts to a sale.  It also provides you with an opportunity to share what works for you.

So it is:

• NOT about where you sell your art - see last month's poll 2012 Poll Results: What's the best place to sell art? (Part 1).  This poll is about how you get people to the place(s) where you sell your art.
• NOT about where you interact most with people - if none of that interaction results in sales

What this poll is about is OUTCOMES ie sales of your art.  It's trying to identify what method of communication actually generates sales (ie not what you do but it doesn't work). 

For example, having a blog which never leads to traffic to the site where you sell - and then converts to a sale - could mean either your art is not proving attractive to buyers or you're not blogging as effectively as you could do.  But this poll wants to know about is what does generate traffic which converts to sales.

In fact, in traditional marketing mix terms, it's about:

• the promotion part of the Seven Ps
• the communication part of the 4Cs

Communications can include advertising, public relations, personal selling, viral advertising, and any form of communication between the firm and the consumer.

Quote about advertising attributed to John Wanamaker

So, for example, if you're going to be selling art in an exhibition or an art fair, how do you tell people that there's an opportunity to see your art and how do you encourage them to go and look.

Or maybe you only sell your art online - how do you keep people interested in the new works you are producing and how do you get them to go to the place where they can buy your art?

I'm going to focus on the ways I know people promote their art and keep it fairly simple.

Here's a list of ways people communicate about their art with a view to promoting sales

• word of mouth (family/friends)
• word of mouth (collectors)
• business cards
• postcards
• christmas cards
• flyers / physical adverts
• online adverts
• email
• newsletters
• discount coupons
• portfolio publication / catalogue
• Twitter
• Facebook personal account
• Facebook Page
• own blog
• group blog
• own website
• art agent

The poll allows for multiple responses - so do please check all the ones that you use.

The poll can be found in the right hand column - under "Bloggers who Follow this Blog".  It closes at the end of 30th September 2012.  The results will be reported within a couple of days.

Please leave comments below indicating:

• what you find are the methods which works well with past collectors
• what does not work well.
• what important method I forgot to include!