The following example will demonstrate
how an individual artist can use this list to locate an appropriate
gallery to represent their work:
Looking at the List:
MailingAide.com lists contain thousands of commercial gallery listings. (click
here for screenshot). To get started, you will want a strategy.
Step 1:
We recommend using the list in a city-by-city approach. Organize
the list by City and choose the city you plan to solicit. (For
this example, we will use Chicago)
Step 2:
Copy and paste the Chicago gallery listings into a separate file
so that you can further organize and edit them without losing
any of the original list data.
Step 3:
Begin visiting the galleries’ websites (or locations) in
order to determine which galleries suit your work best. You can
cut & paste the links from the file, or use the embedded hyperlinks
directly from MS Excel.
Look
at the gallery artists/exhibitions. Do you find common ground with
their ideas/format? Are the artists shown in a similar career stage?
A general rule of thumb is to look for galleries that excite you,
with the hope that your work may excite them. If you planned to
target galleries in your selected city that are not on the list,
add them at this time. For more information on creating/refining
your personal list click
here.
Step 4:
Rate the galleries you find interesting using the Quality
column. A simple star system will work (1-5). Higher ratings/more
stars (***+) for those galleries you feel are a stronger fit. You
may also want to assign a “Type” rating. For example,
if Gallery X shows predominantly Painting, and you are
a sculptor, you may want to call it a “painting” gallery
in the Type
column for your future reference.
Step 5:
Once you have rated your selections, re-order the list by your
rankings. Now you have a narrow and appropriate selection of
galleries to target. Send your packet to the galleries with the
highest ratings.
You can use this refined list for your mail
merge and mailing label generation. Be sure to double-check
these galleries websites to crosscheck their submission guidelines
against your chosen packet format. You may also want to double-check
address and Director/Owner name data to see if it has changed
since the last MailingAide list update.
Step 6:
Record the date you last contacted your targeted galleries in the Contact
column. As you receive responses, you can up/downgrade the
targeted galleries’ ratings for your future submissions.
Additionally you may choose to add a response column into your
list so that you can keep track of the galleries who responded
to your mailing - and follow up whenever possible.
Step 7:
If it suits you, you can now replace the original Chicago area
gallery listings in the master list with the data from your refined
city list (in this example: Chicago).
This is only one example of how to use the list.
Our data allows you total flexibility to implement your own. We don't
guarantee results, but our method has worked for us. Good luck and
have fun!
