Searching for new clients or customers, known as prospecting, is essential for your growth and success as a business owner. However, as a visual artist, it can sometimes be challenging to find enough time to both create quality work and focus on prospecting. Using a prospecting service can save you time and help you prioritize prospecting when you need it most.

Let’s first review why prospecting is important to you as a visual artist and how you can most efficiently search for new clients.

Importance of Prospecting for Visual Artists

No matter where you’re at in your business, whether you’re just starting out or have a team under you, sales prospecting is important for your business. Prospecting brings customers directly to you by identifying who’s a good fit for your services. Based on finding your target audience, it helps match your perfect solution to the problem or request your potential clients may be looking to fill.

Prospecting is about being your own salesperson and taking charge of your business’ success. And data backs up the importance of prospecting that leads to growth! In fact, 82% of buyers accept meetings with sellers who take the initiative to reach out to them. Don’t assume your clients will just come to you. It’s your responsibility to get out there and show those who could be potential clients how you can help them.

How to Prospect as a Visual Artist

There are ways you’ll want to perfect your prospecting efforts as a visual artist. Since time is valuable as a business owner, you’ll want to spend time researching your prospects first and foremost. With the Agency Access Creative Directory, you have direct access to a detailed list of clients and partners that may already fit your target audience. Use this list to filter down to the most likely contacts that you feel you could best assist.

Next, come up with a personalized pitch for your prospects. This should be concise and show off your services as it fits each prospect. To do this, you’ll want to research beforehand what the prospect likes, what their style is, what their needs may be, and other details about them to best personalize the pitch. Before reaching out, it can help to make a connection with the prospect as well. Find a common theme between you and them, perhaps a mutual colleague or friend, or if they’ve been actively researching the services you offer as a visual artist.

Once you’ve gathered these insights and details, you’ll want to craft the perfect first prospecting email. This may very well be your first touch with them, so you’ll want to make a good impression. When drafting your email, remember that you’re having a conversation human to human, so bring your personality into it and keep it conversational. Ask them about their pain points, stay relevant to their current needs, and see if they’re looking for the solutions you offer. Next, personalize your approach to them and tell them how you can help them overcome their pain points, not how you want to sell to them.

You may not get your first prospecting email perfect, and that’s ok. As with everything in business, take a look at your results from your first email and continue to improve your prospecting outreach with the responses you receive. As you find new sales tactics, test them out to see what works best for your prospects.

Surefire Tips to Succeed at Prospecting

As with most sales and marketing efforts in any business, testing and reiterating your strategies is a must when it comes to increasing your business. To help, we have a few prospecting tips that will get you started on the right path.

1. You won’t want to start prospecting without figuring out your ideal customer profile. This will help you narrow down not only who you want as a perfect client, but which customers will be more likely to work with you as a visual artist.

2. Research and follow your prospects on LinkedIn or other social media accounts. This will give you insight into their values, needs, and even pain points if they talk about them. As well, you can build a relationship with your prospects here first before reaching out, making your prospecting email a bit warmer for them once they recognize your name.

   

3. Segment your prospect list with ratings for each. This will help you prioritize who to reach out to first and to whom to make the most effort throughout your conversations. High-value prospects that are likely to become clients should be ranked as your highest priority.

4. Regularly take time each week to prospect. This isn’t a one-and-done type of task. Prospecting takes time and effort in building those relationships and ongoing research of newer prospects to continuously fill the sales pipeline.

5. Use multiple channels of communication. Some people prefer email and some prefer the phone. Use both appropriately to best personalize each prospect’s experience with you (and increase your chances of getting through to them).

6. Even if you’ve lost a deal, always follow up with your prospects. It’s likely that a lost deal can give you some of the most insight into what you can improve with your approach. Ask questions and request feedback from every prospect you talk to.

7. Just as your pitch can change, so can your ideal customer profile. Continuously evaluate your target audience to keep it current and relevant to your offerings and talent.

Why Do You Need a Database?

Does prospecting sound like a lot of work? That’s because it can be. There are entire sales teams that do this type of work for their businesses. As a visual artist (and not a professional salesperson), prospecting from scratch can become overwhelming if you have little time to take care of the other responsibilities of your business.

That’s where prospecting services come in. Eliminating additional tasks anywhere you are able to can significantly reduce the amount of time prospecting can take. For example, doing your own outreach with access to the Agency Access Creative Directory can save you a lot of money compared to hiring a full-service agency to do everything for you. You’ll have a full list of potential clients that have already been vetted and likely have needs that you’re looking to solve.

With over 100,000 contacts, our database can put you in contact with professionals and clients that can help drive your success as a visual artist. Stay up to date with Agency Access’s email newsletter (in the sticky header up top ☝) to learn more about prospecting for your business and taking it to the next level with our resources.