1
Why cards work as marketing.
Each card is a mini print of your work. Unlike a gallery piece or a framed print it’s affordable and easy to buy, so your art reaches more people — and every card sold is seen twice, by the buyer and by whoever receives it. That doubles your audience with each sale.
With your name, a thumbnail and your website on the back, a card becomes a portfolio piece that tells people where the work came from and how to find you again. It’s also the lowest-cost way for someone to start collecting you: plenty of people who aren’t ready to buy an original will buy a card — and some of them come back for the bigger piece later.
Six things that sell more cards
- Bundle them. Sets of five or ten, or by theme — landscapes, animals, seasonal — make the buying decision easier and lift the average sale.
- Sell where your audience already shops. Craft fairs, markets and art shows; local gift shops, galleries and cafés; your own website or online shop.
- Keep the display professional. Card stands or baskets that people can browse easily outsell a pile on a table every time.
- Plan for the peaks. Christmas, Valentine’s, Mother’s Day and birthdays are when cards sell. Have fresh designs ready well before each one.
- Encourage collecting. Release new designs regularly and number them as a series, so casual buyers become collectors looking out for the next one.
- Cross-promote the bigger work. A short note or QR code inside the sleeve pointing to your prints, originals or commissions turns a £3 sale into a lead.
2
Where to sell.
Most self-publishers start the traditional way: art shows, craft fairs, local galleries, independent shops, markets and street stalls. With shows and fairs the trick is choosing the right venue — being where your kind of buyer already goes.
The first step is often to pound the pavements with a few sample cards and approach independent shops and galleries directly. If the buyer isn’t free, leave samples. You’ll get quick, honest feedback on what does and doesn’t sell, and it can be the start of a trade account. Expect it to be slow at first — persistence matters if you believe the work will sell.
More and more cards are sold online, so a simple website or shop alongside the face-to-face selling is the strongest combination.
The Greeting Card Association
The GCA is the trade body for the industry. Its blog is full of news, insight and resources for anyone interested in cards, and members get access to the GCA library and networking.
Books worth reading
- Unusual Ways to Market Your Greeting Cards by Kate Harper — a short Kindle booklet on getting cards noticed beyond friends and family, with submission guidelines and contacts for gift-industry publications and blogs that feature new card designs for free.
- Get Your Greeting Cards Into Stores: How to Find and Work With Sales Reps, also by Kate Harper, who ran a handmade card business with over 2,000 accounts — pricing for profit, getting professional feedback, finding a rep and the industry standards to follow.
- Publishing Your Art As Cards, Posters & Calendars by Harold Davis — a road map for self-publishers and for working with a publisher: royalties, economics, market research, finding a printer and a rep, running the business. Dated on printing technology, still useful on everything else.
3
Email marketing.
Email is the simplest, cheapest marketing there is for anyone with little time and a small budget — and unlike a social-media following, the list is yours. The work is in building it: a list of people who actually want to hear about new work, exhibitions and events.
Collecting subscribers online
- A sign-up form on your website. It can sit almost anywhere — homepage, shop, about page — and collects the email address plus anything else you want to know. Once someone’s on the list, they get whatever you send.
- Your blog, if you have one. Every post is a chance to explain what subscribers get, and to offer something only they get — first look at new work, or an invitation to a private view.
- Your Facebook page. A form there catches people who’d never visit your website, with the bonus that they can share what you’re doing with their friends.
Collecting subscribers in person
- Galleries. If your work is on show, have a sign-up sheet at the event that says what people will get: news of new work and future shows.
- Craft fairs. Anyone who stops at your stall is a candidate. Most people who like the work are happy to sign up if you ask.
- Cards, postcards and business cards. Your details on the back of every card is the cheapest promotion there is. Postcards are ideal for keeping in touch with past customers — a personal note about new work or a show, with your sign-up link.
Sending the newsletter
Services such as Mailchimp give you templates, image hosting and sign-up forms, with a free tier that covers a small list. Keep it simple: a picture of the new work, a few lines, a link to buy.
4
Instagram & Facebook.
A presence on both gives your work far more exposure than a stall ever can — on the assumption, to be honest, that the work is genuinely saleable and has a focused niche. Ask a friend who’ll tell you straight.
If you already send an email newsletter you’re most of the way there: the same story about a new piece, a recent sale, a forthcoming show or a new card can be reused as posts. Instagram and Facebook are the same company and accounts can be linked, so a post written once on Instagram can go to Facebook from the same screen.
Getting started on Instagram
Start with hashtags. If Instagram were a television, hashtags would be the channels — the right ones make your posts discoverable to people searching for work like yours.
- Search for keywords that describe your work as one word (seascapephotography) and filter to tags. Look for tags with a healthy number of posts — tens of thousands, not millions.
- Open a tag and study the top posts. Find artists with a good following and note the hashtags they use; keep a list of the ones that genuinely fit your work.
- Test them. Over a few weeks you’ll see which tags bring engagement, and can drop the rest.
- Complete your bio — it’s the only place on Instagram where followers can click a link, so link to where they can buy.
And put the cards themselves on there: a photo of the finished card in the hand, with the envelope, sells better than the artwork alone.
