From the Editor:
We started Southeastern Art Gallery News in
November 2004 and by November 2005 we had reached a visitor rate of
over 14,046 monthly visitors. Our traffic was generated by three sources 1) Goggle, 2)
referrals from other visitors and 3) our monthly email newsletter that
went to a very unique database of art gallery patrons and likely art
gallery patrons. We created a software program that searches for the
names of collectors, executives and managers of Atlanta firms and then
matches these names up with the email addresses located in other
Internet databases. The statistics in major cities indicate only 5% of
the population ever visit an art gallery. By reaching high income
individual living in the suburbs of a major city is the target
demographic that we seek to introduce to our web site.
We have expanded that software program to look for
the collectors, excutives and managers of all regional and national
firms located in our 35 city southeastern area of coverage. By listing
your information on our web site and in our newsletter, you will have
private access to this very targeted database of collectors and high
income families. We do not make this private database available to any
other organization or entity in any form.
Based on the 14,046 monthly visitors we feel we
are making steady progress our desired goals.
Starting January 06 we are aggressively moving
into all of the other major cities in the Southeastern United States as
our name implies. Using the same successful marketing and promotion
techniques we expect to exceed the penetration into these cities due to
the synergy generated by expanding into all these markets at one time.
By moving in to these thirty-five new southeastern
cities we conservatively project that our monthly visitor rate for 2006
will quickly reach over 50,000 based on past performance and the
increase in our efficiency of obtaining new visitors. We expect a
doubling of that rate to occur later in 2007 due to other promotional
techniques that we have in pipe line.
For gallery owners, artists and fine art
photographers you can expect to reach this new demographic of potential
art buyers who have more than sufficient expendable income to purchase
fine art, but have yet to visit a gallery. Our free monthly newsletter
is targeted to each these individuals in the cities on our expanded
coverage. This newsletter and our free email alert bulletins will keep
these people informed on a weekly basis on events of interest to them.
By analyzing our server logs we have found out
that the visits to the updated gallery listings page make up over 89%
of all the pages visited. This is one of the reasons we now place more
emphasis on the gallery listings page. Our feedback from customers also
indicate their was an interest in seeing the art of new artists, which
is why we instituted our “new artists” section. This
section will feature new artists with a BFA and MFA, student artists
working on their BFA or MFA and very talented self-taught artists. The
same applies to our selection of fine art photographers which will also
appear under this same section.
Our goal has been and continues to be a focused
drive to bring new people into the art galleries and expose them to the
unique investment opportunities that will enrich their lives on a daily
basis. Few other investments brings the pride of ownership and
significant investment appreciation as does good fine art. Our feedback
indicates that the people new to the art scene don’t really
know the difference between a real art gallery and factory art
galleries found in the major malls or frame shops found in strip mall
shopping centers. We take a firm editorial stance that unless you buy
fine art from a real art gallery or reputable art dealer, you are just
throwing money away on pictures with little investment growth
potential.
This may offend some factory artists who allow
their work to be sold in these venues, but our obligation here is to
steer the art buyer into reputable art galleries where their investment
in fine art will have the best opportunity for a steady appreciation
over the years.
Jenni Peak, Managing Editor SAGN
