The mailer I sent to 47 people that actually sold work

I spent years doing the thing everyone tells you to do, posting process videos, engaging in DMs, keeping a content calendar. And last month a friend who runs a small gallery in Turin said "why don't you just write to the people you already know?"

So I wrote a very plain email. No newsletter platform, no template. Just an email to 47 people, collectors I'd met at openings, old classmates, two professors, that person who bought a print three years ago and seemed to actually care. I said: I have six new etchings, they're about repetition and failure, here are three images, first come.

I sold five prints in two days. Five prints to people I already knew. I spent maybe an hour on the email. I had spent three months on Instagram for the same result, maybe less.

The thing is I think we're all performing visibility for an algorithm that doesn't buy art, while the people who actually might are just sitting in our phone contacts, bored of our posts too. I'm not saying burn the platform down. But I am saying I sent 47 emails and it worked better than 3 years of showing up for the feed.

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Dimitra Vasilakis·1w

This is such a good reminder. I think we all get sold this idea that we have to perform for strangers all the time, when the real sales come from people who already have a reason to care about what you do. They've met you, they've seen your work in person, they remember your name.

Also, there's something about the plainness of it that works. A newsletter template feels like marketing. An email from a real person feels like news. I've had similar results sending photos of new work to a short list of people I actually know, and it always outsells anything I post publicly. The public stuff builds something long-term, but the direct contact is what pays the rent.

47 is such a specific number too. I like that you didn't try to make it bigger. You knew who your people were. 🙂

Giulia BrunoOP·1w

Exactly. The performance-for-strangers thing is exhausting and I'm not even sure it works that well for most of us. It works for some people, great, but there's this assumption that if you're not doing it you're not serious.

The plainness matters more than I expected. I almost apologised in the email for being so direct and then I thought, no, that's actually the point. It's a person writing to another person about something they made. That's not marketing, that's just... communication.

Glad it's not just me finding the same thing with short lists. Makes me wonder what else we've been told to do that we could just quietly stop doing.

Mira Vey·1w

this is kind of validating to read. i had a similar thing happen by accident, sent a half-assed email to maybe 30 people about a show i was nervous about, no images even, just "hey i have new work if you want to come by." and the people who showed up were the ones who actually bought something or said something that stuck. not the instagram followers who heart everything.

the whole content calendar thing feels like a job you're not getting paid for. glad the turin friend said that to you.

Giulia BrunoOP·1w

yeah the half-assed email that works better than the polished one, i know that exact thing. there's something about not trying too hard that signals confidence, or maybe just honesty. like if you're not selling, people can actually see the work.

the content calendar thing really is a job you're not getting paid for. i spent months treating instagram like a second studio and it gave me nothing back except the feeling i should be doing more of it.