Usually I use this blog to offer high level information antique dealers, auction houses, designers and art galleries can use to DIY. Today, I’m going to explain the difference between DIY, in-house marketing and using a public relations and media consulting firm that specializes in your business.
It’s about making money. Growing your business. Breaking out of the box. Seeing from a different perspective.
The competition is coming at your from all directions, from brand names like Restoration Hardware that’s now mixing in antiques with the knock off to start-ups that have a grip
Now mixing antiques with knock offs
on the way business is done today and a vision of how it will be done tomorrow.
What are your choices:
Scenario 1. You’re watching margins so closely, you to do-it-yourself.
Most likely, you’re so absorbed in product that you don’t have the time to do your own marketing properly. if you do have the time, you probably don’t have the marketing experience to work on the edge of the PR cliff. You settle for long, boring copy. You settle for ads that with no definition. You settle for a modicum of success.
Scenario 2: In-house marketing.
While you may have an in-house writer or PR person, their perscpective is going to reflect the corporate culture. You in-house people have a job to grind out, a job to protect (theirs), and face a certain amount of burn-out when the products you sell or auction are similar month after month. Your marketing department needs a breath of fresh air.
Scenario 3: You work with a specialized marketing agency.
There aren’t a lot us out there – marketers who know their business and yours. PRT3 is one, maybe the only one, that knows the antiques, auction, design fields, and offers full service.
This means that you benefit from cutting edge techniques based on time tested tactics. For example,
- Tests and controls..
- A point-of-view that sees two distinct audiences for your product, the trade and consumers
- Writers who know how to turn a keyword to set your product and your press release apart
- Guidance on what channels of distribution to buy into, what to avoid.
- Metrics that show you how many people read your press release, how many picked up your press release, what the aggregate traffic score was. For instance, we just heard from Google that a recent press release got 6,624 pick ups in 2 1/2 weeks. (About the same lead time you give an auction press release.)
How we do it isn’t a secret. It’s about knowing how to get to the heart of the story. It’s about taking a step back and re-working the rules. It’s about writing headline for people and spiders. It’s about keywords and distribution. But mostly, it’s about our passion for getting it right.
When PRT3 gets it right, your website traffic grows. Your in-store and gallery traffic grow. Your business grows.
When “Texas Woman Turns Oil Painting Into Gold” got covered 6,620 times in the search, it gained an even higher readership. 
If we put your business first, that gives you 6,621 reasons to call PR To the Trade to find out what we can do for you.
The Art of Marketing the Fine Arts 