The glossy pages of the latest Southern Accents and Veranda magazines are punctuated with full color advertisements of glorious oil portraits by artists such as Robert Schoeller, Robert Bruce Williams and John Solie. Nearly every portrait artist has toyed with the idea of placing one of these striking ads and possibly tapping the reserve of immediate commissions, recognition and success. But do these ads work? Are they worth the not insubstantial costs?

After contacting the advertising directors at a number of publications, talking with other advertisers, and four years of contemplation, I decided to place my own ads. In 1996-97, working with the advertising staff at Veranda magazine, I put together a one-year ad campaign.

The observations I am making in this article are my own experiences. Although other portrait advertisers may have differing opinions on size, content and duration of the ads, I think overall my observations are sound.

There are many magazines and newspapers vying for your advertising dollar. They will assure you that you will get a tremendous response to an ad placed in their publication, but I have found that portrait clients are not impulse buyers. They do not happen upon a portrait in a magazine and think, "There’s an idea!" They "shop" for a portrait. The client might contact friends and associates, visit portrait agencies, and study the portrait ads In the major portrait specific magazines. The two magazines with the strongest reputations for portrait advertisements are Veranda and Southern Accents.

Research the design for your ad. Study the ads that catch your eye. Some portrait advertisers have told me that they always run full page ads because this indicates a successful artist. Because I had limited advertising funds, I opted to run smaller ads more frequently rather than publish a full page ad once. The advertising director agreed with me that this would be better use of my advertising dollar. My first ad was one-third page. I later amended the design to a half-page ad running vertically. I could then include two portraits.

Be prepared to run the ad for an extended amount of time. Any advertiser will tell you that you need to saturate the market to receive maximum response. When I have placed single ads in the past, I received few or no responses. I refrained from running my ads in Veranda until I was in a position to place four ads. Because Veranda is published four times a year, my ads were in every Veranda for an entire year, giving me maximum saturation in a beautiful high market publication where clients regularly shop for oil portraits.

It might be weeks before you receive a response to your ad. The peak response to my Veranda campaign after the third ad ran, and continued for four months after the last ad ran. I continue to receive a few calls from the ads placed over a year ago.

Most of my responses were by telephone. I obtained an 800 number listing for any Veranda ad and set up an answering machine to receive the calls. It is important to keep a diary of the responses to your ad indicting name, address and telephone numbers, which ad the caller is responding to, and who will be the subject of the portrait. Encourage the potential client to talk about the painting he or she wants to commission. I always discuss the price of the portrait over the phone. It may seem easier to send the price list, but this is an excellent way to screen your calls for those really interested. Lastly, respond immediately to the calls. Send out your portfolios by the next post. Make your connection while the potential customer is actively receptive.

All the time work and expense that goes into placing as ad is lost if you are poorly prepared for responses. The ad does not sell you as an artist. What sells the client is your portfolio. It must be a stand out. It is best to put off placing your ad until you can afford to put together a high quality and price list. A new client of mine allowed me to look through a file of portfolios she requested from other artists when she was shopping for a portrait. I was very impress by the presentation quality of many of the portfolios. Unfortunately, I was equally dismayed by the poor quality of others. Present a professional portfolio. You are competing with some very creative artists.

Make call backs to the leads. I found this to be the most difficult part of the advertising process. It was very hard for me to initiate a call to a potential customer and ask if they liked my portfolio, if they had any questions and if they wanted to start the portrait process. Closing the sale (when would you like to fly me out?") is the single most important part in any sales transaction.

Do not cut deeply into your capital. If you cannot afford to have a poor response to your ad, you cannot afford to run an expensive ad. An ad is not a quick way of achieving a stable of clients. I have spoken with other artists who have spent $15,000, $30,000 and as much as $50,000 in advertising and had dismal results. I consider the process to be a long term investment. I already have a strong base in my own and other communities; I have been working professionally for 15 years and my intention was to increase my client base, raise my prices and seed new markets.

It has been eighteen months since the first of the four ads ran. I received 83 responses. Fifteen percent of the calls were from other artists curious about the advisability of running ads and interested in receiving a portfolio and price list. I was more that happy to provide them with this information.

I considered 11 of the calls "hot leads." To date, I have completed four first generation commissions (commission that came directly from the Veranda ads) and two second generation commissions (commissions that came from people who saw the first generation of paintings). Several of the "hot leads" may yet lead to commissions.

I spent $13,500 on the ads, approximately $1,000 on portfolios and postage, and $200 in phone charges (total outlay of $14,700). I have received $32,500 in commissions. I consider this a success—the amount I spent is about equal to what I would pay an agent to secure new clients—and I know that the original ad will continue to generate portrait commissions.

Would I place ads again? OF course. However, I will now be better prepared for the considerable amount of time it takes to answer all the inquiries, send out portfolios and make up follow-up phone calls. I would also encourage every potential advertiser to reread point number eight—BE PREPARED TO LOSE ALL OF YOUR INVESTMENT! Two contacts were responsible for $26,000 of those commissions. I just as easily could have not received those calls.

By keeping in mind the points listed above the potential advertiser will be in a better position to have a successful ad campaign.

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Margaret C. Baumgaertner lives, works, and teaches workshops in La Cross, Wisconsin.