How To Get Your First Wedding Painting Client

Finding your first wedding painting client will be an exciting, yet difficult milestone to achieve. To being with it’s going to feel like an impossible task as you are most likely not going to know where to start, how to market yourself or have a large following already. It’s crucial to break everything down into easily achievable steps to help you conquer this task. We have completed a short guide that will hopefully give you the confidence to secure your first wedding painting client, and much more afterwards! Allowing you to enjoy a successful career doing something you love.

1) Identify Your Customer

This may seem obvious, but it’s crucial to identify your target customer correctly. You’d be surprised how many artists miss this step and try to target everyone, when we all have our own preferred style. Being focused in your approach allows you to avoid spending time on customers who don’t fit your style. To identify your ideal customer you need to ask yourself the following questions:

 

Where is your preferred wedding location to paint? – If you have a certain preference of weddings you would like to paint at, like barn weddings for example you can tailor your portfolio to reflect this. In this example this would mean that you are more likely to be contacted by clients who are having a barn wedding. This increases your conversion rate, and reduces the number of people contacting you to paint at other settings. Allowing you to manage your time better and be more direct.

Does your price range align with the market average? – As a live wedding painter knowing how to price your art can be difficult task, so doing research is key. You want to align your pricing with other artists just starting out so that you can be competitive. This means you don’t under or over value yourself. This also allows you to manage your workload as you won’t become overbooked by being too cheap, or undercooked by being too pricey.

Where are most of your customers located? – You may be willing to travel, but this will eat into your profits as there will be added costs associated. By targeting local customers you are able to meet people face to face which make the interaction more personal and meaningful. Ensuring people know where you are based, and whether you are available for travel reduces the number of people contacting you who are just too far away.

 

2)Build A Portfolio

Building a portfolio is the best way to show customers what you can do. This is like your shop window with all your best pieces on show for everybody to see! If you’re at the beginning of your journey it’s likely you don’t have a live wedding painting portfolio, but you can create one using images of friends and family, and applying them to a wedding setting. 

 

Alternatively if you have a friend or family member who is getting married soon you could ask to paint during their ceremony, for free to help build your portfolio. This is a great way to build confidence, get a feel for painting with a live audience and provide you with a real example. The typical portfolio consist of 10 or more pieces with similar style and focus. Portfolios give people more trust as they can inspect your work before they go ahead and commission you for their wedding.

3) Build An Online Presence

Everything is digital in today’s age and your portfolio shouldn’t be any different. Although all your work will be done in person, it’s essential to have an online presence, so you can reach as many customers as possible. Most weddings are organised using wedding planners, who do all their work online so reaching these people is crucial to getting your first wedding painting client. 

You don’t have to be a computer genius to create and online presence as the simplest method is to do it via social media; most use Instagram. If you are a bit more computer-literate you could create your own website or if you want less hassle, join a dedicated platform. 

Dedicated platforms will require less maintenance and upkeep as all this boring work is done for you. It all boils down to good time management, as you might not be fully booked now, but one day you will be. This is where having someone take care of your online presence would be beneficial.

4) Reach Out To People Within The Wedding Industry

Aside from having an online presence you can reach out to people within the wedding industry to show them you’re available for work. Putting yourself out there and showing who you are is great for exposure. Whether you do this physically, by attending wedding fairs and going to wedding venues, or digitally via email or social media is entirely up to you. 

 

We find it more advantageous to combine the two; visit those closer to you to cut costs, and email or call others too far out of reach. Wedding planners are going to be your best friend so starting with them and reaching as many as possible, will help you secure your first wedding painting client.

 

Don’t be afraid to be ignored or to take ‘No’ for an answer, it happens to everyone. Even the pros were once beginners, so there are going to be times when people don’t reply, it’s all part of getting your name out there. Trust in yourself and your talent!

wedding outdoors

5) Offer Sales And Discounts

To increase your chances of success you can offer deals to the first few people wanting your service. This can mean that you are below the market average for wedding painters to begin with but this will be reflected by your inexperience live wedding painting. After the first few clients you can then increase your prices to be in line with other painters, providing your work is up to quality, which we are sure it will be!

6) Enjoy The Process

This is less of a step in securing your first wedding painting client, but more of a reminder to enjoy the process. Sure, getting your first wedding painting client may be difficult and frustrating at times, but so are most business ventures when starting off. Keep reminding yourself that once you become established, you will be pursuing a career doing something you absolutely enjoy. Something that won’t ever feel like work!

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