Cooper Art Gallery
Art and design has always been a big family trait, one that we have all used to help develop our skills and careers. Working closely with my family on this project, it was an ideal opportunity to bring all our skills together to build what we hoped to be the first of many successful family businesses.
When the family invested in Cooper Gallery - an established fine art gallery in Bideford, North Devon - two of the biggest hurdles to address were the corporate branding and online presence.
With my sister attending to the task of creating a strong, professional and elegant brand to accentuate the gallery’s ethos, I got to work on the website plan, discussing the main business objectives with the new owners and how the Internet could have a major impact on future business for the art gallery.
It was evident from the beginning the website would require constant attention, ensuring all new artwork in the gallery was promoted online, increasing potential sales with minimum advertising spend.
The website infrastructure was put in place at an early stage, allowing the gallery owners to start working on the content, gathering all the information of each art piece and uploading it to the website.
After several weeks of hard labour, including many consultation periods discussing best practises and training on the website CMS, the intial phase of the website was launched in March 2009, earlier than expected.
As part of the marketing strategy, the client has also leveraged the power of social network for marketing, delving into the popular world of Twitter to liaise directly with potential customers or clients, as well as advertise gallery promotions and new artefacts.
There are many plans for the online trading of Cooper Gallery, including harnessing the power of eBay to sell artwork directly to the consumers, eliminating the huge cost involved of advertising.
With the global financial crisis looming over us, investments are hard to come by. But art is the only reliable investment that guarantees to hold value through the years. If you are looking to invest during these tough times, I’d suggest browsing Cooper Gallery’s fine art pieces to find your next investment.
