How to Get Clients for Your Calligraphy and Lettering Business in 2024 (My 3 Secrets to Make Extra Income)
You love doing calligraphy and want others to appreciate your work, but how do you get clients for your business?
It isn’t as simple as posting on Instagram or creating a website, and hoping that clients will fall from the sky. Because they don’t!
Especially when you’re starting out, and have a small following, you need to be proactive in your calligraphy business. You can’t publish your website and just wait for the clients to roll in!
Trust me, I wish that could happen for me too, but unfortunately it isn’t that easy to get clients in the very beginning for several reasons:
No one knows who you are and what you sell
You aren’t established as a calligrapher yet and people don’t see you as a business
You’re working on all the wrong tasks (like creating a logo!)
You believe that posting a few things on Instagram will make clients magically appear
If you want to know how to get clients in your business, keep reading.
Of course, there are the obvious things like building a great online portfolio—that’s a post for another time!—but these are my three tested secrets for getting clients.
I’m spilling all the secrets so you can succeed in getting clients and doing what you love!
Secret #1: Build partnerships with relevant businesses
First, try to build partnerships with relevant businesses so you can get referrals.
When I say partners, I mean these kinds of businesses: event planners, people who work with event planners (florists and photographers, for example), event suppliers (people who supply big signs at events, for example), wedding vendors, wedding planners, event venues, hotels, PR people, event marketing people, and arts and crafts stores.
It’s wise to be connected with these kinds of people because they can refer you if they ever have a client who needs some calligraphy.
They also work with a lot of different people, like brides or companies who need cool things—like calligraphy!—at their events.
Photo by iuliagnewfotografie.com
So how do you reach out to those people?
First, going to networking events will do wonders!
Second, you can reach out through online channels.
If you haven’t done any direct outreach or business development before, you can start off with direct messaging (DM-ing) on Instagram.
Email is also a great option! You can ask for a meeting and build that relationship.
(Right now we’re in quarantine because of COVID-19… so you can’t ask for a coffee meeting. However, if we were in normal times, I’d always ask to go to coffee).
Basically, you want to be their go-to calligrapher whenever they need one! And you want to be friends with these people.
You might be thinking, Okay Dina I can contact them, but what if they’re already working with other calligraphers? What can I do to stand out or get into their networks?
Let me ask you this: Do you think that there are wedding planners, photographers, and other people just starting businesses just like you?
There are people starting new careers in these industries every day.
See if you can find these newer people in the industry you want to work in. If they’re new, they’d probably want to connect with you!
But how can I stand out if there are already so many calligraphers out there?
Think about if you have a particular thing that makes you stand out Do you have a different style of calligraphy that others don’t? Do you have super good knowledge of different papers and printing techniques?
These are some examples.
Okay, but how should I contact people and what should I say?
I would say that it depends on the person. Before you contact anyone, make sure you’re doing your research! Stalk them!
(Joking… but do research!)
For example, research that wedding event company and see if they are big on social media.. then reach out on Instagram. If they don’t really have social media, then use email.
Secret #2: Do free live calligraphy at free charity events and fundraisers
If you want to increase your brand exposure, doing free live calligraphy at charity events is a great idea!
Do free work for bigger organizations and nonprofits to increase awareness, gain potential clients, and get more followers!
A lot of business coaches warn against doing free work, but I believe doing free work can be incredibly beneficial for your business if you are picky about what you do and where you do it.
If you do any free work in your business, you might as well get in front of as many people as possible, right? That’s why I suggest doing free events, and especially on-site events.
How do you find charity events or fundraisers to do live calligraphy at?
Last year, when I was trying to do more on-site events and build my portfolio, I searched fundraisers in Vancouver or charity events in Vancouver on Eventbrite. There was always a ton!
I would look for the fancy galas for 2 reasons:
People are paying higher prices ($50-$300) for a ticket for these galas. So you know they have money!
Companies will purchase tables often so you know there will be corporate people there. Corporate people know a lot of other people and they have money!
When you find an event you think aligns with live calligraphy and the kind of people you want to meet, then email the event organizers!
What should you say in your email to the event organizer?
In your email, I would suggest you do the following:
Greet the event host by name
Introduce yourself
Explain why you’re contacting them
Ask if they are interested in giving their event guests a fun activity (live calligraphy!)
Ask for a call so that you can work out the details
I personally always suggest to the event host that I can give out free bookmarks with quotes or whatever their guests want me to write.
Paper costs pretty much next to nothing, so bookmarks are a valuable gift that costs nothing!
Tip: Put your Instagram and contact info on the back of the bookmark!
Last year, I did 7 events for free, and I actually got clients from those events! These included some custom business cards and a private live calligraphy event for a daycare.
If you want to learn more about on-site events, join my free Facebook group where I’ve done free training on how to get on-site events!
Secret #3: Contact potential clients directly and pitch your services
My last secret is to contact potential clients directly to pitch your services and/or products!
Wait—can you even do that?
Yes!
For example, if you want to work with brides, think about where brides might hang out or where they might look for information.
Facebook groups is one place. Instagram is another place.
On Instagram, one way is to look at relevant businesses’ Instagram accounts—like local wedding decor accounts—and see if a bride has commented.
If you click into the bride’s Instagram profile, you might see an engagement photoshoot or something that mentions their upcoming wedding.
This might sound stalker-ish, but you could then send that bride a DM mentioning where you found them and see if they might be looking for calligraphy services.
However, I do want to acknowledge that this way of looking for potential clients takes a lot of time.
For me, I found another great avenue for getting new clients into my calligraphy business:
Specifically, I like to target other small businesses.
When I talk about small businesses, I mean realtors, financial advisors, insurance brokers, independent accountants— basically small businesses that have a personal relationship with their customers and they tend to rely heavily on referral business.
Local cafes and shops are also great.
But why small businesses?
It’s hard to contact people in the general public individually and people might be weirded out that you’re reaching out.
It’s easy to find their contact information—you can easily find their phone number and email.
These kinds of businesses know a lot of people. They have huge networks and are in contact with a lot of people for their businesses.
They run a business and will are more likely to order in bulk from you or become your repeat customers.
So how do you find other small businesses and reach out to them?
Here are some ways you can get in contact with them:
General in-person networking
Online through Instagram and DM-ing
Online through email
Cold calling
Get an introduction from a mutual connection (LinkedIn is great for that)
I went to business school so I used LinkedIn a lot. The business community is great for these referrals. If you see that you have a mutual connection—and depending on your relationship with that person— he or she might be able to introduce you to that other small business.
Introductions beat cold contact methods!
If you’re thinking about cold DM-ing someone, follow them first—maybe 2 weeks—and then engage with their public content a little bit. Then make your big move and DM them!
This way, you don’t suddenly appear out of nowhere and scare them. It’s good for them to slowly warm up to you and know you exist. Then make your move!
If you’re nervous, that’s totally normal! You can always offer free work if you’re super nervous and haven’t really worked with clients before.
For example, you could message a realtor and offer some free samples of custom cards.
I’ve tried this before and they always take free work!
Free work is also great because the other person might post on social media and you’ll get brand exposure! It creates a chain effect because that person also will have other realtors and mortgage brokers seeing your work.
Don’t forget: If you do free work, add it to your portfolio!
Your network is your net worth
You’re not alone in thinking that clients will fall from the sky if you just post on Instagram! In the beginning, I thought that way too.
When I first sold holiday greeting cards in 2018, I thought that posting one picture on my Instagram and Facebook and shouting
“Buy my cards!” would lead to thousands in sales.
It didn’t. It took me a whole lot of intentional action to get my first couple hundred dollars in sales.
At the end of the day, remember that you’re building a business for the long term.
A lot of this sounds like building relationships and networking.
If you want to make quick cash, this business isn’t for you—get a job.
If you want to start a calligraphy business, you need to hustle a bit at the beginning.
Your network is your net worth.
I learned this very important concept in business school. This concept has helped me immensely in my career and my business, so I want to leave you with that.
I hope this blog post was helpful to you! Now you know how to actually get clients even with a small following!
Let’s start hustling our butts off to do this together!
If you’re looking for more guidance on how to start a calligraphy business, check out my 6,000+ word article How To Build a Calligraphy Business from Scratch.
My challenge for you this week
Engage with 10 potential partners or 10 potential clients!
Just follow them to start, and then after a week or two, DM them and get a conversation going!
You never know what will happen unless you try.