Essential Software for Art Galleries in 2022
Art gallery software can make your business more efficient and improve automation. Learn which software solutions we recommend in 2022.
Whether you’ve been in business for a while or are just getting started, the right software can make your operations more efficient. Art gallery software provides three key benefits to art professionals: reduced busy work, better data management, and improved sales and marketing.
We’ve put together a list of the most popular categories to help you find the software you need for your art gallery.
1. Contact Relationship Management
A CRM, or contact relationship management software, is indispensable to initiating and nurturing customer relationships. It is often one of the first software tools businesses invest in, and for good reason. A Nucleus Research study shows that the average returns for a CRM are $8.71 for every $1 spent, an ROI of 771%. A CRM helps improve customer service, sales, and retention by providing client data to your team whenever needed. It also shows you how you’ve communicated with your prospects and what methods have been most effective. Popular CRM software solutions include ARTERNAL, Zoho CRM, and Salesforce.
Pro tip: Don’t worry about adding every contact you’ve ever worked with to your CRM immediately. Start by adding only active and new contacts, and add from your archive as needed.
2. Marketing Tools
Your marketing efforts help build brand awareness and fill your sales pipeline with leads. Many businesses start with the essential marketing tools, which include a website, email marketing software, and social media tools. WordPress is the most popular website platform globally because of its flexibility and ability to connect with third-party tools. Other popular marketing tools include Hootsuite and Buffer for social media automation, and Mailchimp and ARTERNAL for email marketing. Mailchimp allows you to initiate conversations through bulk emails. From there you can use ARTERNAL’s Smart Mail to continue 1:1 conversations and increase the level of personalization of your interactions.
Pro tip: Setting up a website on your own can be daunting, so try working with a professional. Their experience will speed up the process and allow you to customize your website’s design.
Ready for a platform that understands your needs?
Let your relationships and expertise bloom. ARTERNAL addresses industry pain points with our Smart Mail CRM, intuitive inventory system, and financial insights.
3. Gallery and Inventory Management
Inventory management software helps art galleries manage and track inventory from consignment to sale. For example, ARTERNAL’s software keeps artwork organized throughout your entire workflow, connects with financial software, and facilitates artwork presentation using online viewing rooms. ARTERNAL improves efficiency by suggesting actions that automate your workflow.
Pro tip: Upload active inventory and new shows first so you can start using the platform right away. Also, leverage bulk upload, templates, and drag & drop to make the process efficient and even enjoyable!
4. Financial Tracking
“Death, taxes, and childbirth! There’s never a convenient time for any of them.”
– Margaret Mitchell, “Gone with the Wind”
The “Gone with the Wind” quote sums up how most of us feel about finances. Financial software can help you stay organized to ensure you get paid and minimize the pain during tax season. Essential elements of financial software include tracking sales, expenses, profits, and invoice management. It’s important to choose software that’s secure from cybercrime and compliant with industry regulations like economic nexus. Popular financial software includes Quickbooks, Xero, and ARTERNAL. In fact, ARTERNAL and Quickbooks work well together allowing you to easily create and sync invoices between each other.
Pro tip: At a minimum, set aside a weekly time slot to verify your financials are up to date. Small, consistent updates will help you avoid long headache-inducing catch-up sessions that make us love accounting so much.
5. Payroll
Managing a team is challenging enough; you shouldn’t create more work through manual payroll processes. Payroll software like Gusto and Check helps you automate the process and ensure taxes are paid on time. But Gusto takes it a step further by offering employee onboarding documentation, company hierarchy, and time tracking.
Pro tip: Encourage employees to familiarize themselves with their online dashboard. This will prevent managers from printing and sending reports that employees already have access to.
6. Reporting
Reporting and data analytics are great for keeping a pulse on how your business is doing. Good reporting software provides customized reports and lets you easily export them to share with your team. Some well-known reporting tools are Zoho Books, ARTERNAL, and Quickbooks. ARTERNAL’s custom reports help you understand which activities are making the biggest impact and devote more resources to what’s working.
Pro tip: Customize your reports to specific improvements you’d like to make. For example, compare art fair revenue against inventory selected and compare fair to fair. This analysis will help you optimize your inventory choices for future fairs.
ARTERNAL Connects Your Data
Strategic software choices help make your business more efficient, so you can focus on your core work. ARTERNAL’s software is designed for art professionals and galleries. Our solutions are interconnected, so you don’t lose time app switching or with data entry. If you want a demo of our all-in-one sales solution, contact us today.
