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Direct contact from collectors. Questions to ask and best practices.
Direct contact from collectors. Questions to ask and best practices.

Collector communication > best practice when contacted by collectors directly

Rachel Fisher avatar
Written by Rachel Fisher
Updated over a week ago

It's an exciting feeling to be contacted by someone with a real intent to buy your artwork. We love it too! With the combined efforts of your personal marketing, and the marketing effort Bluethumb puts behind your work, it can be difficult to pinpoint where the buyer has first seen your work - was it your social media, portfolio, Bluethumb profile or perhaps the ads we run on your behalf?

This makes it imperative for all of us to know where they found you, so we can keep investing our efforts towards what's worked in the past. 

Here are a few things you should do to help keep real buyers finding you.

Ask collectors where they found you.

This might be the simplest way to find out. Don't let this be your first question - that would be odd - but do ask where or how they found you.

Once you know and have answered their questions, ask them to complete their transaction through the platform they found you. 

If this is direct, that's great. If it's Bluethumb - ask them to purchase via Bluethumb (if you've negotiated a different price - just ask our team and they can create a personalised coupon for you to pass on, so your actual price point doesn't go down).

Why? Credit where it's due.

If someone likes your work and has found you on Bluethumb, Bluethumb has earned their commission. Bringing a sale lead back to us strengthens your relationship with Bluethumb. 

Remember Bluethumb is a free platform and only takes a commission when we find you a buyer - not just a sale, but a collector

Bringing offline contacts back to Bluethumb is the best way to show your support for this free service and help it grow and serve you better.

Marketing and advertising algorithms.

The way our marketing and advertising logic determines success or failure, is largely through the sales attributed to each campaign.

What this means for an ad that may feature one of your artworks, is if the buyer came through this campaign, visited to your Bluethumb profile, then decided to contact you directly and the sale didn't go through Bluethumb, the campaign will be deemed a failure and those ads will likely be stopped.

Honour Bluethumb's effort.

Bluethumb spends a significant amount of effort and resources into promoting our artists' artworks. Not only online, but offline to, through activity including:

  • Online digital ads across a variety of platforms (e.g. Google, Facebook and others) 

  • Magazine ads and catalogues, including brochures and our Artist Catalogue

  • Social media marketing, TV show tie ups and many many more channels (and don't forget our trade and art advisory efforts)

  • Brand partnerships

  • PR collaborations

  • Proactive trade buyer reach out for commercial projects

  • Constant technology improvements on the site to bring more features and tools to our artists

  • Bluethumb team's personal support to artists

  • And many more efforts behind the scene...

If you know a buyer has come to you via Bluethumb, we would really appreciate it if you honour our efforts and ask for your work to be purchased on Bluethumb.

Key to an ongoing and long term relationship.

When you bring an offline sale back to Bluethumb, we know you're a trusted partner of Bluethumb.


Situations where you should ask the collector to contact Bluethumb to continue the transaction


They like one of your available works on Bluethumb, but have contacted you directly.

For all the reasons stated above, plus when the collector buy your work on Bluethumb, our marketing emails and re-targeting ads acknowledge this and they will see your new works online.

They've purchased one work in the past via Bluethumb and have contacted you directly for more works. 

Why? Because they've discovered you via Bluethumb's marketing and advertising efforts. All sales/orders going to this collector should to go through Bluethumb even if they've contacted you directly. Remember, commission from sales is the only way Bluethumb earns revenue. Our service to artists is completely free. If you enjoy what we do and want us to keep doing it - and keep improving - this is really important to us.

They like one of your sold artworks and would like a new piece commissioned. 

We organise commissioned pieces as well, and these are treated as normal sales on Bluethumb. Just get in touch with us and we'll organise this for you, hassle free.

They've contacted you directly to get a discounted price.

Just get in touch with the team and we can offer a discounted price and assist with everything.

They found your work online and decided to visit your studio to see it in person (organised directly or via Bluethumb).

When they visit you personally and are happy with the artwork, still ask them to use their smartphone to put the purchase through Bluethumb, so it goes through the system. If they ask for a discount, get in touch with our team and we can generate a personalised discount for you to share. 

This applies also in the case the collector purchased another artwork of yours that was initially not discussed - if this is already on Bluethumb, they should complete the transaction online. If you haven't uploaded it on Bluethumb yet, you can upload it and they can then complete the transaction.


So, to wrap it up


It's really important to ask collectors where they found your work. This supports Bluethumb and helps us grow the Australian art market. It's a help us help you situation.

Suggestions or feedback?

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, please share your feedback through this feedback form below. This comes directly to the whole team at Bluethumb and will help us make The Home of Australian Artists better than ever.


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