Getting your new gallery known: the 90-day communication plan

01The first thirty days: laying the identity foundations

Before you communicate, you must know what you are communicating. The first step, often neglected in the rush of opening, consists of clearly formulating your positioning. What distinguishes your gallery from those already operating in your city, your neighbourhood, your market segment? The answer cannot simply be "we show contemporary art," a phrase describing thousands of galleries worldwide. Your positioning must be precise without being reductive. Galerie Sultana in Paris made itself known from its earliest days by championing an international emerging scene with a particular emphasis on post-internet practices. Galerie Crèvecoeur, also in Paris, built its reputation on a demanding programme mixing French and international artists in a deliberately anti-commercial spirit. These galleries did not wait ten years to become identifiable: they were recognisable from their first season.

Once your positioning is defined, you must translate it into concrete tools. Your website is your permanent business card. It must be online before you open, with a presentation of your programme, your artists' biographies, dates of forthcoming exhibitions and full contact details. A poorly designed, incomplete or absent website sends a signal of unprofessionalism that deters serious interlocutors. Design quality, smooth navigation, the presence of high-resolution images: these details, which may seem secondary when facing the urgency of mounting a first exhibition, are in reality the first elements on which a curator, journalist or collector will judge you before even crossing your threshold.

Your social media accounts should be active and fed with content reflecting your identity: views of the space under preparation, artist introductions, previews of works to come. This preparatory work may seem tedious, but it conditions everything that follows. The first month is also the moment to build your contact base. Compile addresses of specialist journalists in your city, art critics covering your segment, independent curators, local cultural institution directors, other dealers in your neighbourhood and collectors you know or have been recommended. This database, even modest at the start, will be the central tool of your entire communication effort. A spreadsheet is enough to begin, but organise it from the outset by category (press, institutional, collectors, professionals) so you can send targeted communications.

02Days thirty to sixty: launching the first visible actions

The second month is for action. Your inaugural exhibition is your first public statement, and it must be treated with the seriousness of a major event, even if your space is modest and your means limited. Send a professional press release to all the press contacts you have identified, at least three weeks before the opening. This release must contain a rigorous exhibition text, professional-quality visuals, practical information and a gallery presentation. Journalists receive dozens of releases per week: yours must stand out through its clarity, the quality of its writing and the pertinence of its subject, not through superlatives or hollow promises.

Organise an opening that reflects the spirit of your gallery. If your positioning is demanding and intellectual, a sober opening with good wine and quality conversation will be more coherent than a party with a DJ. Conversely, if your gallery cultivates a youthful, boundary-crossing energy, a lively evening with performances or music will send the right signal. The essential thing is coherence between what you claim to be and what you show. Personally invite the people you most want to see attend: an individual message carries more weight than a generic invitation sent to a mailing list. This attention paid to each invitation is a considerable time investment, but dealers who succeed with their launch are almost always those who took the time to personalise their earliest invitations.

During this second month, multiply physical encounters. Visit openings at other galleries in your city, introduce yourself to dealers, critics and curators you meet. The art world is a milieu where personal relationships count as much as programme quality. Galerie Marcelle Alix, when it opened in Paris, rapidly gained visibility because its founders were present on the scene, visible and engaged in conversations with their peers. This physical presence does not replace programme quality, but it makes it visible.

Register in the gallery circuits organised in your city. In Paris, the Marais, Saint-Germain-des-Pres and Belleville host circuit evenings that attract a broad and curious public. In Brussels, gallery weekends play the same role. In Lyon, the circuit during the Biennale concentrates attention on the city's galleries. These collective events offer new galleries a visibility they could not achieve alone and allow you to capture an audience that would never have come to you specifically but which, walking through the neighbourhood, crosses your threshold and discovers your programme.

03Days sixty to ninety: consolidating and amplifying

The third month is for consolidation. You have opened, you have generated some initial attention, you have met your first visitors. Now you must transform that initial attention into a lasting relationship. Follow-up is the key: every person who visited your gallery during the first month should receive a sign from you, whether a personal thank-you, an invitation to your next exhibition or information about an artist who might interest them. This relationship work, artisanal and time-consuming, is what distinguishes a gallery that endures from one that disappears after two years. Collectors remember dealers who remember them, who retain their tastes, who think of them when a work matching their sensibility enters the gallery.

Begin producing editorial content. A text about your curatorial approach, an interview with one of your artists, a behind-the-scenes account of your first exhibition: these contents, published on your site or social media, feed your online presence and give your gallery a depth that simple exhibition announcements do not provide. Galerie Balice Hertling, in its early years, cultivated a strong editorial presence on social media, sharing content that reflected a distinctive curatorial sensibility and contributed to building an attentive community around its programme.

Contact online platforms that list galleries and exhibitions. Artedusa offers partner galleries an international showcase enabling them to reach collectors beyond their immediate geographical area. Your presence on these platforms extends your visibility beyond your physical walls and gives your programme an audience your space alone cannot reach. For a young gallery, each additional distribution channel constitutes an opportunity to reach the collector, curator or journalist who has not yet discovered you.

04Press relations as a long-term investment

Press relations are an essential lever for a new gallery, but they follow rules you must understand from the outset. Specialist journalists receive a considerable volume of solicitations and will not cover your gallery simply because you are new. What interests them is a programme that brings something fresh, an artist they have not yet seen, an angle that renews a conversation. Your press release is your first chance to capture their attention, and it must not waste it.

Identify the most relevant journalists for your programme and cultivate a personal relationship with them. Invite them to private visits of your space, offer meetings with your artists, provide exclusive information about forthcoming exhibitions. These gestures do not guarantee immediate coverage, but they build a relationship of trust that will eventually produce results. Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, which opened in the Belleville neighbourhood of Paris at a time when it was not yet identified as a gallery hub, patiently built its relationships with French and international specialist press, progressively obtaining coverage that reflected the quality of its programme. This patience is a virtue young dealers must cultivate: the press will come to you if your programme merits it, but it will come at its pace, not yours.

05Measuring your progress without losing heart

After 90 days, you will not be the best-known gallery in your city. That would take years, and claiming otherwise would be dishonest. However, you can evaluate your progress on concrete indicators: the number of professional contacts established, attendance at your openings compared with comparable galleries, visitor feedback on programme quality, first sales made, first articles or mentions in the press. If these indicators are positive, even modestly, you are on the right track. If they are disappointing, analyse the reasons without catastrophising: perhaps your positioning lacks clarity, perhaps your communication is not reaching the right people, perhaps your location requires additional effort to be identified.

The most frequent mistake young dealers make regarding communication is impatience. Reputation in the art world builds slowly, through the accumulation of successful exhibitions, trust-based relationships and coherent positions. Dealers who last are those who maintain their communication effort with regularity and determination, even when results are slow to arrive. The first 90 days are not an end: they are the starting point of a task that will continue for as long as your gallery exists. Every exhibition, every encounter, every published text adds a layer to your reputation, and it is the sum of these layers that, over months and years, will constitute your gallery's public identity.

06Artedusa as an extension of your visibility

Your gallery exists in a physical space, but your potential audience is scattered around the world. Collectors who might be interested in your programme may live in another city, another country, another continent. Artedusa enables partner galleries to present their programme and artists to an international audience of collectors and art enthusiasts who might never cross the threshold of your physical space. This digital dimension of your communication is not a substitute for your physical presence: it is its natural extension, and in a world where artistic discovery increasingly passes through online platforms, it has become an indispensable element of any communication strategy for a gallery, whether new or established.