Last week Navis Pack & Ship ran a sweepstakes on Facebook designed to promote our brand and bring awareness to the art community that we specialize in art shipping. The sweepstakes was called Ship Your Art Out with Navis Pack & Ship and we were hoping our one lucky grand prize winner would be an artist so that we could take part in shipping a masterpiece.
Being in the art industry is tricky: nothing comes cheap and many artists struggle between wanting to follow their passion and create art and needing to financially support themselves. Even when an artist has a following and is successfully selling art, he or she can be limited by range and as a result might not have as big of an audience as is possible. The art and craft marketplace website Etsy has made it a lot easier for artists to get in touch with fans all over the world, but anyone familiar with that site knows most of the items sold can fit into a standard sized envelope or box and shipped through the Postal Service. Life sized sculptures, on the other hand, just cannot be transported easily or cheaply. This limitation - forcing artists to market their works only within their local community or forcing them to find a different medium due to costs - is an unfair one.
We tend to look at artists as small business owners. They work for themselves and often have to do everything by themselves: create the product (art piece), market the product, and - once they sell the product - must transport the product to its new owner. In completing this last step, the artist will need to make all assurances that the piece will arrive at its destination unharmed and in perfect condition or lose the sale and the customer (which gets expensive). To make matters more complicated, paying for shipping and handling on the buyer side is an annoyance that can often discourage enthusiasts from buying a particular art piece. We had the idea that if we could eliminate this obstacle for at least one artist that it might help them in the long run.
We know what we're capable of as a brand - art shipping is our specialty thanks to our skill at creating custom crates for artwork, which is a service no other major shipping brand can meet. Unfotunately, not everyone knows this and that's why we ran the sweepstakes. Reach out to artists across the country, introduce them to Navis Pack & Ship, and give one lucky person the chance to experience our expert services absolutely free. We've had countless successes shipping art pieces, antiques, and strange and unusual items around the world, but in order to be the go-to packing and shipping company for artists we needed exposure. And we got it!
Our grand prize winner lives in Houston, Texas. We put her in touch with Kevin and Marc, the owners of Navis Pack & Ship Houston, about collecting her free packing and shipping, and we'll update back here when we know what she's shipping and where. Stay tuned! We also had 5 different daily prize winners (who were selected for correctly answering an art trivia question on our Facebook wall) who received a variety of prizes, including $50 gift cards to art supply stores and one-year subscriptions to art magazines. We at Navis Pack & Ship are really excited about supporting the art community in small towns and large cities in the United States.
To keep up with future promotions, sweepstakes, specials and art-related news, follow us on Facebook. You can also check out the crazy things we shipped (or get inspired by our inspiration boards!) by visiting our Pinterest profile. We also help promote artists and their work on Twitter and meet on Google+ to discuss art. Connect with us on any medium that's most comfortable for you and be sure to follow along on this blog. And for those who are really interested in making a connection, feel free to stop by any of our nationwide locations to say hi to fellow small business owners. We'd love to meet you!
