Whether you think of yourself as primarily a business-oriented person or you’re a genuine culture vulture, have you ever considered using music and art in your retail or business space? They can also be great additions to vet and dental practices, spas and other service-based businesses. Whether you want to relax your customers, create a sense of sophistication or simply make your place of business more pleasant to visit, drawing on existing art or having custom art created can go a long way toward ensuring that your customers enjoy stopping in.
Consider Your Brand
Think about some of the artwork that you may have encountered in various settings or the music you may have heard piped in. Some of it may have been generic, while in other cases it might have established a certain ambiance. Not all types of environments necessarily need music or visual artwork that’s going to make a bold statement. Dental patients or people with sick pets aren’t there for the atmosphere. However, consider that there’s a difference in soothing and generic. You can choose a painting or mural or music that’s calming without being dull.
Beyond these types of environments, you can make artistic choices that define your brand and the experience your customers can expect to have on your premises. Just as you’ve considered your brand for your marketing and other aspects of your business, consider it as you think about how you’ll use music and visual arts. How do you want people to feel? What do you want them to think about? What kind of associations do you want them to make? Do you want to create a sense of comfort and stability, or one of innovation? This may also affect whether you want sounds and visuals that are consistent or that you rotate out regularly.
As part of your brand, you can also use creative works for storytelling. If nature is important to the story of your brand, consider using natural colors and materials. If you want to convey the idea of sustainability, you might feature work that uses recycled material. Keep in mind as well that the right music can make people want to spend more money. If your customers feel good, they’ll want to buy. Upbeat tunes could keep them bopping in the aisles and adding more things to their carts as they go.
Even if you aren’t trying to drive sales, you could keep people in a buoyant mood. When it comes to music, you do need to make sure that you’re aware of all licensing requirements and that you’ve gotten the right permission to play the songs you’ve chosen in a commercial space. There are several options, including working with a performing rights organization, known as PROs, or getting a subscription to a commercial music service.
Make it Feel Accessible
Some types of art can feel intimidating. It’s important that whether you’re using art and music to create a sense of luxury, calm, comfort or edgy cool, your customers feel as though it’s a place that’s accessible to them. In part, this means making the right choices. You don’t want to alienate customers with design that pushes them away. Interactive displays encourage people to participate with the art that you’ve chosen.
You could also include information cards that offer additional information about what’s on display just as a museum would. In some cases, this can be about making sure that your space is physically accessible for people with mobility or other issues. Music that’s too loud can be off-putting for those who are hearing impaired. But this is also about making sure that everyone has financial access. Even if the décor says pricey, financing options for customers provides them with the flexibility and convenience that many have come to expect.
From med spas to vet offices and dental clinics to retail spaces or any service-based business, companies can enjoy several advantages to offering financing as can their customers. Your business makes more money, and your customer is more satisfied. Furthermore, it can put you ahead of the competition. Review an online guide that will cover everything you need to know to make a decision about the best options. It includes information on how the various financing options work, what to consider before you get started and what’s available.
Think Local
This can be a terrific opportunity to work with local artists, which can have the added benefit of creating additional goodwill. People will be more interested in patronizing a business that seems as though it’s part of the fabric of the community in addition to being a commercial enterprise. You can have rotating displays by local artists, or you can hire a local artist to do something more permanent, such as paint a mural.
A third option is to purchase paintings and sculptures by locals rather than having regularly changing displays. What about your employees? Getting them involved in choosing or even creating the work that you’ll display can boost their morale as well.
Tips for Incorporating Visual Art
There are many different ways that you can incorporate painting, sculpture, drawings and other work in your business. Remember that this is not just about things that you look at; items that are functional can be carefully chosen for design reasons as well. You can choose seating, furniture, shelves, colors and lighting that convey a certain mood. If you have a small space, this can be a particularly effective way to make the most of it.
A mural is one type of installation, but there are other types as well. Installations tend to be large scale, and some are interactive. They may be sculptures, paintings or other objects that are temporary or permanent. Some invite interaction. From a giant tooth in a children’s play area at a dental office to a soothing soundscape against a light display in a spa to a striking abstract sculpture in a waiting room and more, there are many ways to use creative work on your premises.
