Getting Off Instagram

How I'm Getting Tattoo Clients Without Instagram

For the last two years, I've been struggling to book new tattoo clients. All I've ever used to reach clients is Instagram. I bet you can see where I'm going with this.

When I first started tattooing, Instagram served me. That's all I needed — wherever I was in the world, I could just post photos, or do a guest spot at another tattoo shop and leverage their Instagram followers to reach new clients. It worked every time and kept me floating in the cloud of false security.

A few months ago, I did a guest spot in Melbourne, at a super cool tattoo shop with a large following and received nothing but crickets. No followers, no engagement, no clients. And that was the fifth time I've tried in the last two years, at five different tattoo shops. It was incredibly disheartening. It got so bad, that I started looking into other career options. I was certain I was going to become a farmer for a while there.

At the end of 2024, I got hooked on YouTube and personal branding. I went all in on the fantasy that was being sold — make videos, build audience, profit. After a while I realised I was making videos about personal branding, copying the content I was watching. It felt as if I was entering into the bottom of a pyramid scheme and al I needed was to sell to the next person in line. Cue the disheartening.

But pushing my middle aged brain to understand these new-fangled digital tools eventually got me to the right path. Now people have been finding me and my studio through old fashioned Google searches, giving me breathing room to shift the focus away from feeding Instagram to feeding myself.

I can't stand using website builders, thinking about SEO and how to rank my website. As such my website sat lost at the bottom of the pile, until I had an important conversation that made me realise what I was missing. Yes that conversation was with Claude Code. I have very mixed feelings about AI aka LLM's, but the fact is that using this tool has changed my business for the better in a very short amount of time.

Just three months ago, I was still certain that I was going to quit tattooing. I went deep into AI — the revolutionary technology that I could somehow monetise and profit from. Learn AI, build audience, profit. But I kept circling back to the fact that I have 13 going on 14 years experience as a tattoo artist. I have a private tattoo studio in Castlemaine. I already have a career that I can build from, I just need stability. I need clients coming in. I need people to see my work. Can I make that happen without relying on Instagram?

I identified four main categories of marketing relevant for me:

Word-of-mouth My partner and I tried some local marketing — flyers, posters, talking to strangers on the street — and got a lot of positive feedback, but no real client conversion. I realised word-of-mouth takes time to build organically. The main thing I can do is make sure my clients have a good experience, do a good tattoo and trust that the word will eventually spread.

Social Media As much as I would love to delete Instagram, I've decided to keep it as a portfolio, a way to contact other studios and to announce things like new designs, flash days, etc. Something that I will keep updated, but put little ongoing thought and effort into. This is a necessity for me because putting effort in, making reels and staying consistent makes me feel dirty and hollow when I do this. So I can't do it.

Website/SEO The thing that has improved my business dramatically in the last six weeks, has been building a decent website with good SEO and a smooth booking system. Using Claude Code installed as an add-on to VScode allows me to have conversations about what I want and allows Claude to build and make changes immediately. It took a while to get the hang of it — set up accounts on Github and Vercel — but all in all I spent about 7-10 days building. It costs me the price of a subscription to Claude $30 AUD a month (which I could cancel if I wanted) and the domain name, $15 a year.

Most of it I don't even understand, but in the week following the sites deployment, I had at least 2 emails. Since then, I've had 1-4 enquiries a week, most of which have turned into clients. Now this may not seem like much to a lot of people, but March has been my busiest month since my opening month in May last year. This is a combination of past clients, word-of-mouth and my new website. Crucially, not from Instagram.

Email Another area I have completely ignored in my career is building an email list. Now that I have my website and some breathing room, I'm building a custom area for my projects to live. Things I'm writing about, news, events, photos, drawings, videos. Everything I'm interested in as an artist. I've set it up... I mean Claude has set it up, so that when I post to my page, that post will also go to the people signed up to my email list using a tool called Resend. I experimented with Substack and Beehiiv, but I now know that I don't like using other platforms. I would rather build things myself.

Controlling where I put my work has become very important to me. I've noticed how excited I am to create now that I have that control. There is nothing worse than thinking about creating for Instagram, releasing something into the void and then judging your worth on how poorly it performs.

Yes I will still use Instagram and YouTube, but my hub for creation is my own space that I own. Yes Claude is building it for me, but if Claude went away, the website and my email list would still exist. If Instagram went away then my ability to reach clients goes with it, which is basically what has happened.

So now I have semi-consistent bookings, I'm no longer creating out of desperation. My website is ranked number one for fine-line tattoos in Castlemaine and number two for tattoos in Castlemaine. I'm less stressed and have the time and digital and mental space to focus on what I'm excited about. Drawing, writing, photography, making videos, learning about plants, reading and sharing what I learn along the way. Now I can create what I want without thinking about metrics, which makes me create what I want, not what I think will perform. Art not content. Work that enriches my life. This is the beginning of that journey.