Artists are extremely creative when they’re in their own lane, creating their masterpieces. Getting that work into the eyes of potential buyers, that’s a whole other craft. One that requires planning, practice, patience, persistence, and extra skills that can only be gained by jumping into the thick of it.
To help you get going, listed below are a few of the more effective marketing techniques artists of any speciality can use to cut through the noise, build a fan following on multiple platforms, make a name for themselves, and potentially, get recognised by galleries, traders, and buyers.
Three creative ways to market your art without breaking the bank
1. Have someone take photos of you creating the art
The finished artwork sells the piece. It doesn’t market you as the artist.
Artists tend to classify customers as people who buy art as a one-off piece with no preference for who created it. Clients, on the other hand, are classified as repeat buyers. Clients are more likely to be traders looking to sell a select genre of art that compliments the type they already sell. Either via an online art store, or a physical store.
The same applies to curators employed or hired by art galleries. They scout for new artwork to showcase in collections. To make your work easier to access, curators will be more inclined to subscribe to a mailing list or follow your socials online to find out when you release new work.
The personalisation of your marketing across social media is how you introduce yourself, your work, genre, and professionalism, visually, by having someone photo you at work. It doesn’t need to be when you’re working. That is off-putting to most people. Instead, stage it, just like estate agents stage the homes of properties prior to photographing for marketing; you can do the same for yourself. Put you in the picture.
2. Learn digital photo editing
In this day and age, photo editing is a must-have skill. Nearly every photo you have to upload online will do better with adjustments prior to sharing it with the world.
One of the simplest adjustments you can make to a digital photo is blurring. As an example, using the above step of having someone photo you at your workstation, it is likely that you’ll have your tools around you. Pencils, paints, brushes, an easel, rubber eraser or putty, pastels etc. All of these are distractions. Using a blur tool in a photo editor, you can soften the distractions around you leaving the only clear aspects in the photo being you and the piece you are working on.
As author Steven Covey puts it in his book about the 7 habits of highly effective people “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”.
3. Choose your platforms wisely
Enthusiastic artists take on too much too soon. Several social media platforms cater to visual marketing where your digital photos do most of your work for you. There’s little need for captions, although adding a backstory to your photos helps convey the message and get marketing momentum going.
Asides from social media, there are art sales platforms that should be chosen with deliberateness. The reason is that different platforms cater to different buyer personas. Some are general marketplaces like your Amazons’ whereas others focus on attracting affluent customers only by emphasising the handmade or original only aspect.
Online marketplaces give you a storefront but charge you for using it, and usually a commission on your sales to cover the payment processing fees.
If selling your own original art nationwide or globally, it’s likely to be the art only, unframed to lower the cost of shipping. If you wanted to sell complete packages of framed art, the easiest route would be to focus on local marketing and either work with a picture framer nearby to help you frame your work or take advantage of bulk buy discounts on framing materials to frame the work yourself. Once it’s ready, either drop the framed piece off or have your customer pick it up from your premises.