My target market is the person who wants to make some money from creating art. They may want to make a full-time living or they may want to merely supplement their day job or they may be a stay-at-home parent that needs to create art and wants to make some money from it.
Who is their target market?
A large percentage of the people in this country are NOT their target market. They are the people that work all day and come home to watch tv and go to bed. They live for the weekend and vacation and for buying more toys. If they read, it is only magazines or books that are primarily fluff and are for entertainment and escape only. If they buy art, it is to make their houses look better for company and is very standard.
Their target market is the person who is educated, reads, travels, identifies themselves as spiritual, has had a few different “jobs”, thinks a lot, is a creative themselves, and is concerned about the enviroment and politics (to some extent). With so few people falling into this category, you would think that it would be more difficult to present your art to these people. In fact, the opposite is true. If you were to try and appeal to the masses, you would have to pay thousands of dollars for television commercials, billboards, and radio ads just to reach that broad audience. With a narrower market, it is much easier to “meet them” where they go. If you are thinking about advertising, you can now focus on the magazines or newspapers or websites that this sort of person would read or visit. You can speak to them on their level with their interests in mind.
It is very helpful to imagine a specific person that fits your idea of the ideal customer. Create an actual person in your mind that has those characteristics and give them a name. Think of this specific person whenever you are doing anything to market your art. If you are creating an ad, write copy that would appeal to that one person. If you are writing a blog post, address it to them in your mind while you are writing. Believe me, how you are feeling and what you are consciously and subconsciously thinking will come through in your writing.
So far we have identified the very general market that would be interested in your art and created a specific person to address that fits the ideal, but we still need to talk about need. In a very general sense, here is how it works. There are two very broad ways to get somebody’s interest. One way is through their curiosity and this can be addressed through telling your story. This is not a very strong method, however, because satisfying their curiosity is fairly low on their list of needs. A stronger and more effective method is to make them aware of a specific problem that creates a need for them that your art can satisfy.
You know that your art has value and that it will satisfy some specific need or needs that certain people will have but what need is that? This is the hard part, the crux of the whole matter, and only you can come up with just the right answer. As an example, you might show your potential customer that art brings depth and layers to their life. It opens windows to deeper spaces within and its daily influence brings joy and lasting satisfaction. Remember, you don’t want to appeal to the general masses, you want to appeal to your ideal customer.
As I have said, this is the key step in the whole process, identifying what problem or need that your art solves or fills and then letting your market know about it.
Next week we’ll take this further and show how this ties into the past two posts about surviving as an artist. If there is a particular direction you would like me to take with this or a specific topic you want me to make sure I talk about, please let me know in the comments.
Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
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Here is some information about art education:
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12 comments ↓
Great post, with good info about identifing your marketing targets. What do you think of social networking sites like Gaia, Facebook, stuff like that? I have found that being a part of Gaia.com has opened many doors to new patrons, (who are willing to pay full price) because we are like minded. I don’t find that to be true on mass spaces like facebook and myspace. I would love to hear your take on social networking for the artist. Also, direction as to how not be a ‘hard’ selling artist, I want to write to that one person, but I also want to not feel like I am selling, selling, selling all the time. What is the fine line, the middle ground? Like on my blog I write the story behind each work, I used to write lots of personal stuff too…but felt like I had lost track of what the art blog was supposed to be in the first place. Another marketing arm of my brand name(BAD! Kitty Art). So I went back to just talking about the art most of the time, and thinking of putting the more personal stuff on another blog. Because I love to write too…I dunno, what’s the middle ground on this, do you think?
@Heather:
Wonderful questions! But… I’m heading out the door this very minute to drive to Arizona for a few days. I have several interviews lined up with artists for my upcoming case studies premium podcast (As soon as I get those edited, I’ll be putting up a new website and offering those.) I have a six-hour drive ahead of me, so I’ll be pondering these questions and hopefully getting those answered in the next day or so.
Keep the questions coming!
What a great, informative site! I’d love to share your site with my blog visitors (many of whom are artists) — is it okay to add your link to my blog?
Thanks,
~ W. J.
@W.J. Absolutely, I would be honored!
I will be adding a link to your blog as well. Great post! I look forward to the next installment. You really have me thinking….
Hi Chris,
This is very useful!! I also ask how to not feel like I am selling all the time yet still making my work available … getting all these balances is tricky.
I am moving my blog in a more personal direction and not just art because I think that interests my readers more and the whole idea of people buying the artist and not just the art.
~ Diane Clancy
http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog
I also think about many of these things you are writing about, and agree with you on marketing. There is a need for what you are offering, and I am interested in seeing what direction you go in. Great post, Chris!
I agree that selling is important, and also don’t want to be a high pressure salesperson. This is one place I am learning and growing, and intend to perfect this area more. My ideas of how I “have” to sell have been changing.
Hi Chris,
This is a great post! Recently I had been thinking about who my ideal customer would be, but I hadn’t quite completed their profile … you’ve given me more to focus on. Thanks!
Also, I would love to add a link to your site on my blog. Will this be ok with you?
@AngieR: Please add my link, that would be wonderful!
Wonderful advice. I think that this is a very important step. I’m so happy to have found your blog. I’m looking forward catching up on your postings and put this knowledge to work. I can thank Sue O’Kieffe for this discovery!
Wonderful post. If you want to reach more artists why not consider joig
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your information would be so benefitial to the arts/artists community.
kind regards,
Jackal
I was going to delete this last comment as spam… which it is… but I thought the website might be interesting to people.
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