Entries Tagged 'Marketing Monday' ↓

I’m hitting the road! Sara and I are buying a 33-foot Southwind motor home and will be living on the road full-time. Granted, we’ll be spending a lot of time at different places, but we’ll be living a mobile lifestyle. I hope to have internet access most of the time, but I won’t be able to rely on that, especially when we are enroute from one place to the next.

What that means for this website is that I cannot count on my ability to post 2 to 3 times per week. I have also faced the fact that I am put a lot of time and energy into this site and receive very little monetary reward. I need to focus my talents and energy towards efforts that will help me pay the bills.

I am not abandoning you, however. I will continue to write articles and be active in the forum. And I have two ideas that I want to run past you.

One, I want to reorganize and redesign this website so it is easier to find and use past articles. There is a lot of good information in this blog, but it is not very easy to find. My thought is to create a library of articles that is organized and easy to use.

Two (and this is the big one), I want to turn this site into a community blog. This means that any of you can have an account on the site as an author and then write whatever or whenever you want. Of course, we’ll keep it within the realm of art marketing, but that is a pretty broad umbrella. For example, you could sign up and create your own post about you and your art, similar to what I’ve been doing with the Feature Friday. You could also write about anything to do with your own art marketing, online or off. There are several blogs that work this way, including ReveNews.com.

Please let me know what you think of all of this and especially if you think you would ever be interested in joining this site as a community blogger.

.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

[Comments]

I have really been putting a lot of thought into this whole idea of making a living as an artist and although I do intend to continue with “How to Sell My Art Online”, I wanted to take a step back and look at the big picture of making a living as an artist.

First, I came up with a very general list of tasks to complete:

1. Determine your USP and identity (similar to brand and image, but more real).
2. List all the possible products you could sell.
3. List all the possible services you could sell.
4. List all the possible ways you could sell your art.
5. Advertise (spread the word).
6. Network (build relationships).
7. Build your online presence.
8. Change your lifestyle (possibly).

.

Now let’s take a closer look at each one.

1. Determine your USP and identity (similar to brand and image, but more real).

This one we have talked about in detail already (see last week’s post). Also, think about how you may be seen through the eyes of your customer and how you can help them cultivate the image you really want.

.

2. List all the possible products you could sell.

Some products that come to mind are original paintings (various sizes), prints, cards, tiles, coffee mugs… you know, anything you can get your image on. Maybe you could sell tattoo designs (be creative here). Some other products might include your own series of art instruction books, books of your art accompanied by stories, a story book accompanied by your art, and so on. How about digital products? You could sell CDs and DVDs of your art, ebooks, downloadable prints, online guides, and more. Just make a huge list of every possibility you can think of. Remember the rules of brainstorming, don’t filter anything at this stage or think of why you can’t do something, list all possibilities.

.

3. List all the possible services you could sell.

Again, follow the rules of brainstorming. You can do commissions, give classes (online and offline), give workshops, lead tours, write books and guides…. and many other ideas I haven’t listed here. Please, add more ideas in the comments below.

.

4. List all the possible ways you could sell your art.

What are the ways that you have used to sell your art? Galleries, shows, competitions, your website, online stores, art fairs and other similar venues, on the street, directly to people you know, opening up your studio one day a month, farmer’s markets, to businesses, through magazines… again, please add ideas to the comments!

.

5. Advertise (spread the word).

There are many ways to advertise. Magazines, newspapers, other print media, billboards (gutsy, I know), word-of-mouth, signs up on bulletin boards, and many online methods such as forums, Craigslist, and even Adwords. Can you think of more?

.

6. Network (build relationships).

As with any selling, your relationships are vital. These might be relationships with gallery owners, previous customers, potential customers, local businesses… your business relationships are vital and can help you in ways that don’t reveal themselves until much further down the road. Always be willing to go the extra mile to establish a relationship. Even if that relationship never helps you sell or make money, the karmic goodness you receive is always worth it.

.

7. Build your online presence.

This is what this website and series is all about, helping you learn how to sell your art online. Plan this out before just diving in and trying everything. Do you want one main presence (your website) or do you want to spread your presence through several avenues (online stores, Facebook, forums, etc.). If you spread your presence, do you always send people back to your website or do you want to sell from each of these avenues.

What is the purpose of each piece of your online presence. Is it to communicate? Establish deeper relationships? Sell specific works? Learn and explore? Create possible joint ventures? Keep people coming back? How does each piece fit into the whole plan?

.

8. Change your lifestyle (possibly).

This is one area where a lot of people do not want to compromise, but it could make a huge difference. This is especially important if you are considering a switch from a full-time job to a full-time artist. How cheaply can you live? Think of each chunk of your life. How small of a dwelling can you live in? Can you move to a small rental space somewhere and cut your housing bill in half? What extras can you live without? How about moving to another country where your dollar can go much further? There are many creative ways to cut back on your living expenses, some of which are less radical than others. Brainstorm!

.

That is a very brief look at the big picture of making a living as an artist. Many of you have been through this process, maybe more than once. But it always helps to take a step back now and then and think about the big picture.

If you think this article was useful, I would be giddy with delight if you donated $1 to help support OnlineArtsMarketing.com..



. If you come here often, please consider an eensy weensy $3/month subscription. Think of it as buying a friend forever!

. .
Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

[Comments]

.

The Art of Writing a Winning Headline

Who do you want to read your blog? Your friends? Other artists? Potential customers?

How you write your headline is determined by for whom you are consciously or subconsciously writing your entire post. It will also help determine who reads your post. I specifically chose the title of this blog because I want it to show up on the search engines when someone looks for the phrase “how to start selling my art online”. Do you want to reach the customer who is looking for a painting of the Southwest desert done with oils? Then be sure to write a title that contains those key words, perhaps “Saguaros at Sunset: Oil Painting of the American Southwest”. With this title you will also attract those people who are looking for “saguaro” and “sunset” in addition to “oil”, “painting”, “American” and “Southwest” and any combination of those.

.

How to Start Selling My Art Online

I do not want to disappoint the reader who came here looking for more than just how to write a great headline. I am in the planning phases of a writing a new book. Can you guess what the title of that book is going to be?

I am asking for your help. What kinds of stuff did you wish you knew when you first started selling online? If you are not selling online, yet, what would the most helpful to you?

.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

This post is a result of a conversation that I had with a good friend of mine that lives in Arivaca, AZ. We have been discussing how to market her art for several months and have had some great conversations. I wish I had recorded all of them!

You know, at some point I’ll figure this whole art marketing thing out! I would like to be able to give people a general formula and say, “Here, do this. If you do these things for this long and stick with it, in one year you will make enough money to make it worthwhile.”

I HAVE heard from some artists that their blog and other online promotion has paid off and they sometimes make a few hundred dollars from it. But if you want that to happen, you have to have put the time in online creating and building your community.

I think a general blog will have a tougher time selling than a specialized blog. Okay, artist blogs are specialized, but not when compared to all the other artist blogs out there… and there are TONS of them!

Think in terms of what kind of blog and blog content would really grab people and make them want to come back week after week. I think anything “story” related, if the story is told well, would accomplish that. One idea is to have a blog that is place and story related. For instance, writing a weekly post about things that are going on in and around Arivaca. A lot of people would be fascinated by what goes on in a place that is so remote and wild. With elements of Border Patrol, illegal activities, beautiful scenery, a strong community… there is so much to write about. Combine that with pictures using your cool new camera and then get the word out that your blog exists. People will come back week after week for the story and because you make it personal and use the first person perspective, a certain number of people will want to buy your art because they have connected with you and know your story.

What I would like to do is open this up for discussion. What are YOUR thoughts about how to build a blog that helps you sell your work?

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

How to Make Money from Your Blog

My head is literally spinning from all of the new information I have been learning in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been delving into the world of affiliate marketing and trying to get a grasp on the whole thing. You see, in the world of making money online, affiliate marketing is huge. All it really consists of is selling other people’s stuff, but when you put that model online you can do all sorts of new things with it. I mention this because some of what I’ve learned in this process can be used to help you make money on your blog.

First, here are some of the ways that you can make money from your blog:

• Google Adsense
• selling your stuff
• selling other people’s stuff
• placing ads
• selling ad space
• create a mailing list

I put Google Adsense first because that is what a lot of people first think about when they think about making money from their blog. I have also found that it is not a very good method. It is fairly easy to set up, but it provides a low return. I set up a blog for a friend that utilizes Google Adsense extensively. Last month she had almost 150,000 page views and almost 42,000 unique visitors. Even with that kind of traffic, Google Adsense only brought in about $100. Now that’s not bad, but for that kind of traffic you would think that the return would be much higher.

Selling your own stuff is what most artist do. Whether you sell directly from your site or you have links to online stores such as Etsy, eBay, or CafePress, you are probably doing some variation of this one.

Selling other people’s stuff is what is referred to as affiliate marketing. There are entire books, courses, blogs, and more written about this. A common way to do this is to write a post about a certain subject or product that you believe in and then include your affiliate link for people to click on and purchase. When I write about mailing lists, I will talk about Aweber and when you click on that link and then sign up, I get a small percentage of that sale. (Actually, I get 20% which is pretty good!)

Placing ads is what I have just started to do on this site. I will try to keep it minimal and will pay attention to the aesthetics of the site, but I do want to make a little bit of money to help support my habit (blogging). The ad at the bottom of this post helps people to find more information about particular education programs. Many of us like to take classes now and then and when you send for information using that ad, I make some money. The ad at the top of my sidebar is also something that some people will be interested in. Until you can make a living full-time from selling your art, it helps to have another way to make money at home.

Selling ad space is not something I have pursued yet, but may in the future. This is a more consistent source of income than placing ads, but may or may not pay as much. For example, a company may ask to place an ad on my site for a month and pay me anywhere from $50 to $500 for that. I have not pursued this because up until now, my readership has been rather low. Once I started posting a longer content-rich post once a week on Mondays and my featured artist post on Fridays, my readership has been steadily growing. Last month I averaged 36 unique visitors per day and the month before only 5. I am also up to 31 RSS subscribers.

The last thing to talk about is a mailing list and instead of rehashing what I have already written about on the forum at www.YourArtMarketing.com, I will instead point you to that post here.

.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

Today I am going to make a departure from my normal schedule and talk about a new way that Diane Clancy and I have found to help all of you artists learn about art marketing and share your own experiences. We have been working and planning for the past month and are finally ready to announce our new art marketing forum, YourArtMarketing.com.

We have both received a lot of questions about art marketing and were becoming frustrated that we did not have a way to quickly help you and also keep all of these great questions and answers for others to learn from. Additionally, many of you have a lot of your own knowledge and experience in art marketing and we wanted to be able to draw on your wisdom as well.

YourArtMarketing.com will be the place where all of us can come together to help each other out. Diane and I will spend a lot of time there, answering your questions and doing what we can. We are pretty excited about this and have come to think of all of you as part of our larger family. Building a sense of community is important to us and we know it is important to you, also.

I ask that all of you go to YourArtMarketing.com and register and then introduce yourself in the “Say Hello” section. If you are unfamiliar with forums, just click on “Say Hello” and then click on the “New Topic” button to add your own post. After you do that, please go to one of the other sections and ask a question… even if you already know the answer! We want to get the forum populated with questions so that new artists coming to the site can benefit from our knowledge and experience.

I look forward to seeing all of you over there!!!

Peace,
Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

I just read yet another article about the “dos and don’ts” of art marketing and it has me in a tizzy. Why? Because it is about the same old thing, image instead of substance. Their advice is always the same and it is always about your brand or image and how people perceive you. They ignore the deeper and more important stuff which is how to really connect with people.

You cannot just advertise and get the word out about you and then sit back while the orders come pouring in. You may be able to sell a little bit this way, but it is without substance and skips the important stuff. You want… you NEED to connect with your potential customers. You have to be real, not just a storefront somewhere with cool stuff for sale.

How do you connect? I think you already know this. Have a blog. Write to connect with people, not to talk them into buying from you. Tell your story. Be alive. Your newsletters and emails and postcards should all be about connecting with people, not pushing sales. Your gallery site should tell a story about each and every piece of work.

So what place does advertising have? Use advertising as the means to get people to the places where you connect. If you put an ad in a magazine or other print medium, send them to your blog. Meet people online and really talk to them. The point is to connect with people, not sell, sell, sell.

Make sure, however, that people can easily purchase from you. Make it easy for someone reading your blog to then make one click and go straight to your online store. It’s not all about selling, but that doesn’t mean that you should make it difficult to do so. Encourage it, in fact.

Okay, enough ranting for one day. Thanks for listening and see you on Friday with my newest Featured Site!

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

.

Here is some information about art education:

.

Last week was a good introduction to the idea of surviving as an artist, especially the idea that you need to take control. But you need to do more than just take control and think of the business side of things. You need to think in terms of multiple streams of income and how you can make enough money to survive. Not very many people can make a lot of money from selling their art in galleries, but almost anyone can make a little bit of money that way. Not very many people can make a lot of money from selling their art online, but almost anyone can make a little bit of money that way. Think in terms of all of the ways that you can make even a little bit of money. There are a lot of them, are there not? Now if you add them all up, you can probably make enough to survive as an artist.

Let’s look at a few:

• Sell online
• Use Adsense to make money from your art blog
• Teach
• Do online classes and coaching
• Sell at galleries and shows
• Sell cards and prints
• Sell to businesses/offices
• Have your own show
• Add your art to other people’s projects and create joint ventures
• Create information products (articles, books, audio, video… )
• Create a community-based project that garners media attention
• Promote your own line of products
• License your work
• Take people on art tours (locally, nationally, or internationally)
• Live simply

These are just some of the multiple streams of income that you can create and use. Some of them may take some time up front, but most of them can be automated so that you have time to actually work on your art.

Next week I will start to look at some of these multiple streams and go more in-depth on a few of them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

.

Here is some information about art education:

.

This question has been asked of me more times than I can count: How can I survive as an artist?

It is the dream of many artists to spend their day creating and not think at all about the business. I’m not sure if anyone is blessed in such a way and if they are, they must be extremely rare. Even the person who has an agent or a manager cannot just let the business side go completely, there are too many decisions to make.

I often hear the artist say, “I just need to get into a couple of decent galleries and they will do all of the work for me.” That only works if you meet a very specific set of criteria. First, your art must sell well to the target market of the gallery. If not, the gallery will not spend much effort marketing your work for you. Who’s art is featured prominently on the gallery’s advertising? The big shots, the ones that sell a lot and make a lot of money for the gallery. Second, the gallery owner must have decent business sense and understand marketing. Too many gallery owners just have this dream of owning a gallery and do not have what it takes to make it in business. They must be constantly marketing aggressively. Third (and this goes hand-in-hand with number two), the gallery must be successful. Even if your art fits the market and even if the owner is an aggressive marketer, if the gallery does not sell a lot of art, you are not going to make much money.

There are far more than three criteria for a successful gallery, but that is not the point of this blog post. This only shows that you need to take control of the business end of your art because no one has more invested in the business than you.

I cannot give a complete description in this post of how to survive as an artist. That could easily take up an entire book and is actually what this whole blog is about. What I WILL do, however, is give you a blueprint:

.

1. Take control of your business.

This is a mindset that I am talking about. You will know when you have it. I mean much more than just selling your art. To take control of your business, you have to think like a business person. Put your equipment away, dig out a pad of paper and something to write with and turn off the phone. It’s time to write a business plan.

(This next part was borrowed from another web site, but I can’t remember which one!)

Business means structure
Owning an art business (aka being an artist), means you must structure and supervise your working days. Many aspects of running a successful business are essential, notably marketing, administration, accounting and law. Learning these skills (through courses, books or even on the internet) is essential to be able to make a living from art.

Here is a list of some things you should be able to (or must learn to) do:

• Write a business plan
• Promote your artwork to potential buyers
• Effectively negotiate contracts / price your work
• Finance your projects (apply for grants & awards)
• Keep track of your income & expenses (basic accounting)
• Protect your copyright

.

Come back next week for part 2!

.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

What is an online social network? An online social network is any site where you can communicate with other people online. (Yes, it’s that easy.) The first ones that come to mind are the big ones, MySpace and Facebook, but there are hundreds more. Do some Googling and see how many you come up with. Don’t forget places like Flickr and YouTube or any other site where you can add content, use tags, and leave comments. Did I mention StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us? There are also blogs, forums, chat rooms, groups, and many other ways to meet people online. You could spend 24 hours a day on nothing but social networking and still not get to them all!So, where to start…

Make Friends

You know, this should be at the top of any list. The “new thing” in sales (which has been around for several years, now) is what they call relationship marketing. You have to work at establishing a relationship with your potential customer. Act as if you really do want to make friends. I do not mean that you should be fake, but that you should develop a real concern for who your customer is and what their real wants and needs may be. You want this relationship to last and you do that by being authentic, honest, and helpful.

Making friends online can be a relatively easy task. Go to their blog and read it and leave useful comments. Join a forum and help answer people’s questions. Be friendly and be yourself and do not push your work. Simply use your web address in your signature and people will check it out if they like what you have to say. Go to Yahoo Answers where you can help people and leave a link to your site at the same time.

I have given this advice to artists before and they almost always nod in agreement and most actually get online and visit a few sites… and then most stop completely. I do not understand this! How could they possibly think that they could make one or two comments and expect anything to happen from this?

Have a Website that Grabs Their Attention

If you are going to make friends and send them to your website, you should have something worthwhile for them to look at. Have samples of your work, a gallery, and if you sell online, make it easy to buy from you. Have a detailed About Me page that tells your story. Have a blog that you update once a week or once every two weeks or, at the very minimum, once a month. You can definitely have an online presence without your own web site, but it is best to have one place where people can go to learn about you.

Do Not Spread Yourself Too Thin

At what point do you become too spread out and it becomes too difficult for people to grasp who you really are? If you try to send people to all of your websites and social media sites, it becomes too confusing and they will just shut you out of their mind completely. I would suggest that you have one website that is your main online home. This is the place where you send everyone that has an interest in your art. Now, you may choose to have one or two online stores, depending on which services best suit you, but you still send people to ONE site.

Your Online Store

Obviously, if you are going to sell your work, you need an online store. If you just have a store on your website that does not connect anywhere else, you’re missing out on some powerful social networking possibilities. With Etsy.com, you can put images from your store directly into your own website or blog and clicking on them will take people directly to your store. People often browse through Etsy.com looking at whatever strikes their fancy. You can add any store to your own list of favorites and see who else has added that store to their favorites. It’s a good way to build community and sell your art at the same time. eBay is also worth your while. Millions of people go to eBay to look for art and you can not only sell to them directly, but if you have a well designed About Me page you can send them to your website and capture their attention and hearts in many more ways.

The point, here, is that you can have any old store on your site, even just a few PayPal links, but if you ignore the more community based online stores, you will be missing out on the attention of thousands of potential customers. Take advantage of the social networking capabilities of sites like Etsy and eBay and accomplish far more than a few “Buy Now” links.

Okay, this post has gone on long enough. I know I barely scratched the surface here, but it gives you an idea of how to get started using social networking to sell your art. Good luck and feel free to ask questions.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com