As an artist, all you want is to get into your creative zone and start sharing your beautiful pieces with the world and make a living out of it. In an ideal world, that would work, but the reality looks different. If you want to sell your art, you need to learn all about marketing, from how to build an audience and how to price your products to the specific requirements of shipping artwork. In other words, you must put on the entrepreneur hat if you want to succeed. Before the era of the Internet, getting your work out there as an artist was a lot harder than it is today.
Thankfully, technology has made everything seamless, and there are a million ways to market your artwork – the trick is to choose what works best for you. But here’s the thing: if you don’t know anything about marketing, the process can feel overwhelming. In this blog, however, you’ll learn 6 essential marketing strategies that you can implement right away in your art business. Check them out below!
Focus on building a strong online presence first
First, it’s essential to ensure that your art business looks good online, so focus on your website, personal branding, social media platforms, and online portfolios. All of these elements will showcase your brand and help you establish a robust online presence, so put as much effort as you can into them.
If you use social media for marketing, ensure that your branding is clear and consistent on every platform. This will help you be easily recognizable among potential buyers.
Leverage video content
Not everyone loves this strategy, but nowadays, it works really great when it comes to building trust and engagement with your audience. It’s up to you where you want to create video content, whether YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, but it’s important to make it as engaging as possible and, of course, adapt it to the platform where you will upload it. The goal of any video is to get your followers to interact with your brand and take the next step, and several things work excellently for artists when it comes to this type of content. For instance, you could share a work in progress or a time-lapse video of you creating a piece. A storytelling video where you share the inspiration behind your art would also be engaging, as would a studio tour.
If you don’t feel comfortable appearing on camera, start small by uploading time-lapse videos first and build your confidence from there—it’s not always necessary to show your face, but be sure to get as creative as you can, as this will make a real difference.
Learn how to tell great stories
One of the best marketing tactics that you don’t want to ignore nowadays is storytelling. Creating engaging stories around your brand will have a massive impact and allow customers to relate to you. And once this happens, they will be more likely to buy from you and even come back for future purchases. So, it only makes sense to consider this marketing strategy.
One way to get started with storytelling is to consider one thing that you want to be associated with, whether it’s the fact that you have a dog or you like to garden. It can be anything that you think would help customers relate to you, and once you discover what that is, you can mention it repeatedly in your newsletter or your social media posts. Storytelling has great power to boost your promotional efforts, so don’t ignore it.
Refresh your art offerings frequently
Here’s the thing: many artists sell contemporary art paintings or other pieces of work, and if you want to thrive in this space, it’s really important to make new artwork. If you sell the same 20 prints for a whole year, your audience will obviously get bored at some point, so it’s always a good idea to create something new. And it will also benefit you to work on a new project.
Besides, you could share your creative process with people interested in your work, as this will allow you to connect deeper with your brand. Share things such as your space, supplies and the process, allowing them to see what happens behind the scenes, as this will make the pieces a lot more valuable in their eyes once they understand how much effort goes into making artwork. If you struggle to come up with new ideas, consider creating a series or working with seasonal themes, as this can be exciting and at the same time, allow you to make more money with each order.
Create brand partnerships
One of the best ways to expand your reach is to collaborate with other brands, as this essentially allows you to borrow someone else’s audience so that your products get discovered. This can naturally result in new followers and customers and even allow you to build loyal fans.
What’s really great about collaborations is that you can get as creative as you want with them, whether you want to write a guest blog for them, do a joint project together or co-host a live event. Of course, when you decide to collaborate with someone, it’s essential to offer value to both audiences, as this will allow your collaborator’s audience to trust and follow you, which may eventually lead to future purchases.
Consider a referral program
If you want to get new customers quickly, consider creating a referral program, which essentially is about engaging customers to spread the word about your shop among their friends. This could be approached in many ways, but a very simple method is to offer a coupon code for a friend, as it’s very easy to set up and if your customer is fulfilled with their purchase, they will likely either use the coupon code for themselves or pay it forward.
While this is a tried-and-tested strategy, it’s crucial to make it easy for clients to spread the word about your brand if you want your efforts to pay off. Keep things simple, offer an incentive, and your customer base will grow quickly.
The bottom line
As you can probably tell by now, marketing is essential for any artist who wants to sell their work, and you shouldn’t overlook it. While no one really enjoys this part of doing business, it’s imperative for success, and you can make it fun by filming videos about your work, doing creative collaborations with others, and more. So, will you consider these marketing strategies to get your dream craft business off the ground?
To read more content like this, explore The Brand Hopper
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