Pricing Your Artwork to Sell Today

June 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

How to Price Your Artwork PodcastJoin us for a Live, Free Broadcast Today
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013

Join me, artprintissues.com publisher Barney Davey, and Xanadu Gallery owner Jason Horejs as we discuss art pricing strategies. Pricing can be one of the greatest challenges for artists – Davey and Horejs will discuss factors artists should consider when developing pricing strategies.

Register Here for Our Event

Tell us you are planning to attend by going to our event page on Google+.

Please note that registering is optional – you can attend the broadcast even if you don’t register. To register on the event page you have to have a Google account (Gmail or Google+) Signing up for an account is simple, but if you prefer not to, you can bypass the registration and simply return to this page at broadcast start time.

We Will be Recording the Broadcast

This broadcast will be recorded – even if you can’t attend live, go ahead and register and we’ll send you the link to the recording.

Filed Under: Art Business
DatedJune 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Visual Artists What Business Are You In?

June 15, 2013 by 6 Comments

The Answer Is Not What Visual Artists Think.

Visual Artists Job OneMany businesses don’t know how to correctly answer the question of what business they are in, and they pay a hefty price as a result.

Ray Kroc became a billionaire with McDonald’s because he realized the real money was in the real estate leasing business. If he had thought he was in the hamburger or restaurant business, he would have made many errors in judgment on how to build his business empire.

Granted, Kroc also took standardizing fast food preparation to a completely new level, but had that been his primary business model, he would not have enjoyed the same success. By buying real estate and leasing it back to his franchisees, he created a completely separate source of revenue from the franchise fees. The leased land is an asset that gains value as it ages. Due to Kroc’s vision, the McDonald’s Corporation became one of the world’s largest owners of prime commercial real estate.

Do Not Be  Led Astray by Faulty Thinking

As an artist, if you consider yourself in the “art” business, or even the “art publishing” business, you are off on the wrong foot and headed up the wrong path.

You are in the business of building, nurturing and replenishing a direct buying collector base and a dealer network. (Dealer being galleries, individuals and businesses that resell art.)

A Growing Direct Buying Collector Base Is Your Ticket to Success

In my new Guerrilla Marketing for Artists: How 100 Collectors Can Bulletproof Your Art Career book, I tout the virtues of visual artists building a solid core of loyal collectors who buy from them directly. A dedicated cadre of fans, friends, and patrons can immunize your career against galleries closing, Facebook flopping, or any of your third-party distribution channels failing.

If you concentrate first on finding and developing loyal direct buyers and overlay those sales with additional orders coming through your dealer network, you give your art career the best chance for sustained profitable success.

Know What Is Your Job One?

Of course, you need to make great art that your fans want to buy. As a visual artist, when it comes to the business side of your career, think of it this way: Job One is to come to work every day with the goal of finding and converting new direct buying collectors and building your distribution channel of art retailers and art dealers.

Here are your four steps to success with collectors and dealers:

  1. Find
  2. Build
  3. Nourish
  4. Replenish

Visual Artists Seize Control of Your Art Career

I believe it is vital now for all artists to control as much direct distribution of their work as possible. This means you must realize, accept and act upon the clear understanding that your business is building your own distribution channels of collectors and dealers.

While I advocate building a direct buying relationship with collectors, I firmly believe there is every reason to embrace building a dealer network through galleries because the potential for repeat sales from them remains strong.

Changing Times Create New Opportunities for Visual Artists

The rise of e-commerce, affordable digital marketing, social media and changing consumer-buying habits give artists opportunities to affordably build a direct buying collector base. These same conditions also give smart marketing artists new ways to forge powerful relationships with galleries and dealers.

When you bring your own following and a way to ignite action from them, and show a willingness to share your resources with your marketing partners, you have the opportunity to create dynamic relationships with dealers that artists of previous generations would not recognize.

As visual artists, it is up to each of you to take advantage of what is available to get your art to market. You start with the realization of what business you are in and act accordingly.

Guerrilla Marketing for Artists

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DatedJune 15, 2013 By 6 Comments

Visual Arts Careers | Good News and Bad News

June 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Your Visual Arts Career Is One-of-a-kind.

Visual Arts Careers - Good News - Bad News

Visual Arts Careers – Good News – Bad News

Your vision and the way you make your art is part of what makes your visual arts career unique on a microscopic level. Conversely, you are part of a macroscopic group of artists who create an impressive abundance of fine art such as paintings, sculpture and fine art crafts.

Here Is the Bad News.

According to 2009 National Arts Materials Association (NAMTA) study results, as reported by Wiki.Answers.com, there are 4.4 million active Canadian and U.S. artists. Of these, 3.2 million are recreational artists.

Roughly half the recreational artists have sold some of their work. This leaves 600,000 professional artists and 600,000 students interested in art. Any way you slice this macroscopic number, it adds up to lots of competition for your  visual arts career.

There Is Good News, Too.

The good news is now that you know you have lots of competition you can forget about it. They don’t matter to your visual arts career. Yes, it is true that a crowded marketplace can make the competition to find new buyers more demanding. The thing is you are not competing for the same buyers. Your goal is to develop your own circle of loyal buyers and devoted fans. They are a tiny fraction of the potential art buying population.

Besides if anything, tough competition stirs greater interest in products and services, including art, than any single entity ever could. When you think of competition this way, you should embrace it because after all you are going to beat them anyway. Right? Right!

The Visual Artist’s Advantage.

As a visual artist, you have an advantage over almost all other art forms. What is that you ask? Low numbers – comparatively speaking visual artists need far fewer buyers of their work to become successful. Unless you are in the mass print market, or the licensing market, you need only accumulate a fraction of the buyers that musicians, actors and authors need to fuel their career success.

Using Your Leverage.

This means in today’s wired world you get much greater leverage from digital marketing, and traditional marketing for that matter. In other words, where an author may require tens or hundreds of thousands of book buyers, you only need enough to buy your work. Your production capabilities will determine how many buyers you need, but you can quantify the number. This means your marketing efforts using the same tools can give you better returns than other types of artists.

Keeping It Real.

To be fair, a book or a CD will only cost a few dollars, which makes finding and convincing buyers easier. Hunting and targeting a smaller group of potential buyers is always going to be easier than try to sway a large percentage of the consumer population. I believe for your visual arts career it will boil down to your cost of acquiring customers is going to be better than for the other arts.

As an artist, you have the ability to work your warm market where you can potentially gain your most loyal fans, and at a remarkably low cost of marketing and customer acquisition.

Selling to a Warm Market

Having success in your local, regional or state markets has as much to do with effective networking as it does with smart marketing. When you put the two together, you create a powerful means to get your art sold and to build your best sources for repeat buyers and enthusiastic referrals for your work. You also immunize your visual arts career from disruptions in your distribution systems. These would be things such as your galleries closing, or your favorite social media falling from favor.

Want Some Help with Your Marketing?

Check out my new Guerrilla Marketing for Artists: How 100 Collectors Can Bulletproof an Art Career.  It has lots of useful information and insights on how to gain control of your career and sell more art.

Guerrilla Marketing for Artists

Get Started Taking Control of Your Visual Arts Career Now!

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DatedJune 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

What Guides Your Fine Art Career?

June 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment

You Cannot Meander into Fine Art Career Success.

Don’t become a wandering generality, be a meaningful specific. ~ Zig Ziglar

What Guides Your Fine Art Career?In a fine art career, how does one keep from becoming a wandering generality and instead be a meaningful specific? I believe it takes vision, goals, self-belief and action.

Vision is your future imagined.

Your vision is as highly personal and unique as you are. You want to be president, or a famous artist entrepreneur. You want to graduate college at the top of your class, or excel at sales in your company. You want to be the best parent, or an elite athlete. Others and external sources may sway you, but ultimately it comes down to your vision.

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Goals are the path to realizing your vision.

You have to plan how you will implement the necessary steps to fulfill your vision. Top achievers learn to breakdown activities into easy-to-manage incremental tasks so they can complete them on time.

Self-belief comes not out of ego, but confidence.

Self-belief comes from measuring your resources and competences and using them to set your sites on attainable goals, which allows you to internalize and expect a high probability of success. The fuel for self-belief is a virtuous cycle of accurately knowing what you are capable of achieving and pursuing your goals with passion.

Action is simply that; you get up and do what needs to be done every day.

Woody Allen famously said, “90% of success is showing up.” He is right. If you prepare for and do enough of the right things every day, you will succeed.

For those seeking success in a fine art career, it is virtually impossible to get there if you are a wandering generality. You may want to pursue all angles of your creativity, which is okay; it can be tremendously inspiring to stretch oneself in different ways. The problem is you cannot do that when you are in a position of trying to get traction with your fine art career. It just does not work that way.

Meeting and Matching Expectations.

Collectors and gallery owners are much alike when it comes to expectations from the artists they like, promote, and support. They are looking for meaningful specifics from their favored artists. Does this mean if you have early fine art career success creating abstract sculpture that can never find success doing figurative sculpture? Of course not, what you need to do is to make a statement by creating a body of meaningful specific work that will stand on its own and move on from there.

Just because your work should be recognizable, it does not mean you have to paint yourself into a stylistic corner, if you will pardon the pun. How you establish your style is subject to wide interpretation. For instance, you can paint doors, cars, cats and barns in a meaningful specific way that just about anyone would know they came from the same source. If I walk in a room with dozens of works of art, I should be able to pick out the ones you have created without looking at the signature. How you make that happen is up to your creative spirit.

Success Is Personal, You Define It.

As you become meaningfully specific in how you live your life, you transcend your fine art career and extend it to your core self, you are truly getting at the essence of what Zig Ziglar means.

Success is about taking the time to reflect on what you want to achieve, and distilling your findings to know you have it right entirely, and then design and work a plan pursued with skill and passion. No one else can define your success for you. Without a doubt, when you realize success in your fine art career and your life, you will not need anyone to confirm it for you.

P.S. If you want some help and inspiration on vision, goals, assessing resources and getting your work to market, my new Guerrilla Marketing for Artists book has content that may fill the bill.  Order now and get a free bonus The Zen of Selling Art e-book with it.

Guerrilla Marketing for Artists

Filed Under: Art Business, Art Career, Art Marketing Tagged With: ,
DatedJune 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Art Is Sexy | Art Business Is Still Business

May 25, 2013 by 6 Comments

Hello You Sexy Crazy Creature!

Art Has Sex AppealOkay, that above statement is over the top and slightly inappropriate, but as a prolific art business writer aren’t I allowed the same leeway as other artists to push the envelope a bit?

There is an undeniable romantic somewhat sexy notion about art and artists.

We tend to classify artists as special, creative, sometimes a little crazy or quite unique. True enough, many artists help make these notions reality by how they live their lives.

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When you look at the art business more closely, you find most successful artists are hardworking people who take their craft seriously and their business just as seriously. Being an artist does provide some liberties to wear outlandish clothing, act in some affected manner, or live a bohemian lifestyle. Those artists help create the romantic notion that all artists live free and by their own rules. That said it is not an accurate description of most artists I know.

The facts are artists who have built successful careers are also successful art business people.

You cannot separate the sexy art creation part from the tedious business aspects of operating a successful art business. You have to have a creative engine that supplies the work to eager buyers. However, if you lack the talent, desire and skill to find and market to those buyers effectively, and then convince them to buy and then service their accounts, you have a hobby.

There is no shame in accepting that you have chosen to make art as a hobby. You have freedom full-time artists lack. You can take all the time you want to finish a piece. You can paint daisies today, pets tomorrow and tackle some sculpture next week. Do whatever pleases you.

I have had my share of broken dreams.

At one time, about 20 years ago, I worked hard about becoming a master woodworker. I designed and made some beautiful work. Although I was earning around $150k annually as an advertising account executive, I yearned to quit my day job and go to full-time woodworking. As I started to put together a plan for how to make such a change, I became increasingly aware of these two things:

  1. I would have to take a significant cut in pay and lifestyle for a long time to make my dream come true.
  2. My hobby, which I was so passionate about, would turn into a business; one that would require production and ultimately rob my creativity.

When the cold hard reality set in, it depressed me for some time. My bubble burst and I had no choice but to continue working for the man. I had to come to grips that my ambitions for turning my very serious hobby into a career were not going to happen. I would not make the sacrifice.

Eventually, it all turned out okay. Because I hung in there for almost 20 years, I became so knowledgeable about the art print market and marketing art that it led me to profitable, rewarding second career, which included writing 4 books and more than 500 blog posts, including this one, about the art business.

Sharpening your business skills fattens your bank account.

Now, if you are determined to make a full-time or a serious part-time career as an artist, you have to accept that part of making that happen is to become proficient at running an art business. There are exceptions where you find artists who have help in building their art careers, and that makes a difference allowing the artist to focus on creating art fully.

The most likely case is you, the artist, are a solo entrepreneur who needs to do everything, which is okay, too. You just have to be as adept at business as you are at making art. I believe artists who work at developing art buyers who collect their work through direct relationships are the ones who are most immune to failures or disruptions in their third-party distribution systems such as galleries and social media. Get 100 collectors is my motto for you.

There are many, many artists who handle all the aspects and who are succeeding at their careers. Most I find have a vision for art they want to make, and an equally keen vision for how they want their career to unfold. In other words, they have taken the time to set solid career goals and then gotten organized around plans to take the right steps to make those goals become a reality.

Take advantage of the sexy notions about art and artists and use them to your benefit any way you can.

Given that art is always a discretionary spending decision, it never hurts to add some allure to why your patrons should want your art. Blend you creativity, your art sexiness and astute business practices and you have a successful career.

By searching, you can find virtually an enormous amount of resources to get your art career on a profitable path. One of them is my new book, Guerrilla Art Marketing for Artists. It is an easy read and chock full of useful tips to help you make your career prosper.

Guerrilla Marketing for Artists

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DatedMay 25, 2013 By 6 Comments

Guerrilla Art Marketing for Artists | Intro Video

May 21, 2013 by 6 Comments

How 100 Collectors Can Bulletproof Your Art Career

A few days ago, I announced the publication of my new book, Guerrilla Art Marketing for Artists, on this blog. This is a short follow up for those who would rather watch a short video or would like additional information from me, the author, about what is in the book.

Enjoy!

Order Your Copy Today!

Want to Learn More? Click Here

 

Filed Under: Art Business, Art Career, Art Marketing
DatedMay 21, 2013 By 6 Comments

Art Marketing Book | How 100 Collectors Can Bulletproof Your Art Career

May 18, 2013 by 1 Comment

Guerrilla Marketing for Visual Artists | New Art Marketing Book

The opportunity to seize control of your career is now. Conditions are right, tools are plentiful, art buyers are ready… you should be, too. – Barney Davey   

Guerrilla Marketing for Artists- Order Your Copy Today!

Build a Bulletproof Art Career – Order Your Copy Today!

I believe securing your art career by building direct relationships with repeat buying collectors is a powerful long-term strategy.

You can get a strong start on ‘fast tracking’ your art career to make it thrive in any economy by implementing the results oriented marketing plans in my new Guerrilla Art Marketing for Artists book.

Your Future Is Too Important to Entrust to Anyone Else

The Internet and evolving consumer buying habits have forever changed how art (and almost everything else) are marketed and sold.

You already know the old ways of getting art seen and sold are not as effective as they used to be. As in the past, today’s art market poses challenges to artists. What is refreshingly different is you now have the tools to call the shots, to control your destiny, and to reap the rewards.

Order Your Copy Today!

Understanding the Power of 100 Collectors

The new Guerrilla Marketing for Artists: Build a Bulletproof Art Career to Thrive in Any Economy book teaches artists how to gain control of their careers. You will learn how to deploy easy-to-use effective networking and marketing techniques that systematically will create a solid base of collectors who buy from you directly.

It is conceivable during the course of a career a full-time artist can build meaningful relationships with 100 collectors, or more. And, it is realistically estimated a typical full-time artist will make 1,000 original pieces in a lifetime, (33 originals x 30 years). As such, an artist with an established direct buying base of 100, or more, collectors may sell one-third or more of their original works to those patrons. Moreover, many of those dedicated collectors will be the source of invaluable and profitable referrals for the artist.

Artists become immune to the effects of a lousy economy or faltering distribution methods when they form close personal bonds with art buyers. In other words, galleries relationships may come and go, social media platforms may lose their luster, and other channels of selling work may dry up altogether. Meanwhile, those artists who have built direct sales connections with collectors will be the ones who continue to thrive in tough times and will lead the pack in the good times.

Discover New Ways to Bulletproof Your Art Career

The ideas in my book are a result of my observations of years of changes in the art business, and how I have helped artists shape successful careers in response to them.

You start with by implementing these concepts:

  • Set realistic, achievable career goals
  • Target the best prospects to buy your work directly
  • Understand on a deep level what are your existing art business and art resources
  • Determine which traditional and digital marketing tools are best for your situation
  • Focus your marketing on selective projects to get most firepower and profit from their efforts

Now You Can Learn How to Make Your Art Career Thrive As Never Before

When you study Guerrilla Marketing for Artists, you will benefit from my decades long history advising visual artists. I am confident any visual artist can learn how to take the ideas in this book and use them to creative an effective, efficient marketing program that will deliver results.

Order Your Copy Today!

Build a Bulletproof Art Career

Each of us only have so much time, money and other resources to pursue our dreams and fulfill our goals. You will discover techniques to help you brainstorm for what is essential to your art career success. You do not have to leave it to chance that you will get to know the right people who can either buy your art, or influence others to buy your art. Just learning the tips and techniques to do this alone puts you miles ahead of your competition.

You will learn how to assess your available resources, and then use that knowledge to help you choose and meet your career goals. You can do almost anything if you have enough time, the right tools and are motivated to complete the tasks. This book is your guide to accomplish your goals.

You will learn how breaking your goals down into small, easily completed incremental steps is how you will stay motivated, and on the right path to get everything you have decided is vital done. There is immense satisfaction in ticking off item after item on your daily to-do lists. By having small steps to take, you will never need to feel overwhelmed by your ambitious goals.

Get the Most Bang for Your Buck from Your Marketing Efforts

I have often mentioned that, throughout my nearly 30 years in the advertising, marketing and tradeshow business, how I have watched in vain as artists, publishers and other marketers threw away their money on one-shot marketing and advertising opportunities.

You could never afford to market that way, especially now. The methods you will learn to use call for making each part of your marketing strategy support the others to create a powerful, repeated message-marketing juggernaut.

Expect the Best — Make Make Your Marketing Work Hard for You

To make your marketing work, you need to have your messages touch your art buyers 7 – 10 times, or more. You will time your messages to have them hit during a specified period, and never just because something new, shiny and ultimately unsuccessful comes along.

A key to your success is synergizing your marketing. Just as guerrillas never fight wars, you make each aspect of your marketing a targeted skirmish. By knowing when your marketing will hit and where it will hit and why you have chosen a specific target or project, you can make everything you do amplify your earlier messages. Moreover, because you use an implemented strategy that will give you enough lead-time on every aspect of your marketing, you can plan and plot to get it done in simple, small steps.

Keeping It Simple – Three Art Marketing Ideas

Readers will come away informed, inspired and ready to embrace the powerful concepts in it. There is a lot to learn from my book. I know if you just follow these three strategies, you will achieve substantial benefit from my advice. I am confident when you fully utilize them your career will soar:

  1. GOALS – Define your most practical and profound art career goals. You begin by concentrating on setting realistic career and life changing goals that become attainable as you take orchestrated, incremental steps to achieve them. Your available resources will factor in determining your specific incremental steps.
  2. PEOPLE – You sell your art to people. The more you directly sell to your collectors, the better and faster you secure your art career. There are two kinds of people who will further your career – buyers and influencers. Your ‘fast track’ success happens when you research to determine specifically who these people are, and then target them with powerful marketing messages and strong networking strategies.
  3. SYNERGY – There are countless ways to market your work. You may use traditional media, print advertising, publicity, press releases, direct mail, and many others. When you add digital media to the mix (including websites, blogs, email marketing and social media), the possibilities seem overwhelming. With synergistic marketing, you integrate your marketing resources to deliver a variety of overlapping, effective messages to your target audience. This synergistic marketing will have a profound effect on your targeted audience’s desire to buy your work.

It Comes Down to Great Art and Effective Marketing Touches

This book is not about how to create fantastic art. You already know how to do that.

You can learn how to use guerrilla art marketing strategies that will put you in control of a thriving career. Just as guerrillas use skirmishes instead of full-fledged battles, you will find employing marketing techniques specifically tailored to your business are the best way to get your art seen and sold.

Smart Marketing – Not Expensive Marketing

As previously stated, it takes 7 – 10, or more, marketing touches to motivate a potential buyer from interest into taking action. For this reason, implementing a guerrilla marketing master plan is the smart way and the best way to get new buyers without busting your budget.

Creating a bulletproof art career comes down to consistently using the best guerrilla art marketing tools and techniques to present your art to your best prospects with just the right amount of focused touches. Get started now.

Order Your Copy Today and Get the Bonus Zen of Selling Art e-book Free!

The Zen of Selling Art

As a limited time introductory offer, you can order your copy of Guerrilla Marketing for Artists: Build a Bulletproof Career to Thrive in Any Economy and you will receive a free copy of the my Zen of Selling Art e-book. It comes as an instant download, so you will have something to read while your book is being shipped. (It is a $9.95 value)

 Don’t Wait. This Special Bonus & Pricing Offer Will Not Last!

As a really cool savings, when you can order your copy for $19.95, plus shipping, you are getting a nice 20% discount off the full price, and your e-book free. This is an introductory price, so grab it now and save.

Get Started on Bulletproofing You r Art Career Today!

Order Now & Save

ACT NOW! This special price and e-book bonus are only offered for a limited time.

Full price is $24.95 (And, you save $9.95 on your e-book.)

You get both books for only $19.95! plus shipping.

Order them both today!

P.S. Want to kick the tires?

You can download your FREE Chapter on Traditional Marketing to gain some insight on what’s in the book, or get started reading while your book is en route to you. CLICK HERE to get your free chapter from the Guerrilla Art Marketing for Artists: Build a Bulletproof Art Career to Thrive in Any Economy  book.

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DatedMay 18, 2013 By 1 Comment

Email Marketing Podcast | Free Download Available

May 14, 2013 by 6 Comments

Great News! Email Marketing for Artists Podcast Now Available for Replay

If you could not make the podcast with Jason Horejs on the importance of email marketing for artists, you can watch it on YouTube now. Here it is:

Your email list is among your most valuable assets

Today, websites are standard issue, meaning you must have one. For most artists, regularly posting to a blog is an important way to build followers. Both are great tools to help build your email marketing list. An active  email list is your best art marketing tool to help you sell art, and when it comes time to value your business, it can add real, intrinsic asset to your business.

Use traffic to your blog and website to build your email list

Every one of your marketing tools should have the goal of driving traffic to your website and blog. Sure, they can multipurpose to help you earn interest in your work, traffic to gallery openings or shows, and many other things, but you need to include using them to help you build your email marketing list.

Resources

Mailing list management/bulk email

mailchimp

QR Code generator / URL Shortener

x.co

bit.ly

 Related Email Marketing  Blog Posts:

Check Out These New Product Annouoncement

Guerrilla Art Marketing for ArtistsBarney’s new book, Guerrilla Marketing for Artists

Learn more at barneydavey.com

Xanadu Gallery’s “Starving” to Successful Mentorship

www.xanadugallery.com/mentorship

Filed Under: Art Business
DatedMay 14, 2013 By 6 Comments

Selling Art | Increasing Art Sales with Email | Free Podcast

May 11, 2013 by 5 Comments

Selling Art Is the Heart of Your Art Business Success.

Email marketing for artists Steadily increasing art sales is how you make your business thrive. Among the many ways you can promote your art, email marketing for artists ranks at the top.

Selling art becomes easier and more reliable when artists uses email marketing. With steadily increasing art sales, your business thrives.

There is an abundance of art marketing tools for artists

Artists today have more tools than ever for selling art and to increase recognition,  and stimulate interest in their work. There are so many ways to market art, deciding what to do is difficult.

There is print advertising, publicity, press releases, direct mail, and other traditional methods. Then there are digital media such as websites, blogs, and email marketing and social media. No one will blame you if you feel overwhelmed trying to figure out what you should do.

While I believe artists should use every tool they can to the extent they have the resources to use them wisely, the truth is getting every option working is not possible. To achieve outstanding results selling art, artists must choose which marketing tools they will primarily use.

Your email list is among your most valuable assets

Websites are essential, blogging is highly recommended, and both will help build your email marketing list. A workable email list is the best tool you have for selling art, and is a valuable bottom line asset to your business.

As a business and marketing tool, social media serves only one purpose for artists. It is digital networking. If you fail to understand the role of social media, it can become a colossal waste of your time, and money. Use social media to drive traffic to your blog and website where you can capture email addresses.

Driving traffic to your blog and website is crucial to selling art

Every one of your marketing tools should have the goal of driving traffic to your website and blog. Sure, they can multipurpose to help you earn interest in your work, traffic to gallery openings or shows, and many other things, but you need to include using them to help you build your email marketing list.

Register for the Free Podcast: Leveraging Email to Increase your Art Sales

Although it takes many different parts of a marketing puzzle to keep selling art at a steady or increasing pace, one element that reliably will make you the most money over time is your email marketing. That is why Jason Horejs, owner of Xanadu Gallery and I are presentingEmail marketing makes selling art easier a free podcast on email marketing for artists.

Both Jason and I have cultivated extensive mailing lists. In this podcast, we will share how we have built our lists, and how we use them to add value to our followers and increase traffic. We also will provide strategies and tools you for you to learn about so you can better integrate email marketing as a key strategy for selling art.

Have questions about how to use email marketing?  Are you already effectively using email marketing techniques or tools. Share your questions and experience by emailing jason@xanadugallery.com.Register now (free) to secure your spot. Don’t worry if you can’t tune in live, Xanadu will provide you a download link for later listening.A note about start time: Because listeners are registering from all across the country (and a number from around the globe) start time always causes confusion. There is just one broadcast and it begins at 4:00 p.m. Arizona- this corresponds to 4:00 Pacific, 5:00 Mountain, 6:00 Central and 7:00 Eastern. Check the chart below for your start time.

Time Zone Local Start Time Local End Time
Eastern 7:00 7:40
Central 6:00 6:40
Mountain 5:00 5:40
Arizona 4:00 4:40
Pacific 4:00 4:40
Join us for a Free, Live Podcast on Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Register Nowhttps://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/632796370
We will be recording this broadcastDon’t Worry if you Can’t Attend Live -
by registering you are also signing up to receive a recording of the session.When you register for the broadcast it will show you registered for 4:00 Arizona – you will simply need to remember to translate that to your time. We will send out a reminder on Tuesday with the start time again, so please don’t panic if the broadcast system sends you the reminder in Arizona time.

Related Posts

Here is the Podcast!

Filed Under: Art Business Tagged With:
DatedMay 11, 2013 By 5 Comments

10 Tips to Make Email Marketing for Artists More Effective | Part Five

May 4, 2013 by 2 Comments

How to Get More Clicks on Email Marketing for Artists.

Email marketing for artists

Email marketing for artists

Among the many ways to build a loyal following and sell art direct to collectors, none is better or more effective than email marketing.

Don’t Wait to Start Email Marketing

As a visual artist, if you have not yet embraced the power of email marketing, there is no better time than now to get started.

Begin building an email marketing subscriber  list of patrons, fans, friends and followers that you can communicate with on your own terms. To any small business, a responsive email marketing list is a tremendous, tangible bottom line asset.

10 Tips to Make Email Marketing for Artists More Effective

  1. Use product pictures – using multiple images for gets more attention and more clicks. Read this article from the MailChimp forum on how more product images jumped click rates by 50%.
  2. Use short, engaging subject lines – be specific and concise, offer a benefit, if possible. You only have about 2 seconds to get a click and have your email opened.
  3. Always post a link near the top – make sure your link is above the fold. (Above the fold is a term from the newspaper industry that has carried over to Internet marketing. It means having content on the first screen before a reader has to scroll to see more.)
  4. Make your links visible – don’t hide links in images or buttons. This is the opposite of call to action items on your website or blog where images improve click rates. If your reader’s email program defaults to not showing images, there may be nothing for your reader to click on.
  5. Be specific – tell readers to CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE. You can decide on all caps or not, but do not be shy or coy about asking or telling your readers what you want them to do.
  6. Repeat call to action three times – make a call to action link sandwich in your email newsletter. Ask once at the top, once again in the middle, and one last time at the bottom, or in the P.S.
  7. Email marketing for artists - building your listAvoid using spammy words – free, help, percent off, reminder – these words, especially if repeated can trigger spam filters and trigger your email to cut delivery. Your email provider should have a checking system for you to evaluate your copy for potential spam problems. Make sure you use it.
  8. Vary your subject line – running the same subject line will reduce your open rate. Use information that relates to the content in your body copy.
  9. Include social sharing buttons – including social sharing buttons will raise your click rate dramatically. Use at least three social sharing links, such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, or Pinterest or Google+. This will give you much better click rate results that only including one social sharing link. I think these programs that display a smorgasbord of links are confusing and ineffective.
  10. Add a P.S. – using a p.s. has been a staple of top print copywriting techniques for decades. Adding a p.s. is a proven way to get more clicks on your email marketing for artists campaigns. Make it relevant, mindful and always include a call to action link.

P.S. For those inquiring minds, there is a difference between open rates and click rates in email marketing for artists. Open rates are the percentage of your subscribers who actually open an email sent to them from you.

Click rates are the percentage of readers who have opened your email, and who then click on a link in your email. This could be to an email sign up form, such as CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE. As an artist, having links to product pages on your website where a buyer can order one something from you is a brilliant idea.

Subscribe here for more ideas on how to get the most from your email marketing. You also will get notification when Jason Horejs and I will be presenting a new podcast email marketing for artists. It is coming to you very soon. Here are links to previous posts in this ongoing series on email marketing for artists:

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Filed Under: Art Business, Art Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
DatedMay 4, 2013 By 2 Comments
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