‘Grow Grow Creative’ Creative 15 Top Marketing Ideas for Promoting Your Artwork
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Introduction As many artists and creatives know, know it is often very difficult to get your work noticed and sold. There’s a lot of competition out there, and with so many different places and ways to try to sell your work, it is often very difficult to know what to do when it comes to finding the most effective ways to market your artwork. Whether you are a painter, photographer, illustrator, designer or something else, this useful guide giving tips and ideas on how to market your creations will provide you with some tried and tested techniques, advice and things to think about in order to achieve greater results when it comes to getting your work out in the public domain and then sold. For the greatest results, take on board the advice this ebook gives and adapt and apply it to better suit you, your work, your business and your future goals. Doing so will make the tips tip you are about to read much more effective and personalised, therefore increasing the chance of success when marketing your work. This ebook has been put together by www.Artybuzz.com to help both members of Artybuzz.com Artybuzz.c and any other artists, photographers and designers gain exposure for their work as well as sales. Artybuzz.com is a free online art community where you can exhibit, sell and buy fantastic artwork on a number of different products including prints, canvases, canvases, t shirts and more. If you are an artist, photographer or designer of any kind and have not checked out www.artybuzz.com then we’d recommend doing so after reading this guide.
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1. Exhibitions Holding or organisingg an exhibition of your work is a tried and tested way to market and sell your artwork in a direct and face to face manner. manner. Whether you are a photographer, painter, sculptor or something else, holding an exhibition brings many great benefits and can open up u a lot of other avenues for future work. Probably the most obvious benefit is that you have a great platform on which you can showcase and sell your work. Doing this brings valuable income and exposure, and also the opportunity to gain new fans and followers ers for your work, which can lead to future sales and commissions even if there is no immediate benefit. You can also meet your audience and gage their likes and dislikes, which is always important. If you are holding an exhibition then you should try to extract extract every last ounce of benefit from it. What at is meant by this is that you should try and gain all the publicity, exposure and anything else you can get out of it when you can, can and while it is still running.. An exhibition only runs for a certain amount of time, so invite along as many people, newspapers, magazines, magazines, influential people in your industry and anyone else worthwhile as possible. Doing all this will mean you get maximum benefit from your exhibition, which is good both in the short and long term. term If possible, try to make your exhibition stand out from the rest, people love a twist and so will any publications or writers; so if you can put a spin on things or come up with a quirky idea then you are sure to attract more people than a run of the mill exhibition.
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2. Get Your Own Website and Make it Good G Having your own website as an artist is crucial these days. For For many people, the internet is the first port of call when they hear about an artist, so if you don’t have an online presence then you’re losing vital exposure. This can obviously lead to lost business, valuable exposure and so on. Having a website is also a brilliant place to showcase your work permanently. People can come back whenever they like and view old favourites, or check out your latest latest work when it is uploaded. If you carry on evolving your website then people will keep coming back if they like what you create, and this hopefully will lead to sales and more work opportunities. First, you will need to start by getting a domain name, active-domain.com is good for .com’s and 123-reg.co.uk is good for .co.uk’s etc. Websites don’t have to be confusing, and you can get one in a number of different ways. A couple of options specific for artists, photographers and designers are listed below with some details. Employ a Web Designer This is the straight forward option, but one which you obviously have to pay for. Getting a web designer or developer to create your website means you don’t have to go to any trouble in actually creating ng the website yourself. Just provide a good brief of what you want creating and a good web designer will work with you to deliver what you want. The benefits here are that your website may look more professional and you could get a more unique website with h increased or different functionality and features. As mentioned though, if cost is an issue then maybe look into the options option of doing it yourself below. Do It Yourself There are a few different ways that you can make a website for yourself. You can jump in at the deep end and learn to build a website from scratch using html or php coding, though I imagine this is not for the majority. I have therefore listed a few useful options below that can be of use to somebody looking to create their own personal website; web ; just search in Google for them: them WordPress – This completely free website builder is usually used for the creation of blogs. However, you can adapt things a little and make websites to show your artwork on using this system. WIX.com – Another free website site builder, though this system is very specific to creating gallery websites. A Basic website is completely free with the option of upgrading to a premium account to use your own domain. Joomla – Completely free with tonnes of functionality, though a little little more complicated the two other options above. If you want something a bit more unique, go for this option, if you have the time and patience.
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3. Make a Blog Once you have a website, or if you have one already, you can also start rt thinking about having a blog as well. ‘Blog’ is short for weblog, and is basically an online platform where you can talk about anything you like. Blogs usually concentrate on niche subjects, like a specific kind of art for example, but many companies, individuals and others have ha blogs for a number of reasons. Having a blog is a great way of keeping your customers and your fan base informed of what is going on with you and your work. You can talk about what you are doing, about major issues or events in your area, show off your latest work to people and more. As well as keeping your current customers and fans up to date with what is going on, if you write interesting content, you can use your blog to draw in potential new customers too. If you continue to write an interesting blogg you could easily have followers from all over the world checking in on what you are saying on a regular basis. basis This builds a trust between you and readers, ders, even over vast distances. This trust often leads to sales of artwork, often because people know the th story behind the work which makes it a lot more appealing to people (this be looked at in greater detail later). There are a number of platforms that allow you to start a blog really easily. Blogger.com is a very quick and simple way for anyone to create a blog, and you can have a blog online and ready to go in minutes using this website.. If you want a bit more functionality for your blog however, however Wordpress.com may be a good option for somebody who wants to get their teeth stuck in a bit more. With increased functionality comes a bit more work, but once you get used to things it’s pretty simple and straightforward. If you don’t like the look of these first two, then Typepad.com is another option.
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4. SEO SEO stands for search engine optimisation. SEO is basically the art of getting getting your website as high up Google oogle and other search engines as possible for the kind of search phrases that you want to be found for. Doing ing this obviously means that your website is found more often, and as a result, people come across your art and the services you offer through words they have searched for in search engines. It is very important if you have a website to get your SEO spot on; otherwise you will just end up lost in a lonely corner of the internet with no visitors to your website. As well as being high in search engine rankings, it is important to get your SEO targeted correctly, because there is no point being top of Google for something completely unrelated to what you do. If I your search engine optimisation is done do well, customers will find you for the words they searched for, meaning when they go onto your site the find exactly what they want.. This means that if your SEO is done well and you are getting found through the search engines, you have close to perfect customers visiting your website who want exactly what you provide. Clearly this is a huge benefit and is of major importance if you want to generate business online, online so getting it right is the key. There are a few basic points that you should consider below: Keywords and Key Phrases You should make sure that you choose your keywords and key phrases correctly and insert them into your META tags. Inbound Links Try to build ild up the number of websites linking to your own website, this is an important factor for success in search engine rankings. Content Providing good, regular, and interesting content is very important. If you write well and provide something this is interesting sting (especially if you have a blog) then this will help a lot with your SEO. Outsourcing SEO You can get professional companies to handle your SEO, though they usually charge a monthly fee for their work which is often unsuitable for an individual artist or photographer,, as their work is more suited to large internet businesses. As an alternative, www.seo-merseyside.co.uk merseyside.co.uk specialise in offering on-site site optimisation at a very affordable price. The company is run run by Richard Wilde who also runs Artybuzz.com. At SEO Merseyside, he has helped many artists, designers and photographers improve their personal websites SEO, and has achieved great success, helping customers reach number 1 spots in Google for phrases like ‘Murals Artist’, ‘Photographer Manchester’, ‘Mural Artist Liverpool’ and more. For a free website analysis and quote simply contact info@seo-merseyside.co.uk and give your web address and details. Usually a site ite can be fully optimised on site for around £60 - £80, a very cost effective long term investment at that price.
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5. Networking – Offline and Online O Networking is always a good marketing technique and can lead to a lot of different opportunities for future work, sales, and collaboration, as well as a host of other possibilities. Networking is all about speaking to people in order to open up new doors and a opportunities to achieve greater success. There are two ways that you can network, both online and in the real world: Face to Face ‘real world’ Networking This kind of face to face networking basically refers to attending networking meetings in your local loc and surrounding areas. If you are going to attend these kind of events then you first need to make sure you are going to attend the right kind of events for what you do, as there is no point in turning up at a networking event for the construction industry industry if you are an illustrator for example. So firstly make sure that the event ent you attend is right for you. There There are likely to be networking events for those in the creative industries if you live in a city, so do a quick search for these and go along if you think it could be useful. If you can’t find an event like this then you may have found a niche in your area, and may want to think about starting a networking event for this industry yourself where you live. When you are at a networking event it is probably probably best to just jump in at the deep end and speak to everyone if you have time. If not, then you can identify the ‘sneezers’. Sneezers are the people who spread things most, just like a virus. If you can identify these kinds of people at your event then they are likely to spread read the word about what you do more than others. This his could lead to create more opportunities for you, so look out for them! There is no set structure or best practice at a networking event, just speak to people and if you can think of ideas that can benefit each other then go with them and make things better. Online Networking Online networking is a new phenomenon that has taken hold in recent years. It is essentially the same thing as normal networking but over the internet. The principles principles still lie on communicating with others to open new doors and benefit each other. There are a lot of networks online dedicated to helping the networking abilities of the creative industries; a useful one of these can be found at www.creative-enterprise-network.com network.com. This network and others allow you to communicate directly with others, form and join groups specific to your area, and answer calls for collaboration and commissions etc in forums and and discussion boards; so there is a lot of ways to market your work and get yourself noticed. Niche networks like this one are great because bec they are very specialised; meaning ing you can meet people that are like you or are looking for people like you, and opportunities opportunities arise as a result. result
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6. Freebies and Giveaways Freebies and giveaways are often a great way to get noticed and remembered. A Freebie can take many different forms so be imaginative, and think what your customers would be really impressed with receiving. If you are an artist or photographer, it could be something hing physical like a free print, or free ebook. If you give away a free ebook this is also a great way to show your expertise. For example, if you are a photographer, why not write an a ebook or free download pack giving some top photography tips? If it’s good and gets passed around then your name gets noticed in a lot more circles which could lead to more business. You can give away freebies through your website for example, or simply by posting posti something to a former client or buyer; a free surprise gift in the post is always an exciting exciting and interesting prospect. Itt doesn’t have to be anything expensive, it’s the impact that counts more than anything else, and reminding your customers and fans fan that you still remember them and that you are still open for business is the main aim. The goal is to get people to remember you for what you give them,, so make sure what you do give away way is of value to the receiver and has maximum effect.
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7. Write a Newsletter Writing an online newsletter is a great way to gain a following for your work, work, and also keep clients and fans of your work updated with what is going on in your world. world. You can update people on your newest piece of work, rk, your next exhibition or the latest l event you are organising. ganising. Having a newsletter is another great way to connect with your audience and fans, ns, and keeps you in the public, as well as your brand in the public eye. Importantly you will also get yourself noticed within the circles that aree important to you, as people people wouldn’t sign up to a newsletter newslette that had no interest to them. For this reason you’re almost guaranteed that when you send out your newsletter you will be hitting your target audience. For this reason, and for maximum impact, you should make sure that you tailor what you write about to fit the kind of people who are likely to have signed up to your newsletter. Doing this will help you achieve your goals better. You don’t just have to speak about yourself or your work in your newsletter. newsletter. Talk about your industry, your area of art and what’s going on in it. If you write an interesting newsletter, just like anything else, people will talk about it and pass it on to others. Artists Newsletter magazine started as a simple newsletter but then grew into a huge magazine with many different off-shoots. off You can write newsletters in simple word processing applications and then save them/convert them into PDF’s for a more professional look. You can also make a physical newsletter if you want want and post it to the people you want to target.
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8. Promotional Material – Posters, Business Cards and Flyers People focus very heavily on promoting their artwork art online these days, but old school promo material like flyers and posters can still be used to to generate business and gain new customers, customers especially for photographers and designers. designers Be sure to place your promo material in relevant places that will be seen by people who will be interested in your work for maximum effect. Using posters and flyers in this way may lead to commission work and more commercial work for example, example, and is also good to get your name noticed in the places that are important to your line of work. When it comes to the design of your promo material, make sure the promo material reflects re what you are about and shows your style or line of work effectively, an obvious and easy way to do this is by designing, painting or illustrating your promotional material yourself. This will get the style of your work across to people instantly, and and if they like it they will probably look at your website or give you a call in the future.
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9. Sell Your Story Selling your story is very important, David Parrish raises the point in his guest blog post for Artybuzz that buying art as a consumer is about more than just the actual art itself. They want to know the story behind the work, the inspiration, inspiration and often ften the person who created it as well. This adds interest nterest to your work, and allows buyers to tell the people they know about the piece of artwork and the story behind it. Knowing the story behind the work, or behind the artist, creates a connection between creator and buyer (or prospective buyer), and will will more than likely lead to increased sales or repeat sales in the future if people know more about you and the ethos behind your work. David Parrish raises the interesting point that ‘buyers often don’t understand what they are selling’, by this he means that hat often the needs and wants of buyers are not realised or overlooked, sometimes because ause people selling work fail to appreciate things from a customer’s perspective. More than just wanting a print or an original piece of art, buyers may be interested in buying into many other intangibles including a style, trend, connection, culture or a ‘show off factor’. If this can be understood then it can be capitalised on and bundled into the whole package, meaning you can both charge more and also build up a more loyal loyal customer base. By thinking in this way and seeing things from the customers perspective it is in no way selling out, you can still do exactly what you want and achieve your own personal artistic and creative goals, but if you can bundle these additional al customer wants into your work then make your work a lot more valuable to people. You can sell your story and the story behind your work in a number of ways, including simply telling people face to face and also using other means like what you write aboutt your work on your website, blog, newsletters and any other places where you art is found.
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10. Public Speaking This suggestion alone may frighten the life out of many people, but it doesn’t have to be as drastic as it actually sounds. Public speaking can can take many forms, and it doesn’t have to be the general assumption that public speaking involves talking behind a plinth in front of hundreds of people. As an artist, designer or photographer, you can scale things down to a small group of invited guests for f example and speak to them. One way of doing this is through holding a seminar or a workshop and inviting people along. You can use your expertise and talk to the people who attend, making it as interactive as you like. If you make it interactive then this is can also relive pressure on you and make things more fun because people are getting involved. Holding a seminar or workshop like this is a great way to raise your profile, showcase your expertise and make new contacts which could lead to future work and projects for you or your business. Give it a go, it may be easier than you think!
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11. Treat Your Customers Well and Gain a Following There are no magic quick fixes or techniques when it comes to marketing your artwork, artwork or anything else for that matter. Successful marketers, marketers brands, businesses and creative individuals who achieve sustained success concentrate on providing long term term benefits to their customers, treating their customers well over time, and meeting their customer’s needs effectively. As a creative eative person looking to get generate business, business itt is therefore important to treat each and every customer and potential customer well. Doing this will help you to gain a following of loyal fans that truly love what you create, these type of fans can be known as ‘true fans’. The ‘True Fans’ concept was raised by Kevin Kelly on his website; ‘True Fans’ are fans and admirers of your work that will buy and follow just about anything anythin that you produce. They eagerly await your latest work, they buy your latest prints and t shirts, and some of them are likely to buy your latest original pieces of work when you create them. If you concentrate on developing 1000 True Fans then you can turn a hobby, a tiny business, or a personal struggle to survive into a thriving lifestyle or business for yourself. Let’s say on average a true fan would spend £50 a year on the work you produce, produce, if you have 1000 fans that’s a cool £50,000 a year, not a bad annual take home in anyone’s book, and more than that, it is for doing the thing that you love...producing producing your artwork. 1000 is an achievable number, if you added one a day it would only take three years, and at the end of it you would be in a fantastic position. 1000 may be too many, if your work sells for a good price then 100 may be enough. Think about this and choose a number that you think you need to reach the goals you desire, and then go for it. Treat each of your customers well and slowly build up a loyal fan base over time, they will treat you well if you do the same to them, and will also spread word of your work to others, speeding things up very quickly when it comes to expanding your fan base. On a slightly biased but reasonably accurate note, a great place to start gaining and developing your fan base is on Artybuzz.com. There are loads of people both on this site and who visit this site that have a massive appreciation for art of all kinds, and they buy it. So speak to them, comment on work, create and add work to groups etc. Get G involved in websites like this, make an effort, and get out what you put in.
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12. Collaborate Collaborations aree always a great way to get your work noticed iced in different circles and generate new sales. If you team up with others then your work gets noticed by your collaborators’ collaborators followers and fans, and vice versa. This can then lead to new sales, connections and opportunities for you, as well as raising your profile generally. There are many ways in which you can collaborate with others others in your area of expertise; a few ideas and examples are given below: Collaborative Exhibitions It is often easier to get an exhibition in collaboration with a few different artists than it is to get one solely dedicated to your own work. work So o seeking out others who may be looking to exhibit can be beneficial. Collaborative Works This may or may not be something you’d like to get involved in, but if you do then it is likely to have the same benefitss as a collaborative exhibition with regards to attracting new and different people. New ideas and avenues for expression can also be explored by doing this. Collaborative Marketing It is difficult to market on your own, own, but if you and some others can pool your resources, funds and expertise into marketing together, you can often have much more of an impact. On a large scale, the milk industry does this, advertising for people to drink more milk, but not advertising one brand in particular. This can be scaled down to a specific kind of art in your city or town for example.
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13. Social Networking – Facebook, Twitter and more... Social networking, and using the many forms of social media available is now an increasingly important mportant thing to grasp in order to expand upon existing, and also gain new fans and customers. Social networks and social media websites are a great way to communicate with your customers and also keep them informed about what you are doing. Some top tips to get the most out of the most popular social networks are listed below: Facebook Facebook is the biggest social network in the world, meaning ignoring it is a fatal error when it comes to marketing your art. The best ways to market your artwork on Facebook Facebook are as follows: 1. Create a page dedicated to your art – you can give updates, start discussions, discussion add pictures and more 2. Create a group dedicated to your art – similar to a page, this dedicates a group to your art. You can message all members of a group directly directly though which is a bonus 3. Join other groups and pages – join other groups that suit you and network in them. If you are a photographer, start a discussion in a photography group for example, and give a link to you site at the bottom. Twitter Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ blogging’ site which basically lets you write 140 characters about what you are doing or what’s going on in your life. You can write what you like, a few ideas what you can talk about can be seen below: your latest work and give a link to view it 1. Give people updates – update people on your 2. Give people news – keep people updated on what’s going on as well as any offers etc that you are running 3. Give people advice – this is a good way to keep people coming back to see you for reasons other than an update. e. Giving Giving good advice is a great way to gain a following on twitter. Youtube Youtube is a video sharing website that allows you to create your own channel channel where you can upload videos. Some ome ideas for videos can be seen below: 1. Slideshow of your work – upload a quick slideshow of your work to showcase your creations 2. Expert and tips videos – this may not be for everything, but making a useful instructional video is often a great way to get noticed 3. Something funny – people love to laugh, if you have something funny funny on video, upload it and it could get noticed and shared all over the world. Art Community Websites Art community websites are a great way to network socially too, www.artybuzz.com is one of these.
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14. Review Your Marketing Reviewing your marketing on a regular basis is extremely important if you expect to achieve sustained success when marketing your artworks. art What worked 6 months nths before may not work in now, especially if conditions tions or customer needs change. You You should remain flexible and open to adapt and change your approach when it comes to marketing ing your work. You should try to adapt based on changing external conditions and customer needs. A good way of understanding what customers want and knowing how to adapt your marketing is by talking to them; this will allow you to gage what they want over time and adapt how you market your work towards them. The worst thing you can do is stick with an old plan if the needs and wants of customers change. If I you do thiss you will simply be stuck with nobody wanting your work or services, so remain adaptive and reactive to the changing tastes, customer needs and the external environment. environment
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15.. Add Your Work to Artybuzz.com This is a cheeky one from us, but one we genuinely feel is worthwhile for any creative to put into action. Joining Artybuzz allows you to both exhibit and sell your work online completely free. It also allows you to put a lot of the marketing techniques mentioned mention above ve into action; including social networking and online networking, as well as some of the SEO techniques mentioned above. Joining Artybuzz also gives you the opportunity to link back to your own website, giving you a vital link that will help in the SEO of your site. It’s a great new avenue to get your work noticed through, so definitely worth a try, try you can take a look and join at www.artybuzz.com. www.artybuzz.com
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Legal Notice All content in this ebook is copyright of Richard Wilde and Artybuzz.com, so please reference it if you would like to take any ideas from this to talk about and use yourself â˜ş
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