With so many ways to communicate with your audience, artists often overlook the basics in favour of the new and latest thing in social media-ville. 
 
While Blogging, Facebook, Twitter etc. are all excellent ways of getting eyes on your art, a regularly used and regularly maintained Mailing List is essential for marketing your art. 

HERE’S SOME REASONS WHY:

• A mailing list allows you to keep your name and your art in the forefront of your prospects mind.  They become comfortable with you and your art, and when the time comes that they are thinking of purchasing a piece of art, you may be the person they approach, and most importantly, feel comfortable approaching.
   
• It allows you to communicate directly with people. 
   
  Picking up the phone and calling your customers to let them know about a new artwork that you think they may be interested in, is the most effective contact, as it is the most personal and direct. 
   
  Writing a hand-written letter is the next best thing, as again it has the personal touch.  People want to feel special and that you are interested in them, which of course, you are.   
   
  Emailing is a wonderful way of regularly, and non-intrusively, keeping people up-dated on what you are up to and giving them links to your artwork.
   

HERE’S WHAT TO REMEMBER:

• Your aim of using your mailing list should be to add value to the receiver’s life.  Don’t just say ‘hey, check out my new paintings’.  People have busy life’s.  They need to be intrigued, interested and inspired.  Is your message doing any of these things?  If not, work out what you need to change to make people want to click on the link, or take the time to read your letter, or agree to let you come round and show them your art.
   
• With a mailing list you can contact people by phone, letter, email or for the best results, use all three.
   
• Keep a spread sheet or card index of your contacts and make notes about them i.e. how and when they preferred to be contacted / what artworks they have previously bought or shown an interest in / notes about them personally, as this is taking an interest in your customers as real people, and gives you the reference points to keep the conversation going.
   
• When you sell a piece of artwork, ask the customer if you can add their details to your mailing list.  Always ask permission to add someone to your mailing list, otherwise it can be classed as spamming someone, which is a big no-no.  Ask people who show an interest in your art if you can add them to your mailing list too - people will often say yes.
   
• Use a mailing list sign-up form on your website (on the front page and in a position that does not require scrolling to).  Make it easy for people to sign up.
   
• Let your mailing list know about new art works you have finished, what inspired the artwork, where you are exhibiting, your new blog posts of interest.  Let people know a bit behind the creative process or the locations that inspire your art.  Let them connect with you and become interested in you and your art.
   
• Always use a P.S. at the bottom of your email or letter.  People scan a message at first to see if what you are saying is of interest to them, and the P.S. is often the most read part of the message, so put your key message in there.
   
• Keep your message easy to read - use lots of white space / break up the message with lots of paragraphs, and use emphasis.  You’ll be amazed at how much more readable your message is if you do this.  Also Spell Check it.
   
• Have all your images online in an easy to view format, where you can link from your email message directly to the new images online.  (If you are using Flash to display your work on your website then you can sometimes find that you cannot link directly to individual art work - you are making it harder for the viewer, which can be to your detriment). 
   
  If you need any help getting your artwork online quickly and cheaply check out our Artdomain online gallery.  We are friendly and helpful and have a great online solution for artists.

 
In my next blog post I’ll explore some of the ‘pain-free’ online services artists can use to manage their mailing lists and mail out to their contacts.

To your continued artistic success,

Emma Brooks
Owner of Artdomain.co.uk

 
P.S. If you would like to get your artwork online quickly and cheaply, don’t forget to check out our Artdomain online gallery.  We do all the work of putting your art online.  It couldn’t be easier.

Photo by Mokolabs

Well actually I can’t, but what I am referring to is the insanely catchy song ‘Handlebars‘ by Denver hip hop band the Flobots.

What made this song get so much airplay in the UK was that it is unlike other songs out there in the commercial sphere at the moment.  It’s not run of the mill.  It’s like a mantra starting off quite banal moving to strong political imagery. 

The song catches you off guard, and you can’t help but notice it.  People seem to either love it or hate it. It inspires discussion and has qualities that most other songs don’t have.   It is original.

What’s this got to do with the visual arts? 

I read a great article by Alan Bamberger called Why Artists Should Watch “Antiques Roadshow” where he discusses what makes some antiques more special and desirable to collectors than others, and why artists should take note:

“Roadshow standouts are original. They’re never re-dos or interpretations of things that already exist. So be original; don’t be afraid to experiment with what’s never been done before or to go where no artist has gone just because you think it might not sell or that someone might not approve. Use art by other artists as sources of inspiration, not sources of imitation.”

What makes some art stand out above the crowd is the amount of effort that goes into producing it and the unique qualities that it possesses. 

This is not to say that art should be poured over in the making.  Look at Picasso who created stunning sketches extremely quickly, however the effort went into the prolific nature of his art, where his 5 minute sketch was the culmination of hours and hours of 5 minute sketches to get to that creation.

The level of applied effort should be consistent with the originality of art being produced.  The more you are working at your art, the more your original voice should come through.

Interestingly Bamberger also discusses the fact that antiques that communicate their historical point in time are more important to future collectors:

Many Roadshow relics are historical. They offer insight into the times during which they were produced by capturing seminal moments of days gone by. Think about how people will look at your art in 100 years. What will make it historical? How will it reflect what’s happening now? How does what’s happening now, either within or without you, influence what you create? The clearer you are on these issues and the better you chronicle them in relation to your art, the greater the chances of that art becoming documents rather than footnotes.

Toulouse Lautrec drew the bohemian characters of his world.  Camille Claudel created sculptures immensely charged with emotion, despair and tenderness reflecting her emotional state and her struggle as a woman sculptor.  Van Gogh’s paint palette brightened on leaving the dreary Belgium mining district of Borinage and moving to the sun drenched south of France. 

These, and many more celebrated artists, managed to encompass incredible technical talent with capturing insights of their time. This is the magical combination for longevity.

What is original, unique and current about your art work?  Leave comments below.

Related Posts:

WHY ARTISTS SHOULD WATCH “ANTIQUES ROADSHOW”

Life size, contorted into some crazy ‘feet behind the head’ yoga position, the 18 Carat Gold Kate Moss sits serene, all 50Kg of her.  

When the news article started I expected a kind of Madame Tussauds standing rendition in Gold, however the stunning position the sculptor has chosen really was a lovely surprise. 

In addition the museum has situated her in a room alongside ancient Greek statues of Goddesses.  I delighted in the combination of the ancient Goddess and our modern day ‘Goddess’ Kate.

Mark Quinn says he wants it to be about “these impossible abstractions that people try to rule their lives by, perfection, perfect looks, money, immortality” and that Kate Moss was chosen because of her “ubiquity and because of her silence, she is someone who people project onto but who never answers back”.

It seems like the British Museum has created a crowd drawing show in the combination of the contemporary and the ancient.   A massive head by sculptor Ron Mueck lies near ancient stone heads from the Easter Islands, and resin skulls daubed in paint by Damien Hirst are displayed on shelves near Greek Vases.

I love the combination of the historic and the controversial - great entertainment for the visitors of the British Museum.

Any yes, I know that in a time when cancer patients can’t get the drugs they need due to money, when a huge percentage of the world go to bed hungry, and when we are sliding into a worldwide recession unprecedented in its scale, that this Kate Moss sculpture has a huge element of the obscene, I still celebrate the artist and the creation of something quite stunning.

Love to hear your thoughts…

Related Articles:

The Independent - Kate Moss: The Muse

We Knew The Kate Moss Statue Was Going To Be Ridiculous, But We Had No Idea…

Horror of Marc Quinn Solid Gold Kate Moss Statue

Photo by Davic

What to choose….? The ideal, I think, is probably both.  A blog for posting artwork as it becomes available for sale, or showing work in progress, and an art website for displaying your art professionally and coherently.

I’ve been looking at what artists who are successfully selling online are doing.  One strong trend is posting your art as it becomes available for sale onto your blog, with a link to an online auction of that same piece.

Some artists using this format are Duane Keiser , Daniel Peci, and Julian Merrow-Smith. The first two artists use eBay to handle their auctions while Julian Merrow-Smith uses a custom made auction site to handle his daily auctions.

All these artists are ‘a painting a day’ artists, posting small art works daily for sale on their blog.  This works really well with blogs as search engines regularly visits to see what’s new.  Subscribers to your blog can regularly visit and find the latest art at the top of the page.  In addition blogs give each new post an individual name based on the title of your post, so search engines are constantly picking up new keywords that can help people find your art in online searches.

Even if you are not a daily painting artist, blogs provide this same search engine friendliness to your posts that static websites do not offer, namely fresher content, better use of keywords, ability for viewers to leave comments and subscribe to your feed or subscribe by email, and ease of use for the artists to update.

When linked to an auction site, such as eBay, you have a powerful combination.  EBay handles the payment processing side as well as exposing your art to a larger audience than your static website could provide.

If you would prefer not to use an auction format to sell your art, you can use eBay’s ‘Buy it Now’ format or not use eBay at all and simpy insert Paypal buttons into your blog to provide an online selling facility.

Some artists use their blog to show work in progress or their process of creating the art.  This is also a fantastic way to engage the viewer. It can be very useful if you do commissioned work.  Check out The Painted Cat - Cats on the Easel blog to see how artist Denise Laurent shows some of her commission work develop.  Rather than posting lots of similar images of the artwork being transformed Denise also uses Flickr to create a slide show transition and posts the slideshow into her blog.

‘Well if blogs are so good, what do I need an artist website for?’ I hear you ask.  An artist website allows you to present your artwork in the order you want it to be shown, rather than in chronology of posts, as in blogs.  This is good for giving viewers an overview of your artwork and you as an artist.  Also for grouping the artwork into themes.  If you were approaching an art gallery you would want to direct them to your website in the first instance.

Here’s the websites of the same artists mentioned above :

Duane Keiser , Daniel Peci, Julian Merrow Smith, Denise Laurent

Of course your blog would be linked to your website and vice versa.  Artists have remarked that they get much more web traffic from their blog than their static website, therefore to interconnect both makes sense to increase exposure.

To start blogging you can try Blogger, Wordpress, or Typepad - All are free.

Related articles:

Why Artists Should Blog

9 Reasons Why Every Artist Should Have Their Own Art Blog 

Blogging for Artists - Resources for Artists

The faces of women in art morph in and out of each other in skillful transistions that seem like they are alive and moving around towards the camera.  Enjoy….

Israeli born, Afremov creates unique landscapes, cityscapes and figures using a palette knife rather than a brush to paint.  His paintings are vivid and textural and he is obviously very prolific.

Definitely Leonid Afremov is consistently selling his art, with at least 2 original oil paintings finishing daily on eBay along with ‘Buy it Now’ Giclees selling regularly.  The originals on eBay are selling for £160 - £375 ($270 - $639) with the textured Giclees selling for £134 ($230) upwards.

His paintings are always visible on eBay due to the quantity of listings, and their colourful qualities that catch the eye of the browser.  Afremov uses the Featured Plus option on eBay for many of his listings to ensure they stay at the top of the category’s list.  Also he uses the ‘Enlarge’ option on his listing to make it easy for buyers to quickly view his art.

Afremov has wonderful close ups of his art in his eBay listings that show off the sumptuous paint textures and colours.  In his listings, he uses an embedded video of an artwork being created, which further reinforces to the buyer that this is a credible artist and creates a connection with the viewer.

He also doesn’t shy away from conventional sales techniques like ‘Buy One Get One Free’ with his Giclee prints, and ‘Free Shipping’ for US and Canadian customers. 

Afremov has a video presence on YouTube, which uses humour to entertain while drawing attention to his art.  I’m not sure if this works as well as other posted videos by YouTube users showing Afremov creating his art, with background Jazz music.

Afremov’s success hasn’t just happened.  You can see that each element has been put together to create a strong online presence that ticks off many boxes in the art buyers mind and results in many online sales.

What do you think about using some of Afremov’s techniques to help you increase your art sales?  Please leave comments below.

Well some people are despite the current economic melt down.

Art is a luxury item, so of course the majority of people will rein in their spending of luxury goods as the stream of bad news on the economy continues. 

However “people with money, always have money”, so says Dick Harrison in his excellent Podcast When the going gets tough, the tough get going .  They are not affected by the economic turmoil to the same degree as the average person, and it makes sense to focus your marketing efforts to attract these buyers to your art. 

How can you introduce your art to more of these art buyers?  How can you make it easy for these buyers to buy from you? 

One artist I’ve been following, Daniel Peci, uses good online marketing of his wonderful art to steadily buck the trend by selling art consistently. 

As well as his main website, Peci also has a good daily painting blog, One Painting One Day, of his small sketches and artworks.  Under each artwork he links to his eBay auction of that artwork.  In his E-store on eBay, Peci has the auction items plus other more expensive items for sale.

People often buy a smaller artwork from an artist, then as they become more familiar with the artist and their work, they may purchase a larger piece.  Through the daily painting auctions Peci is consistently offering new artwork for sale, building up a following of art buyers that are still interested in buying art.

His choice of medium of paper and pastels or small oils, ensure that the risk of not selling at auction has minimal loses to him, other than his time.

Peci has spent time branding his pages on eBay and his website and blog, to create a professionalism that art buyers look for and will pay for.  This includes a logo and colour scheme / look and feel, that runs throughout his online representations and creates a consistent, professional brand.

Hope you enjoy looking at Peci’s art and also observing the online marketing techniques that one artist is using to attract the elusive art buyers.

Related articles: When the going gets tough, the tough get going (Podcast)

Sales Tips for Artists

Selling Artwork in a weak economy

On the WetCanvas forum, when queried why he didn’t have a very obvious sales pitch, Jason discussed the fact that viewers go to YouTube to be entertained and that “blatant salesmanship would hamper what is needed to reach a level of success on YouTube”.

He continues “The whole system works on a very limited ranking system based on video views, comments, favorites and subscribers. If a video doesn’t get ranked then it is at the mercy of the YouTube search engine where it is grouped with millions of other videos. I’m trying to find a way to make art entertaining to build a subscription base. As I said without subscribers it is hard to get views and without views it is hard for new people to find you.”

Well this guy certainly knows what he is talking about.  Since writing the above in February 07 he has nearly 40,000 subscribers to his YouTube profile and creates huge interest in his art and eBay auctions.

Here’s another artist using YouTube to promote and sell her art:

Val’s Art Diary - “This is my art/video diary. Each episode documents the process of me creating a painting but also includes my rants, reflections, and fun moments I often capture with my camera. Every week I end up with a painting together with a “making of” video that, I believe, is the closest I could ever get to an ideal artist’s statement”

Her artworks are promoted on YouTube for a week and sold by email silent auction at the end of the week.

In Allen Harkleroad’s blog post Social media is about subtle marketing he describes social media requiring “time and participation, if you aren’t willing to put in time and effort then don’t expect good results. Social media though can be very powerful in terms of getting people to talk about you, your brand and your products. The communication process must be a natural one. Nurture your brand and encourage others to talk about it. That is what social media is all about.” 

For artists You are your ‘brand’ and Your Art is your ‘product’.

Some questions to think about - How can you entertain with your art?  How can you stimulate conversation around your art?

Love to hear your comments below.

Related articles:

4 Ways You Can Use YouTube to Promote your Art Online

How to Use Online Video to Promote Your Art

She exhibited three paintings at a local RNLI (lifeboat charity) exhibition recently, that was held during a local festival for two days only + an opening evening.  From this she sold one painting, however after the exhibition she was contacted by two further buyers. 

One buyer wanted a painting similar to the one that had sold at the opening.  The other buyer had seen the paintings at the exhibition but when he came back to buy, it was shut.  The second buyer was invited to visit her home and bought the painting he had his eye on, plus a further two small paintings that were related to the same theme. 

Additionally they discussed a large commission that he was thinking of, which was a much higher value item than the initial purchase. 

At this exhibition she was allowed to have her name and contact details attached to her art, which made it easier for anyone to contact her.  When this is not allowed an artist has to ensure their Internet presence is sufficient for someone to find them by a quick Google on their name.  This is not difficult to do if your web pages are set up correctly - we do this for the artists who are on Artdomain to help them be found easily via a Google search on combinations of their name + artist, or their name + location.

From a very small, local art show my artist friend achieved good sales and two new art buyers to keep in touch with. As you can imagine, she was very pleased and encouraged to get her art to other local exhibitions whenever possible.  

The entry costs, the commission taken, and the transport costs all allow the artist to participate at low risk financially.  Oh, and you get paid quick (YeeHa!). In addition the art can often attract a lot more attention due to standing out from less professional work. So it may be worth not overlooking the small and local art exhibitions as these can be very profitable.  They can also really build up your reputation as ’the’ artist in your local area.

Do you have any experiences of this working or not for you?  Let me know by commenting below.

Related Articles: Put your contact info on the back (or bottom) of all artwork

However since then he has discovered YouTube as the best way to market his art, with novel portrait competitions that really pull in the YouTube crowds.  His user name is EclecticAsylumArt and from starting with YouTube back in February 2007, he now has 73 videos of him producing his portrait art, some in crazy materials. He has a massive 39,259 subscribers to his videos, with his profile page having been viewed 1,255,180 times (each video also having huge viewing figures).

Jason creates competitions for fellow YouTubers to have their portrait done, then videos the drawing process for YouTube. Check the one above to get a feel for how compelling his portraits are, and what a great marketing tool YouTube can be for artists.

Also you can click here to read his early observations on how being on YouTube affected traffic to his Ebay listings.

And also click here to read about why he doesn’t over commercialise his YouTube presence.  

Really fascinating to see how artists are pioneering the new territory of social media. 

Leave comments below on what you think of artists using YouTube.