In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.
In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice for artists who may be ready to start advertising, and marketing tips for more established artists.
Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 39
Submit Your Art Marketing Question:
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads
In the art marketing minute I try to answer your questions. All you got to do is email them to me [email protected]. Today both questions come from a listener named David Cruz whose first question is at what point in an artist’s career do you suggest they try advertising to reach potential buyers? Is it effective for artists still trying to establish themselves or is it better Left to more well established artists. Well, David, it starts by being ready. And what I mean by that is your work has to be developed and strong enough to sell. And you have to be able to do consistent enough painting so that your paintings are all pretty much consistent with one another. So you have more winners than losers. And you have to have that confidence to begin as fast as possible and never let up. And what I mean by that is that marketing becomes a lifetime commitment. If you’re planning on selling art for your lifetime, you have to plan on marketing for a lifetime. I’m in business. I have to constantly be marketing the minute I let up, my business stops, I don’t have any more customers. That’s the same for all artists. Now. There’s various forms of marketing. Part B of your question you said…
You ask if it’s effective for artists still trying to establish themselves to be marketing or if it’s better for established Artists? The answer is Yeah, both. But let me tell you a story about an established artist. He was famous top of the game really big deal making lots of money selling lots of art. In fact, he had such momentum that he decided he could save all this money on his advertising. And he stopped because everybody knew him. And he was okay for a while because he had a brand he had some momentum, but his momentum was lost. And within a very short period of time, nothing was selling anymore. And as a matter of fact, he was out of sight, out of mind, all of a sudden, he wasn’t being invited into shows. He wasn’t being invited to galleries. And as I talked about, there’s a thing called attrition. So people are always in and out of the market, the average gallery or artists loses 10% of their potential buyers every year simply because those people are out of the market for some other reason. But there’s another group of people who may be coming in if you’re refreshing that well. He wasn’t doing that. So all of a sudden nobody knew who he was anymore he was it was a has been, I hate to use those terms. But he became a guy who went from being on top to being on the bottom making nothing and nobody knew who he was he was contacting artists and, and guy me and other galleries and they were like, sorry, you don’t know who you are. And so he had to re establish himself and rebuild his career. He lost a lot of momentum lost a lot of years, because he had stopped. The minute you become an artist professional, meaning selling your work, you have to start marketing on you’re working on your marketing, even if it’s a year out from when you plan to launch, you need to learn it. You need to make plans, you need to plant seeds, you need to develop strategy, you need to develop a marketing plan. Everything always takes longer than you think it will. We’re all optimistic things take time and you you have to build momentum. Momentum actually helps sales but you have to build momentum in the beginning and takes time to build momentum and experimentation and trying different things. Marketing is a life time commitment. Your next question is aside from quality, what are the major criteria that buyers look at to determine if a piece of art is worth paying 1000 versus 10,000 for? Well, it’s all perceived value and perceived value is emotion as a BMW seven series is the same car as a Bentley with a few extra touches, but it’s $100,000 more in price. perceived value comes from branding and looking successful and that branding saying that you’re successful in subtle ways. It comes from social proof, meaning other people prominent customers who are buying your work and it’s visible that they are social proof could be being in the right gallery. Everybody knows that gallery sells paintings that are expensive. It comes from having courage and it comes from A slow build up of a collector base, raising that collector base to buy your work and raising your prices a little bit every year, being invited to the right shows being seen at the right places. And I saw one artist who had some courage he put his price out there 200 K, he got it all of a sudden he was $100,000 artist. So you cannot typically launch your career selling hundred thousand dollar paintings, although I’ve seen it done one time, but it was from a famous sculptor who switched to painting and just put $100,000 price in his first painting and got it prices about perception. Who you’re seeing with being in the right galleries getting into the right shows into the most important museums, showing that your work is embraced and accepted at a high value. Now I go into a lot of depth in my books and videos about pricing. But everything you want to accomplish in your art career, other than your painting ability can pretty be accomplished through some form of marketing. It starts with knowing where you want to go, why you want to go there and then developing your strategy and your plan. I hope that helps.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected]. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
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