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 ways to “do your homework” when it comes to getting your art into a gallery, and tips for making commission sales.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 48

 

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
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
I answer your questions and you can email your questions to me, [email protected]. I’d like to know your first name and where you’re from, and if you want to use the last name, that’s good too. Some of you want to remain anonymous. It’s okay. But I like to have names. Here’s a question from Robert and Boise, Idaho, Sue says I’ve consistently emailed images to many galleries and they’re unhesitatingly reply. That’s a good word on hesitant is that my work is beautiful, lovely, but not interested in the style. What should I do? Well, first off, nobody’s going to tell you if your work is awful, nobody wants to hurt your feelings. And if they don’t like it or they feel it’s not living up to par, never going to tell you that there’s no reason for them to do so. They don’t want to hurt you. And so oftentimes they just say, it’s not a fit. They’re not interested in your style or whatever. Robert, no offense, but you are making the ultimate blunder. Have you not been listening to the podcast? If you’re not been listening to all the discussions about getting into galleries, maybe not. Anyway, I’m not trying to scold you galleries typically do not want random artists submissions. They get literally thousands of them. It’s annoying to them. It takes their time. Most of them are bad, even if they’re good, they just, you know, they’ve got what they want and they’re going to seek what they want. And so don’t necessarily solicit them. That’s the big number one mistake, do not go and visit galleries and ask them to look at your work. Do not send them emails, do not send them packages in the mail. They do not want that. And there are a lot of different issues here, but this is not the way to get into a gallery and you don’t want to annoy them. And of course they probably won’t remember you anyway, because it gets so many. But sending things to them is not their style. So start by doing your homework. Have you looked at their website to see what kind of work do they sell? You know, if you’re sending an abstract gallery, a bunch of realism or vice versa and you don’t fit, you’re wasting their time. So know your gallery before you do that. Furthermore, like I said, solicitation is the mistake. You don’t want to do that. The odds are stacked against you when you do that. So go back and listen to the podcast I did with Jane Bell Meyer. Recently, she talks about very specifically how she selects artists. And she goes after artists who are advertising and promoting themselves and she’s watching them and seeing how they promote themselves, they watch their work and see how it develops. In other words, you’ve already gotta be marketing yourself before you’re going to get pulled in and you’re thinking, well, well, I don’t need a gallery. Then we’ll share you. Do you need, you need all the help you can get. We all do so be patient and learn about marketing. Read my book, read my, watch my videos, watch the YouTube videos I put out there at streamline art video. And just remember that this is a process you want to get invited in. You want to make sure that you look for ways to get invited in. And I’ve got a whole bunch of strategies on that.

The next question comes from Katrina Gorman in San Antonio, Texas. Katrina sent us a couple of questions lately. Thank you, Katrina. This is a commission request question. Our cold calling cold calling by the way means, you know, contacting someone who doesn’t know who you are. They’re not aware of you. They’re not interested. Cold calling, right? Warm calling would be somebody who’s interested in you, but Cole are cold calling and emailing businesses to make them aware of your artwork effective. To let them know you are open for commissioned work or making a letter to send that to them directly. I remember this in art marketing boot camp, but I wasn’t really, I didn’t really see which way would be better to you as well. Katrina. I just did a long video on YouTube. I’ve been doing every day. I’ve been going online at noon on a social media, Facebook live Instagram and YouTube. And I have been doing videos on our marketing. And depending on when you’re listening to this, I might still be doing them, check them out. But I just did one on how to get commissions and it’s on YouTube. I know cause it’s fresh in my mind. I just did it a couple of days ago, but it’s worth finding it at streamline art video on YouTube. The commission marketing is like all marketing. It requires a strategy, a target, a plan and artists who do commissions can make it a very high percentage of their income and make a lot of money on commissions. If you do it right now, all marketing is not a single item, like a single letter or a single email. Usually like all things, it takes repetition. And so you’ve got to have repetition, but first you need to know your customer. Do your research find out about these businesses. If you’re going after businesses, what do they have in their offices or their buildings in their lobbies? What kind of art do they have are, do you think they’re opening up new locations? Look for things that you think will be a fit. So you don’t waste a lot of time on mail or email or otherwise. Also commissions are a really great way to upsell people, to leverage existing customers into more purchases because everybody’s got a special occasion or an event. And you know, you might be doing a house portrait or a portrait of somebody or something for a business. You just never know. But if you’re going to cold call, make sure you eliminate your waste by doing your homework. Find out about commissions also from various city and government associations. They’re doing commissions all the time. But look for the people. You know, the people you have contact with, that’s going to give you your very, very best opportunity for selling commissions.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of 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.

How to Submit Your Art Marketing Questions: 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.