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, publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares tips on how to become popular with galleries and collectors, and tips on when you should enter an art competition.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 49 >

 

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
Thank you Jim Kipping. And you know that book. It just keeps surprising me because it keeps selling on Amazon and other places. It’s like every time I turn around, they’re selling out we have to print more and so that’s a pretty cool thing. It’s a nice feeling. Thank you for making that happen. My goal in the marketing minute is to answer your art marketing questions and you can email me anytime Eric@artmarketingcom a.nd try to use your name and your town so I know who you are. It’s a little easier that way. This one is from Jesse. I don’t know if that’s a Jessie she or he in Jesse in Santa Fe who says if I want to become a big name, the kind of artist who’s getting invited to all the best shows the best galleries and getting pursued by people. collectors, how do I do it? Well, Jesse, that is a great goal. It’s very doable. But it is a process and you have to look at marketing as a process. You know that all great things take time, nothing happens quick nothing happens overnight. persistence and consistency are important. I can spend hours on this topic alone I’ve spent hours and hours and hours on it in my videos and talk a lot about it in my book, I talk a lot on artmarketing.com, you know, with a lot of ideas and things that you can use. I don’t have enough time to do that here. But you need to spend as much time and effort as possible getting great as an artist you want to be as good as you possibly can be. But at some point, you got to just get out there. And you need outsiders to give you advice on when your work is ready to be promoted. And then you need to know that this is a lifetime commitment that if you’re going to continue to sell paintings or try to sell paintings, you’ve got to be committed to a lifetime of marketing. Next you need to start getting noticed a great thing to do is to end As many art competitions as possible, like the plein air salon or the artists and selfie competition, and get some wins under your belt, even if you’re a category winner, it doesn’t have to be the grand prize you can be a runner up, you can be a second place a third place a fifth place, it doesn’t matter. What you need is something to help building your brand help you help you build your brand and have something to talk about put on your resume branding is the big thing. A known artist is an invited artist, a known artist is a higher priced artist. The more you repeat your visibility campaigns, the more you get noticed, branding is a lifetime commitment, as I said over and over and over and over again for years. Now you can speed it up with with some advertising and things like that. But you also need time. You need publicity, you need shows you need to do things that stand out, get noticed. Sometimes it’s controversy. Sometimes it’s you know, awards. I talked a lot about this and the things that I just mentioned the books and the videos just keep pounding that marketing drum. Time cannot be completely overcome, but advertising can help you speed awareness. And then you just got to keep building on that awareness.

Now the next question comes from Cindy in Bar Harbor, Maine Who says I see a lot of art competitions, but I don’t know if I should ever enter them. Which ones I should enter? Cindy, it’s a great question. The answer is Yeah, or no. There are a lot of great competitions and prize money is nice, but it’s not a reason to enter anything. I know that sounds awkward. But if you want to enter art competition, you want to win something that’s going to further your career. For instance, many art magazines like mine, Fine Art Connoisseur does artists and selfie competition, Plein Air magazine does the plein air salon competition. And though we have big prize money and a lot of other prizes, what you really want to do is end up with validation. You want to end up with something you can talk about, and most importantly, you want to end up with publicity. So if you got an award, let’s say you got the main weight award from Plein Air salon, you know, we’re doing stories about you, we’re putting you on the cover of the magazine, we’re doing stories about the people who are the secondary, and third winners and so on. We’re doing stories about category winners. And so you’re getting publicity. And publicity is more valuable than money. I know that seems odd. But you can’t necessarily buy publicity. You can buy advertising, but you can’t buy publicity. And so when you get that opportunity, it’s more valuable. So it’s okay to apply to things that just have prize money and you know, but if they’re, if they’re not going to be able to promote you by giving you articles and things, maybe they’re giving you articles to their list of other artists, but you want to be seen by collectors, you want to be seen by gallery owners. And so, you know, if you win from something like a National Art magazine, like ours or others, then you’re going to be seen by a lot of people by a lot of the right people, museums, collectors, galleries, etc. The key is to enter and then to milk When What I mean by that is that even if it’s a small category, like a still life category or Nocturne category, they don’t get very many entries. And so you might have a better improve chance and a smaller category. Although sometimes you enter the same painting in two or three categories if it’s a fit, and then you want to do press releases, you know, Eric Rhoads just won the best doctor in painting for this national competition, you know, you want to put it on your website, your business cards, everything. I just did a full hour YouTube video on this and you can find it by going to YouTube and searching streamline art video, and look for the one that talks about how to win art competitions. A good marketer looks at every opportunity and asks if there is value to be obtained for it. You could look at it as something to build credibility. You can tell others about it. You can use it to build your list, whatever it is, so don’t focus on the money. Big prizes are nice. But the real thing that you know, I’ll tell you something that the cover plein air magazine is worth a whole lot more than $15,000. To your to your career. I mean, I’ve watched careers launch because they won the plein air salon competition. I’ve watched people go from locally known to nationally known and getting invited to everything. And that’s happening because they’re on the cover that’s happening because they’re featured. It’s not so much happening because they won the $15,000. But that’s getting them there. So think in terms of what can do what you can do to help build your credibility. And I hope that I hope that makes sense. Anyway, if it doesn’t make sense, it should make sense.

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.

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.