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 explains how considering your goals will help you plan a successful art unveiling; and how to break into a new market, such as interior design, to sell your paintings.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 64 >

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:
Here’s a question from Melissa Umbach. You got to get that hard German sound I don’t know if that’s a German name or not into Watson, British Columbia, who says I’m currently working on painting the largest commission, kind of largest in terms of size and income that I’ve ever done. You’ve mentioned that it’s a smart thing to make an unveiling into a marketing or promotional event. What’s your suggestion for doing this virtually right now? Well, I’m glad you asked. I think I talked about that in the book a little bit. Everything you’re considering always starts with your goals. What do you want to accomplish? What if you had to pick one goal? What would that one goal? Well, I would think in a case like this, the one goal would be getting more commissions. If you’ve got someone who is paid you a lot of money to do a commission. And it’s good piece, chances are it’s a showcase piece. And their friends are going to learn about it. And you want to get those friends to do Commission’s with you book up all your commissions, right. And so I think that’s the one goal. But there’s lots of other things like, it’s a good branding opportunity. As an artist, it’s an excuse to get in front of others and to make people aware of you for the first time, a chance to collect email addresses and develop those people into clients later, it’s a chance for the buyer to look good in front of their friends. And of course, they then do invitations to their friends, which brings them into your virtual event, you want to use your virtual event as an opportunity to collect email addresses if you possibly can. And that might be through the invitation just put in your email address. And then you know the invitations coming to you but your clients going to have to have something to do with that, I would suggest picking a prominent venue, it might cost you a couple 100 bucks, probably not more. I mean, these places are empty anyway. So find a very prominent local venue a movie theater hotel, a beautiful mansion, private home, maybe the home of the person who is obviously doing it, they might want to have a private cocktail party or something. Although with COVID, that’s probably tough. But the idea is that you want to have two or three prominent people there. And you want to have your painting with a velvet and a gold cord over it so that when you pull that gold cord down, it pulls development down, you want to use red velvet, it really is very effective. And the gold cord really makes it look elegant. And you would I would suggest like if it’s a prominent person, they probably know some prominent people. And so maybe they know the governor or the mayor or you know, movie star or somebody like that, and ask them to invite that known VIP for the unveiling. And that way it just makes it more exciting. And of course it’s going to make people watch because if you can say, hey, the governor is going to be there. It makes it important, right? And so you create a ceremony of sorts, where the owner kind of talks about why they commissioned the work and why it was important. to them and then you do you have the governor do the unveiling and then they asked the you the artists to come up and talk a little bit about it in the process and what you went through and of course you have the ability to subtly sell others by making some statements and comments like you know when people call me for Commission’s These are the questions that they usually have. And he had the same questions and here’s how I answered them right now they know that you you do Commission’s didn’t just magically happen then follow up your event with a thank you add an email and an image of the painting and also a replay because not everybody got to attend. Also take that replay, put it out on social media so that other people get a chance to see it, tag people in it. And that will really work well. And of course you put it on your website and find ways to get your website information in their hands. You don’t need to do a pitch. You don’t need to ask them to buy anything. You’re credible just because of the event. So though that’s a very great question and a very effective thing you can do.

Now here’s a question from Andrew Clemens in New Albany, Ohio, who asks, How can I break into the interior design market and sell my paintings to designers? Andrew, it’s a really good time to be asking that question because in spite of COVID people are spending more time at home. And as a result wanting to remodel their homes, they’re spending money now they’re repainting, they’re putting new decor in, they’re buying new couches, they’re buying new paintings, but a lot of paintings moving off the shelf. They’re the lots of building and remodeling. And designers are called into high end homes typically. And high end homes are dealt in on by people with money. And that’s of course, I always say stand in the river where the money is flowing. Right? So I’d start out by finding out who are the top five designers in town and you could call some of the local magazines and, and media people and, just kind of ask around, you’ll find out the names that come up all the time, I would call them and say I’d be perfectly up front and offer to pay them they may or may not want you to but say Listen, my name is Eric Rhoads. And I, I’m an artist, and I would like to get some advice from you could I buy an hour of your time? And just let me know what your hourly rate is. And I’ll pay you that hourly rate. Now, some people will say no, no, no need for that, I’d be happy to give you advice. Some people might say, send me 100 bucks or something, it’ll be worth it. Tell them when you get the meeting. First off, try to do it in person or was zoom but try to do it in person with mask of course, tell them that you’re really looking how to, you want to know how to get to designers, how to get them to recommend your work to buy your work, how does it work, ask lots of questions, get them to be honest with you and even about your work, and say, Listen, you can tell me if it’s not ready. Or if it’s not the quality that you’re looking for, find out how you can help them make money, they’re there to make money. So there’s two ways of working with designers, Mark designers either Mark things up and pass that along. So like if you buy a couch for the client and you you pay $10,000 for that couch, you might be able to buy it, you’re buying it wholesale, and you might be able to sell it to them for $20,000. And you make the money on it. Some designers are on a retainer and they just pass along the the discounts and, and they don’t need to be paid on it. But you need to find that out. And you can even ask for an opportunity to, how could I become the favorite artist, one way to become a favorite artist is to pay higher commission rates. And that’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that, you know, just raise your prices so that you can, pay a higher commission rate and still get the same amount of money. But the idea is getting them involved and telling you exactly what to do offer to do a showcase of your work in one of their showcase homes, and invite clients and potential clients for a cocktail party. Now you can’t do that right now during COVID. But maybe later, but also make sure they know they’re going to make a hefty commission and that it’s a benefit for them in some way or another. Also tell them the way that you approach things that you want to find out about how they want you to approach their clients how you know if they want you doing Commission’s and things like that. And then once you have talked to three, four or five of those top people, you’ll have all the answers the answers are going to be different but do them all and do what they tell you to do and follow what they say it will work now that’s always going to the market is to get your answers is usually where the answers lie and you’ll find that things will work when you do that. Now send that designer a small painting. It could be a big one if you want as a gift. Here’s the way I would do it. You know, what they what you pick for them, they may hate. I just gave a gift to someone who helped me and I, he waived his consulting fee for me. So I grabbed a painting off the shelf that I thought he would like. And I sent it to him, I framed it up. And I sent it to him. And he was very thankful whether or not he liked it. I don’t know, he said that he liked it, and said that it reminded them of a vacation, they went to that particular place. So that was kind of cool, but he might not have liked it. But if, if I could have said to him, listen, go to my website, I go to this section of my website, and you could talk them through it say, Listen, I want you to look at there’s 10 paintings there. They’re all in the, XYZ range. And I would like you to pick one of those 10 paintings and tell me which one you want. And then I’m going to send it to you as a thank you gift. Now, why do you want to do that? Well, I think there’s a couple of reasons. The first reason is that you want them to find something that they’re actually going to like. Secondly, they may find something that they’re going to offer to a client. And now they’ve got a free painting and they can get paid for it. That’s okay, you don’t mind that. But most importantly is it’s forcing them to look at, eight or 10 paintings to choose the one they want. And you want them to be seeing your other work and on your website. That’s a great way to do that. It’s not manipulative at all, but it is a great opportunity to kind of show what you’re all about. Now, of course, if you have a portfolio, you can show them and if you can show them original paintings and in frames and so on, pull a couple into your meeting, that’s even better. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you today. I hope that’s been helpful for you.

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.