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 stylized your frames should be; and how to sort through all the art fairs to determine which will be the most successful for you.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 85 >

 

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:

In the marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions and you can always email them to me, [email protected]. from Boulder, California a little bit from Boulder, Colorado. Suzanne cable asks, how much and how stylized should framing be. I always struggle with framing since I feel like the buyer may want their own style. Well, you know, that’s always an option. Suzanne, buyers sometimes change paintings, galleries, sometimes change paintings. I have a painting hanging in my house that David lafell painted in 1968. It’s a frame that he made himself. It’s just beautiful, but it matches the mood of the painting. And he told me about that he couldn’t find a frame that match the mood. So he made one made what he envisioned. Sometimes the frame complements the painting. Sometimes you want it to blend in sometimes you want it to draw you in. It depends on your taste as an artist, but and sometimes the gallery changes the frames for the marketplace. You know, markets are different. Some markets are like gold frame markets. Others are black frame markets. Some are alternate markets, others are modern, clean lines. It’s all dependent on the market where it’s going. So it might get changed after the fact you want to put your best foot forward though, and try to get it right start by matching your taste to the painting. I tell a story about a gallery down south which had an unsold painting in the gallery for a year. The owner had it reframed with a very expensive like 14 $100 frame. No is a 20 $500 frame. And it’s sold in the first week for four times the price frames matter. Rich people don’t respond to cheap frames unless they look really great. All too often artists buy what they can afford to buy and put them in frames. And I understand that but frames are like cars, some people see themselves in a better way. others see themselves in a bucket of bolts, the best possible frame you can put on it, you can always up the price to get compensated for the frame frames help sell things, great frames matter put great frames on your paintings, they really will help and a lot of people don’t have the vision to know what kind of frame to put on them. So sometimes they’ll just keep on mahtim others will change it.

Alright, here’s another question from Shauna Sue. In Alexandria, Minnesota. Shauna Sue says how do you sort through all the art fairs that determine which ones will likely be more successful for you? Well, Shauna Sue, I would apply what I call a market evaluation to the process. Everything you do marketing wise, you want to attach an outcome and a metric, you know, what are the things that are going to make that outcome come true? What are the we call them critical drivers? So in a fair, what is the outcome you want from the fare? Let’s say you invest $1,000 to be in the fare? What’s the minimum outcome? You have to get back for that fare to be successful? What’s the desired outcome? Let’s say your desired outcome is 10 grand in sales? What’s your desired outcome? How do you get it? What are the critical drivers to that desired outcome? Well, first off, it’s having paintings that are going to get you to that price, it’s going to have paintings that are you know, you might have a strategy to sell volume, you might have a strategy to sell a lot of $25 paintings to get to $10,000 you might have one big one. What does it take to pull people into the booth to attract people? What kind of sales does it take? What’s the makeup of the attendee? Who’s there? What can they afford? What neighborhoods are they coming from? is worth selling at the show? Frankly, I think it’s kind of like a magazine you know, like you want to look for concentrated audiences like to my magazines are concentrated concentrated audiences of buyers, you want to you want to get to the buyers. Volume doesn’t matter. Somebody can say, Hey, I’m going to have a million people through the art show. Well, do you want a million people traipsing through your booth that aren’t going to spend anything, you want to attract the money people you got to figure out a way to attract them, draw them in, get the right audiences visiting your booth and not wasting your time. And you want people who are going to spend not sit there and stroke your ego and say oh your paintings beautiful. Well, why don’t you buy something if it’s so beautiful. So what matters is that people are buying, do they have the money to buy or they get a bipod holders or t shirts, you got to understand that about the fair and some some of the best way to do that is go to the fair on your own a year in advance and then consider it for the next year. Talk to the artists find out what’s selling, find out from people who are you know, call in advance people who have been to the show, not from The show organizers because they’re never going to tell you the whole story. They might not know the whole story. Again, know your market. I also think you need a strategy. Everything I do has a strategy attached to it should anyway, if I’m doing my job, like if I’m speaking somewhere, I want to go in there knowing the room knowing the outcome, what am I going to take out of there? You know, am I going to try and promote something? Am I going to try to build an image? Am I going to try to get them to spend some money? The same thing with affair? So just know your outcomes? Know Your shows? Know your lighting, know what’s going to draw people in? What can you do that nobody else is doing that’s going to make you stand out? How do you engage people? How do you get them talking? What do you say to them when they say things like, I’ll think about it. You need to have a plan. You don’t want to go into that unprepared. need to be ready and loaded. For every possible thing. Sit down, write down every possible objection that you’re going to get and then come up with an answer for that objection. If you do, you’re golden. You’ll outsell every booth there.

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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

  • Art retreats
  • International art trips
  • Art conventions
  • Art workshops (in person and online)
  • And more!