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 if you should pay for a sponsored post on social media and, before you spend a dime, what to consider; advice for writing an informative and engaging artist bio.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 94 >

 

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 me those questions or anything else. I’m always there for you. I answer every single email [email protected]. Here is a question from molucca mc. Art. I don’t know what that is, must be a Twitter handle or something. Malachy MC says, should an artist pay for sponsored posts? Or not? I’m assuming the question is about sponsored posts on social media like Facebook or Instagram. I have a rule before I spend a dime on anything. I try to determine the following things. And these are important get a pen. Number one, what is my goal and my expected outcome from my ad? What do I hope will happen? Am I trying to get people to look at my art? Am I trying to get them to subscribe to my newsletter? Do I want them to follow me? Do I want them to attend a workshop? What’s the one thing? Of course you want it all? But what’s the one thing? Because that determines how you do it? Secondly, how do I get at least double my investment back? If I spend $10, then I personally expect to get $20 back then hopefully a lot more. So what must happen for money to come back? What a lot of people find out when they ask themselves these questions is it’s not easy to buy on your website or on your social media, there may be things that are blocking. So if I’m not selling something on the spot, I have to ask myself, what’s the value to me? So the value is branding? Of course, it’s valuable to get them on your newsletter, of course, it’s valuable to get a name. But what if you get 10 people to subscribe and it costs $10 each? Is it worth it? Is it worth $100? Each? Is it worth $1,000? Each? How do you know? If you have no idea if they’re art buyers, art lovers who don’t buy, or artists who may not buy? Then don’t spend the money? Go to places that you can target who’s my exact target? How do I reach them? And then can I afford repetition? You see if you cannot afford repetition? You shouldn’t be advertising? Because repetition is one of the three legs of advertising the three legs of advertising is media market and message. What media are you using? What is the market? And what is the message and and the message really comes down to you know your headlines and the content. But can I afford the repetition repetition is so important. It’s rare that anybody responds to any marketing from one ad or one repetition. But if you can get somebody to see an ad seven to 10 times within a certain period of time, it can work really, really well for you. I’ve I’ve watched artists go from poppers to having a lot of money because they just stick with it, they have the repetition takes a while. But if you’re willing to be patient, that’s what you need to do repetition. And you also want to make sure that if you’re reaching the right kind of people, the kind of people who buy so if I can’t afford to make sure that the ad reaches the same person seven to 10 times, it won’t work. And typically, if I buy advertising, I buy advertising for long periods of time, I usually sign 234 year contracts. And the reason I do that is because I know that it’s that repetition over time that builds momentum over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. One time I got talked into buying an ad in an auction house magazine, and I thought well, I’m going to reach all these rich collectors and I’m going to sell a lot a lot of subscriptions to fine art connoisseur magazine, I ran a full page ad I paid many, many, many, many, many 1000s I think it was $18,000 for it. And I sold exactly two subscriptions. If I had to run that ad over and over and over and over again, I probably would have sold several 1000 subscriptions but I didn’t do that. And of course I didn’t need that big of an ad to do that. So I learned my lesson. That’s one of the ways we we all learn is that we’d make mistakes. So before you spend any money, don’t throw your money away without knowing your goals and wedding won’t know your outcome. There’s also a lot of people throw their money away with things like boost this post or sponsoring an ad yet they have no goals, no outcomes, no specific financial goals. And without those things you’re throwing money away whether it’s social media ads or ads in one of my magazines, fine art connoisseur plein air. It’s not smart business until you have a goal. My sales organization will take you through your goals and if you don’t Normally, they’ll help you understand what might be the right strategy to have in mind. So keep that in mind.

Next question is from David Wood. David says, do you have any advice on writing an informative and engaging artist bio? David, the answer is yes. Thanks for asking, I have a rule. My role is Zig, when everyone else Zags. I get sent and read or exposed to literally hundreds of artists BIOS, and I’m usually gone within 10 seconds, because they’re boring. There is a rule in all advertising and everything that you do, whether it’s your website, whether it’s your business cards, whether it’s your ads, whether it is your artists bio, everything you need to do, everything you do needs to have headlines that sell and selling is really relating to people finding something that really gets their attention, you need a headline that makes me want to read the rest of the copy it you have to assume that if they don’t read the headline, they won’t read the first line, if they don’t read the first line, they won’t read the second line, if they don’t, there’s a guy by the name of Sugarman, who wrote a book for Advertising Age, and he talks about this, he calls it the slide, you got to get people to read that headline, enough people to read it. And of course, if you’re doing email, you got to get them to read the subject line. If they don’t open this, if they don’t open the email, the subject line doesn’t get their attention. It’s not going to give them anything. So subject line, and then headline, then first sentence and so on. And once they kind of start reading, then they’ll keep reading, but you got to get them through that first paragraph, that second paragraph, and so you got to write things to pull them through, and artists BIOS tend to be really really boring. Now I have spent 10s of 1000s of dollars I’m not kidding 10s of 1000s of dollars taking courses and programs on MRI and reading books and watching videos on writing headlines. research says that without a strong headline, there’s only a 10% chance that someone will read anything further. When I’m writing headlines I sometimes will write 20 or 50 headlines before I decide which one to use don’t use the first two or three things you use keep coming up with ideas I tell myself if I can’t come up with 20 I’m not any good right so I write 20 headlines and then I go alright which is the best one which is going to get the most attention and and I have taken copy you know we sell a lot of videos and things I have taken copy on a on a product that bombed, rewritten the headline only and the first paragraph and all of a sudden that product was a huge success. That’s how much it matters. So it matters with your artists bio it matters with everything you do because your goal is to get people to read it to pay attention to you. So where I put most of my time is in writing and I’m friends with some copywriters who make literally millions of dollars in some get paid about 60 to $100,000 just for a single two page letter. That’s how important it is. You know, if you’re selling books online or vitamins or something, you know, a good letter can make the difference between 10,000 in sales and 10 million in sales. That’s how important it is. So these copywriters are worth every penny because they know how to sell things with words, each of us need to spend most of our time on our headline. And then on our first or second paragraph, when you’re writing an artist’s bio, or you’re writing your website or you’re writing your ad, it doesn’t hurt to get some professional help because I use professional help from time to time. Although I’ve I I’ve spent a lot of time learning and growing so that I can do them and make strong headlines. There’s also this concept of the slide right I talked about that a minute ago, imagine a playground you climb this slide, you get to the top and then you slide down and copy the headline is the top of the slide, or the first step on the slide. Second step is a powerful first sentence which leads you to the third step which is a second sentence, and then you get them to the top and then you get them over and then they slide down and then they buy. Alright. Now if I were writing a killer artists bio, I’d tell a powerful story. Because as I said, my Sunday coffee the other day, stories are one of the most effective forms of communication. No one buys on logic and get that out of your head. Logic does not exist. Logic facts, nobody cares. You’ve got to turn that into emotion. emotion is what works right? No one wants to hear that David Wood was born. In a log cabin on a lake, but if your headline said how a house fire let a young survivor to become an important artist, you get their attention, they’re going to read the next slide. And then you tell the story and you weave in everything you want them to know and you stand a much better chance of reading the whole thing. I talk a lot about this in my videos. I think the very first video has all the information on how to tell stories and how to write stories, and make stories about your artwork. Remember, making stories about your artwork and giving it to the gallery is really important because stories are easy to remember that can pass them on to collectors much easier to remember than facts. Ask yourself this. Also, what is the purpose of an artist bio, it’s really nothing more than a sales document. Its purpose is to make them want to own your work. It’s got to give you credibility, but it’s got to reach their heart facts don’t reach the heart. Facts are boring. Another thing always tell yourself to add, which means all right. So this is something that took me a long time to learn. You know, if you make a statement, let’s say I make a statement that says David Wood is one of the top artists that xxx in 2019. Which means you will be getting one of the best pieces of Western art in your collection, which will go down in history as an important piece of art. So if you make a statement, ask yourself how can I say which means now you can say it different ways. You don’t have to actually say those words. But try to find a way to translate for people don’t assume they’re going to know things on their own. Anytime you state something state the benefit to the reader or the buyer, which is why which means is important. also assume that they’re not going to read it at all. And if they only read the opening paragraph, can you accomplish something in the opening paragraph that is going to get them to be interested in buying your art. So like anything in marketing, and quite just like painting there’s a primary purse purpose a focal point right there’s a focal point in your artist bio. So I hope this marketing tip has been helpful went a little longer than normal.

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!