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, you’ll learn a quick tip on where to start if you’re not selling art online yet, and specific ways to help your gallery sell your paintings.

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 1

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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 on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

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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 art marketing. 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 thank you for joining us today. I am here. My goal is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions. Here’s a question from Carrol in the Sierras. I guess that’s the highest year is California, huh Carol? Welcome. I’m at a crossroads regarding my art. It seems that I’m throwing good money after bad. I’m not a rank beginner. However, I thought that I should check everything and start again from scratch. Here’s why. About five months ago. I got my own website in that five months I’ve had only 10 people look at the site, and no buyers, I do not in most cases seem to be able to tell which my paintings are the better ones. I’m quite discouraged at this point. The art ship may have already sailed for me. I have no clients. I have no client list. I don’t know anyone who would buy my art. Help.

Carol, you sound desperate, my dear goodness. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. Never ever went to Churchill said don’t ever ever, ever, ever, never, never, never, ever give up right? paid first because you’ll love it if you paint because you love it. That’s a good starting point. If that’s not the reason you’re doing it, maybe that’s something you shouldn’t be doing. But I have a hunch you can do it because I looked at your website and your paintings are pretty good. And so look at it from this standpoint, if it sells its icing on the cake. Now if you have to make a living as a painter, just know that it takes some time. You have to devote time and energy into building it. Now I put together a thing for people that are interested in senior years retiring and so on, it’s kind of about how to start up fast and so on. I don’t remember the name; it’s of one of my videos. Anyway, there’s some stuff in there that talks about how to speed up the process. But the reality is that if you have a website that doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get any visitors, you had 10 visitors, that’s not necessarily any visitors, right? So you’ve got to look for ways to drive people and drive traffic to your website, and that’s going to require some marketing effort. You can get some free advice on my marketing blog. There’s a lot of stuff on there about driving people to websites and how to get people to do it. Sometimes it’s advertising, sometimes it’s social media, sometimes it’s direct mail, sometimes it’s other things but you just kind of be constantly driving people to the website. And or looking for other people to sell your work for you. Your work is pretty good. It should be in a gallery and you should probably start doing that process. I again, I have a whole process and some of my videos where I go through that but you want to get introduced in are invited in not not so much going after him because everybody else’s going after me, I want to be different. You want to see how you can get invited and I’ve got a whole strategy on that. And that involves getting the word out to other people through people that are connected to the gallery. So more on that at another time anyway, don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged, you’re going to be fine. And just hang in there. Everybody goes through this. This is not unusual.

Next question is from Jo Ann and Lincoln, Nebraska. Congratulate me. I just got into my first gallery. Well, Joanne, congratulations. But so far, they’ve not sold anything yet. I know there’s some great painters in the gallery. So what can I do to help my painting sell?

Well, Joanne, the fact that you got into a gallery, you’re one of a very few and so congratulations on that. The fact that they have other great painters in the gallery means they have good taste, and they picked you so I wouldn’t worry too much about that. trust them. It’s going to take them some time. They have to build a collector interest in a collector base and it might take them some But you can help them in a lot of ways. But the first thing is, ask them what you can do. It’s surprising to me how many people never asked that question. So ask the gallery owner, ask them, you know, how can I help you? Secondly, there’s some things you could do. It just depends on how far you want to go. First off, you can talk about the fact that if you’ve got your own list, if you’ve got your own newsletter, if you’ve got your own social media accounts, you can talk up the fact that you’re in the gallery and put these paintings out there that are in the gallery and drive people to the gallery. That’s something you can do. It’s not all up to them. Marketing is a cooperative effort. Speaking of cooperative, one of the things you can do is what we call Co Op advertising. You can actually share in the expense, you can go to them and say hey, listen, I’d like you to advertise my work. And I think it would be great to be exposed and have my name associated with your gallery. I’ll pay half if you’ll pay half. And so that’s one good way to do it. A lot of people do that kind of thing. You can ask permission to talk to the sales team asked for a conference call and ask. Tell them your story. Make it about your story and how you got where you are and what you do and what your thoughts and philosophies are. Keep it interesting, because the sales team, whoever is selling your paintings, sometimes it’s just the owner. But maybe they need to know about you and don’t assume they’re going to read anything about you make it easy for them. I like to give stories with my paintings stories help sell, I like to write up a little story about every painting, put a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of reality in it. And then I I paste that on the back of the painting, sometimes I’ll mail it to the galleries. And then they like to sometimes put it up on the placard underneath the name of the painting and the cost because it gives a little story creates a little interest. And by the way, very few people do story so you’re going to stand out, and stories oftentimes help sell. So I got a whole thing on stories in my first and my second videos and so you might check those out. Keep the gallery informed, tell them what you’re up to anything new. If you’re taking trips, traveling, painting entry, interesting things. If you’re on the faculty at a flare convention or something like that, tell them because it gives them stuff to talk about. They need stuff to talk about when they’re talking about you. keep them informed. You know, it’s amazing how many artists don’t keep them informed. But don’t overdo it. Don’t badger them because they’re busy people and be grateful, you know, they’re going to want to help people who are grateful. And so rather than calling and saying, Why didn’t you sell my paintings yet? Instead, what you want to do is say, Hey, thank you. I appreciate all you’re doing. I’m really grateful for you guys. Because people when people are nice, they want to help them right. Anyway, that’s some marketing advice. I hope it’s helpful.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artist and to help your dreams actually come true. Thanks for listening.