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 the best practices of sending a newsletter to your network, and the psychology to consider when pricing your art.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 16 >>>

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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 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 0:23
Thank you Jim Kipping. And thank you for joining us today. My goal is to eliminate the idea of starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions.

The first is from Mark Montserrat, in San Francisco, California, specifically, what goes into a newsletter? And realistically, how often should I send it out? Well, first off, you want to be consistent. You always want to send it out consistently. I think you want to be at least monthly. And you probably want to say send it the exact same time every month. So it’s consistent. Everybody knows they can look forward to it. That’s the easy part. Now what about newsletters. Well the problem with newsletters is they’re all about you and you may be interested in you but you’d be surprised how many people are not interested in you. So you’ve got to have something in that newsletter that people are going to be excited about reading that they’re going to learn from now learning something from you or about you may be part of the element now, john MacDonald’s probably got one of the best newsletters I’ve ever read, because he’s, he’s targeting artists in that particular newsletter probably so they’ll come to us workshop or buy his amazing video, but you he’s always talking about new concepts and he’s basically writing a chapter of a book with every newsletter and every one of them is really valuable. So when you know when I’m deleting the literally hundreds of newsletters that come to me every month, I can’t read them all. And I know a lot of your collectors and a lot of other people feel the same way. They’re they’re gonna open the ones that matter to them. So you want to have information, not just about you, but things that are compelling. What can I learn from this? What’s interesting in our art marketing in a box, we actually pre wrote a year worth of newsletters and it’s got information in it about, you know, art history and some things they can learn about artists and things that just kind of make it a little bit more fun and exciting, then you can still put that stuff about you in there, but don’t necessarily lead with it, but put something in there. That is telling your story. vividly explaining the story behind a painting or a trip or something that you’ve been doing. And trying to make it interesting be entertaining, because if you’re not entertaining, if you’re boring, nobody’s going to want to read it right. So don’t be boring. Last consider not sending it by email. That Sorry, I know that sounds crazy. But you know, it’s so easy to delete email. You know, if you have 50 or hundred people on your list, it’s not a big deal to send by mail, you’re printing, you’re getting big, rich, colorful images. And if it’s really well done, people don’t want to throw it out. So you might want to consider that. We’re having really good luck with direct mail again lately because nobody does direct mail and More so everybody else does email. So this is a good thing to consider doing.

Next question is from Penny markley in Winthrop, Maine and whenever that is somewhere in Maine, obviously, she says nothing is more puzzling than pricing. I hate pricing prices. Our prices below $10,000 a negative. And should prices be posted on a website? Well, you know, there’s a I’ll answer the last part first prices on a website. Yeah, probably. A lot of people don’t do it. They want to make people call but a lot of people won’t call if they these days you’re used to being able to get the price. I had a gallery tell me he debated this. He put the price of a sculpture on it was $650,000. He came in the next day. He came in one morning and there was an order and a wire transfer for $650,000 waiting for him somebody bought the sculpture. So that’s why having the price is a good idea. That’s going to turn some people off but it’s going to turn them off anyway. If it’s surprised they don’t like The idea about pricing is there’s a lot of psychology behind it. It’s very emotional low price send signals of poor quality. Now, price is also dependent on size, right? So a smaller painting is going to be a lower price and a bigger painting. So low price in a smaller painting doesn’t necessarily send poor quality signal. There was a lady who came to attention one time an artist told me that he she said, How much is the painting? He said, it’s for she wrote him a check for 40 40,000 handed in the check. He said, Ma’am, that’s mistake, the painting is $4,000. And she said, Well, it must not be very good. She ripped up the check. So depends on who your market is. You got to know your market know where you’re selling your art. The Environment Matters. I mean, if you’re selling at a flea market, you’re not going to sell expensive paintings. If you’re selling in a high end gallery, you’re going to sell expensive paintings. Because you’re in the environment. You know, it’s kind of like I always make the analogy is you don’t sell a Mercedes or a Bentley in a flea market. Because there’s nobody there who can afford to buy it. So you want to put that Bentley in a place where you know, people can’t afford to buy it, where are the affluent people hanging out. And that’s the same thing with art. And that’s why great art galleries can do a lot of good because they already have lists of these people, they have contact with them, they’re coming into the gallery. So lots of books out there on pricing, I highly recommend you pick some up, because you can learn a lot about pricing and the psychology of pricing. So I hope that that helps a little bit. There’s probably a ton of other things that could tell you about pricing, one that comes to mind is the, what’s called the lock comparison. If you have a great big painting in a gallery, let’s say it’s a 30 by 40 or 40 by 50. And you’ve got a very high price on it. Suddenly, you’re considered to be a high priced high valued artist by the person who sees that especially if the price is visible. Then you’ve got a couple of nine by 12 or 11 by 14 hanging next to it and they are in contrast, a much lower price then they might be hireable Pricing you normally get, but because it’s next to that big painting, you can get that higher price and people will buy it because they feel like they’re getting a bargain anyway, just a thought.

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.

Remember to Submit Your 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.