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 way to know your buyer / market / target audience, and how to stay motivated to focus on both painting and the business side of art.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 24 >>>

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 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 53:38
In the marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions you can do you can touch on anything. There’s no limit. Just email them to me [email protected]. Here’s a question from Aaron in Chicago. By the way Chicago has an excellent plein air painters group Say hi to everybody there. Hi everybody in Chicago Aaron says, What’s the best way for me to know my buyer? You talked about it in one of your webinars, but how does that help me sell my art? And how do I get to know them? Well, Aaron, there’s a marketing foundational principle, foundational principles are big. This one says, You have to know your market. You have to know who your market is, who is your target audience, and what do they need most. And the best way to do that is to ask them. Now, selling art is a little bit different than selling shoes or selling any other product, but art tends to be a little bit subjective and have individual appeal. But yet, if you were to look at the demographics, most art is purchased by people between 40 and 60 years old and the majority between 50 and 60 years old. That tends to be where the money is, they’ve got they’ve got money at that time. You know, they’re Kids are starting to be out of college and and they will, they’re more interested in art than ever in their spending. But there are people, of course, all age groups. So 40 to 60 year old is broad, it’s a family reunion, but it still tends to be, what the buying where the buying takes place. And you also want to understand, and this is not trying to be sexist. And anyway, most art buying is heavily influenced by women, if there’s a couple, and that painting is going to hang in the house, and typically not always, that woman will maybe be the one who’s in charge of decorating, and may say, look that that paintings not hanging over my purple couch. So they do have influence. And of course, that’s not true of all kinds of couples, but it could be true and so get to know your audience. What I like to do is I like to understand who’s buying my paintings, and why they’re buying my paintings. And so if I get an opportunity, for instance, if I’m at the gallery during a show, somebody buys it, I’ll meet the buyers, I’ll try to learn a little bit about them. Where do they live? Where are they from? What kind of business are they in? What kind of jobs do they have? What kind of homes do they live into? They have vacation homes, you know, those things, give me clues. And then I also ask, you know, what is it about this painting that spoke to you? And And oftentimes, I’ll hear patterns and people say, Well, you know, I really like the colors. The one I hear a lot is it reminds me of XYZ, something nostalgic usually, you know, oftentimes, I’ll hear you know, that reminds me of where I grew up or reminds me of a place we lived when I was little. So look for those kinds of things, because those might give you clues on what to paint but also things that you can say because if you’re in a an opportunity to influence people do you can you can say, you know, does that painting remind you of anything like it, you know, place that you grew up or something like that. So, use those triggers. Also look for commonalities in the people who are buying things because it’ll tell you kind of where to reach out. I’ve noticed lately with my paintings, I’ve been getting a lot of buyers who are doctors, and those doctors all happen to live in the local community where my gallery is most of them. And so would that give me a clue as a marketing opportunity, maybe a way to, to reach doctors somehow or way to invite doctors, all the doctors in town to an opening or something just kind of use your brain. And those things those commonalities will point out things in your marketing.

The next question comes from Darla Hey, Darla! It’s kind of like saying hey, darlin, darlin Flagstaff, Arizona. Darla says, I know I have to be productive to sell my art, but sometimes I just don’t feel motivated. How can I stay focused on both painting and marketing? Well, you’re probably not going to want to hear this Starla there’s a lot of answers to it. And and I guess it really does. depends on what’s really important to you and what’s not. If it’s not about a need, you know, in other words of selling paintings is not meaning you’re going to have to pay the mortgage. It’s just extra money that you’re going to have, it probably isn’t important to you. And so I like to think in terms of goals and priorities. Let me give you an example. I set annual goals. I have three top annual goals. And then I have three tops for three top goals for each month. Some of those goals relate to the top three goals of the year, in terms of the projects that I have to do to reach those goals, and I have weekly goals and so until my top three goals are met for the week, I don’t leave the office, you know, I don’t push them off into the following week, because if I don’t get those done, I’m never going to get anything done. So every goal relates to the top goals now, if I’m not working on things that don’t reach my goals, it’s mostly coming pleat waste of time. Now there’s things you have to do. You got to take out the garbage, you know, you got to pick up the kids, you got to deal with, you know, health issues or whatever. But I try to keep most of my time focused on those goals, because it’s really easy to go, Well, I should do this project, or I’ve got this idea, those shiny objects will get in the way of your success. I know I’m the shiny object King Success Magazine even said that about me. And I’ve had to learn to overcome that because those shiny objects kind of get in the way of my success. And so if if it’s a financial thing, let’s say for instance, you know, you have to generate, I’m going to use this number because it’s easily divided. Let’s say, you know, you have to survive and you have to generate 120,000 a year, or you can’t survive and pay your mortgage and your bills. That has to be one of your goals. If your monthly goal will then be 12,000, right? Or 10,000 10,000 because you’re you got 12 months, so 10,000 and then you divide that by four weeks and you know, that’s 20 $500. And then you might even want to break that into a daily goal. And you just tell yourself, I’m not leaving here today till I figured out how to sell that. But it depends on how motivated you are daily goals keep me motivated. I know that I have to do certain things each day to survive, and that I don’t leave the office till they’re done sometimes means a long day. I also sometimes will break my week into a plan. So if I tell people, I think you ought to spend 20% of your time on marketing, so if you’re working five days a week, then you got to spend one day a week on your marketing or you got to spend so many hours a day on your marketing and pay attention to it and force yourself to do it. And sometimes that’s what it takes to be motivated. Now, there are days when I’d rather sleep in and not work, I’d rather not go to work. I’d rather play my guitar go painting or, you know, just chill, but I don’t do that very often because it always puts me further before I think routines are critical. And no matter what I stick to my routines, I get up every day at the same time. I get up, I feed my kids, I drive them to school, I go to the gym for an hour, I come home, I get ready for work. I meditate, I read the Bible, I do the things that I try to do every morning. And so gym is critical for me. Because it raises my dopamine levels it gets my health keeps my health good. But also it makes me feel like working. So if I’m in a down mood, if I can get myself to the gym, or at least to take a walk, it puts dopamine into my system makes me feel better. And that’s helpful. So look for a routine motivation is everything. Also ask yourself what happens if I don’t do this? And let’s say you don’t have to make that money, but you want something so everything can be tied to something. So let’s say you’re telling yourself Well, I don’t have to sell paintings because my wife or my husband has a job, but I’d like to get a new car and to be able to get a new car, I got to come up with $30,000 and to do $30,000 I gotta you know, I want to get one in three months. Well, okay, so now you got to do 10,000 a month, you got to get busy and you got to focus on that. So break everything down, start with a big goal, break it down into little bitty pieces. There’s also another trick that applies. And that is a trick that I use when I’m writing the old adage was if you can’t think of what you’re going to write, just sit down and start writing anything. It’s jibberish writing a note writing a letter anything and and that warms up your brain and next thing you know, you kick in and you’re able to write well, I I think that the same would be true for anything, you know, if you’re, if you’re not feeling like marketing, just force yourself to sit down and do your marketing, it will make a major difference because you’ll eventually just kind of kick in and then you’ll kind of forget you weren’t motivated. Anyway, I hope that helps. That’s been Marketing minute.

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.

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.