How do you turn ‘likes’ into sales? What do successful watercolorists do to sell more paintings? Eric Rhoads answers in this Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

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. 

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 90 >

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:

While in the marketing minute I try to answer your questions. Tell me your name and where you’re from. Most people just say their name and then say where they’re from. And then I just say, you know, like, here’s Nancy Crawford, but it doesn’t say where Nancy’s from Nancy says, How do I turn likes into sales? Well, Nancy, it was not an easy answer. But let me try. First, a lot of people believe the promise of social media is the end all be all for selling. But so far, it hasn’t come true for most people, some people yes, not most people, you have to use the same disciplines in all marketing, whether you’re marketing and Facebook, whether you’re marketing on social media, Instagram, or whether you’re doing magazine, or other types of advertising, and certain disciplines, which I teach in my art marketing courses. And you got to follow those disciplines no matter what otherwise it won’t work for you. But if you want it to work, well, you need to treat it like a business, you got to do certain amounts of posting regularly daily, depending on Facebook or Instagram, Instagram, the ideal is two a day Facebook is three a day, you got to spread them out to the right day parts. And you need to be in both cases engaging that means when somebody comments or likes, you’ve got to engage them, you’ve got to talk to them. And it’s not a two or three word engagement. And it’s not a copy and paste engagement or an automated engagement because you will get penalized for those things. You got to actually engage and talk to them and have a dialogue engagement is everything. When you get a like, why not say Hey, thanks for the like, tell me what you like about the painting and start a dialogue. And then maybe you can use that dialogue as an opportunity to say hey, by the way, if you’d be interested in owning this painting, I’d be willing to part with it. I wouldn’t start out that way because that might be a little bit too much too soon. But certainly you can dialogue and then kind of move into that. And that’s how I do it. And by the way, I just sold three paintings by doing that. So I think it’s very effective. Three paintings to the same person.

Here’s a question from Sally Jamison. She says watercolor has a stigma and does not sell as well as oil. What should I do to sell more? Well, Sally, I’m not sure that stigma is still true kind of used to be true. That might be true with some galleries. I know a lot of watercolor artists who are making great livings making really a lot of money selling a lot of paintings. And they do what I do you know, they stand in the river where the money is flowing. That’s my saying that I always talk about is you go where the money’s flowing, where find out where watercolor paintings are selling and be there, spend time where watercolor is embraced and not shunned. Beware the people who are buying it are paying attention. You know, if you’re there are galleries that move a lot of watercolor, there’s some that don’t believe in watercolor be in the ones that believe in watercolor. And also you’ve got to ask yourself, Is this a story and Is it true? Or is this a limiting belief and is am I making it true? So the limiting belief might be that watercolor has a stigma. If you were a watercolor artist, I don’t recommend switching to oil to sell more paintings because your heart won’t be in it. Your heart is what sells paintings. Your heart has to be in it.

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 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.